[Derek]

I usually just cop my style from my favourite lyric writers haha.

[the ikara cult]

I dont know how to talk about writing. I recently had an interview asking me about my influences and advice to other writers and things. And theres just nothing I can say. Writing is the only thing that allows me to indluge my inner despot, ive done drama and a brief attempt with a band before, and i turned into the most tyrranical individual you can imagine. I made two of my best friends cry, which is something i would be mortified at doing if it were in the social world.

I cant talk to the process, because thats entirely private, even amongst anonymous internet people, but i do know the reason

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Derek

I usually just cop my style from my favourite lyric writers haha.

It shows. I don't mean that as a criticism, but you seem to write in a way that's more to do with how the words will sound bolstered by a melody than as poetry on its own. I would avoid SY lyrically though. It's a miracle they get away with it (and they often don't).

[Derek]

Well I don't write them as lyrics, I just take certain ideas and themes from people like Mark Kozelek, Off Minor etc.

And nah, I'm not influenced by Sonic Youth when I write. Fuck them.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by Glice

Because it very much strikes me that the reason Jenn is a good writer isn't because she's naturally talented or any of that guff, but because she's thought about, and worked upon, how she wants to say things, not just what she wants to say.

Oh yeah, I've been very trying to work on my writing style. Not so much on particulars like hyphens and parentheses but with balancing imagery in a way that isn't too contrived but still interesting. For example, here's the beginning of a short story I've just began:

Anthony Briar closed his soaking umbrella in the lobby of his apartment building with the procedure of a submariner. After an hour of dense traffic, heavy rain, and dark news radio, decompression naturally set in as Anthony paused to check the mail. Nothing, but Anthony appreciated the moment all the same.

Making his when into his apartment, Anthony remembered that it was Thursday. Sandra, his girlfriend, told him that she would be out for the evening to meet a friend who had flown into town. With this realization, the cabin pressure around his head and torso had returned to a pleasant equilibrium. Not only was Anthony now free to eat and write at his leisure but the hovering threat of meeting another one of Sandra's friends had passed. It wasn't so much that Anthony hated Sandra's friends as much as the fact that talking to them always reminded him of standing on a balcony, looking inside through the sliding glass at a conversation he couldn't hear. Just the thought of it made him want a cigarette. However, the sudden ache of his stomach blew his capricious thoughts to more edible fare.

Nothing to write home about but it's pretty obvious what I am trying to practice on. I have no nature talent for writing, of course, but it's fun to try to develop.

[Glice]

If I could threaten an honest appraisal of that, there's a bit too much qualification. 'Decompression' works as an allusion only if you remove the 'naturally' following. For me, SF works best when its world is allowed to be banal. Which you've done by throwing 'flown' in in an offhand fashion. Sandra's status as girlfriend will be presumed. 'Hovering' seems a weak description. The last sentence suddenly veers into something approximating Victorian style, solely due to using 'capricious'.

I say this with the caveat that I think you're probably capable of taking this criticism and telling me to fuck off without taking it to heart. And it's not necessarily bad, assuming you've got some arc/ structure for the narrative. I've tried short narrative fiction before, and it's an absolute fucker.

[the ikara cult]

you lot are bloody useless

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by Glice

If I could threaten an honest appraisal of that, there's a bit too much qualification. 'Decompression' works as an allusion only if you remove the 'naturally' following. For me, SF works best when its world is allowed to be banal. Which you've done by throwing 'flown' in in an offhand fashion. Sandra's status as girlfriend will be presumed. 'Hovering' seems a weak description. The last sentence suddenly veers into something approximating Victorian style, solely due to using 'capricious'.

I say this with the caveat that I think you're probably capable of taking this criticism and telling me to fuck off without taking it to heart. And it's not necessarily bad, assuming you've got some arc/ structure for the narrative. I've tried short narrative fiction before, and it's an absolute fucker.

Well, like I said, it's a practice at balancing the imagery behind the qualification (deep sea and then sky). It's not a serious attempt at all. The arc mostly revolves around this couple using Anthony's own nascent work of fiction as a proxy for their relationship. Everyone thinks they've doing fine but this prose is miserable and violent as they each edit and contribute to it. That's all I know, at the moment.

Problems obviously being my writing style, lack of a more definite structure, and knowing fuck all about relationships.

[sal.]

i right in stile of william burrows.

much hope you like

captain mission he strap on his two-longed man gun, which he keep loaded with balls, and he thrust a scabbyed cutlass under he belt. he pick up big man rod and he walk out through the settlement, he stop here he stop there and he talk much to the settles.

i just start and must carry it on soon

[jennthebenn]

I have a trilogy of novels in various stages of development--the first is done and needs only to be typed out and shopped for a suitable home. That
type of writing is excruciating and exhilarating in equal measure, otherwise I wouldn't do it. First thought best thought my ass, there's a fine line between self-expression and self-flagellation, point being a little concise editing never hurt any writer.

My poetry is hit-miss and while the journal style writing I do for stuff like "No Setlist" is fine, I've discovered other people enjoy
reading it more than I like churning it out. Probably because I'm just telling you about times I've already lived through rather than creating my own
fictional universe and populating it.

[adjectives-ex]

i'll post a poem. i've had some friends said it was good.

Would you smile if i made you laugh?
Or would you laugh at me for trying?
If in Heaven there is no regret,
you won't ever hear me lying.

You've got to be alone, boy.
Take your hands off the wheel.
Love is not a game, son.
And that is the good deal.
Take it or leave it.
I'm naked believe it.
I don't want to keep it.
I don't want a secret.

--"Drive Knot" by sam campbell

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

I miss Alex's Trip.

[SONIC GAIL]

I know this is quite long. Please ignore if you don't feel like reading it. This is from the book I am working on "What's Become Of RettaGail". I am trying to finish it up. Feel free to criticize I am welcome to constructive criticism.

There Was a Time

Sometimes, certain objects and places bring images to my mind. I can see her with me. Her dirty blonde hair blowing across her face; eyes…cornflower blue, staring up at the heavens looking for answers. Much as I do today. I have taken up residence in her home; picking up where she left off. They are sparse and blurry images. Images of driving her to the doctor, and stopping along the way for processed meal replacements at Mickey D’s drift through my vision as I drive over familiar paths.
She had sold me her 1984 Grand Marquee at that point. Dad sold it to me for $2000. I managed to make monthly payments of $200 through my career as a drive through girl at Burger King. I can faintly touch the film portraying our time together now.
It’s as if I have lived two lives, maybe more. My first, being a distant memory. A dream. When I describe my first life now, I tend to forget pieces, and without purpose fill in the gaps. These gaps naturally absorb positive filling, so please excuse if my memory does not serve accurately.
My second is now, yesterday, and thirteen years ago. It’s just a long road through my twenties, and on into thirties. Enough of this life now, I am speaking of the first. My first life, when happiness surrounded me, even though poverty & anguish hovered about. A time when money meant nothing to me and ALL I craved was happiness and love. A life of pure sweet innocence was mine.
I do not go to the hunk of rock in the cemetery much. I never understood what makes people feel compelled to do that. “Is it spiritual,” I wonder. It is as if they think her spirit is trapped in the rotting corpse absorbing into the earth. On the occasions I have visited I am overwhelmingly compelled to cry. What is quite peculiar about this is that during the entire viewing, mass and burial not one tear chased the lines of my cheeks. I hated myself for not crying, “What is wrong with me God? Am I uncompassionate for not crying at my own mother’s funeral?” I was just numb. That is it, numb.
I was walking through a dream. This was not real. Family and friends surrounded me sobbing uncontrollably. They were hugging me. People I had not seen for years. They were kind and consoled me, but I think I was more consoling to them. I was prepared for this. In my mind it had already happened six months ago.
She wouldn’t speak to me. I could see her, almost touch her. But she seemed angered. I needed her to come to me and hold me. I needed her to say something. My eyes snapped open. I still have these dreams on occasion. These mostly occur when I sleep light due to a lack of assistance. I always sense anger and disappointment in her demeanor. I long for a sleep filled with dreams of happiness, laughing and good memories. Instead they are dark and full of doom. I see the worst things imaginable and live lives I don’t know, and I am always being chased. I am running as fast as I can and getting nowhere. I am hiding. But I don’t know what from. For quite sometime I could not even remember her face without a picture to arouse her form from the caverns of my mind.
I do remember quite vividly all the mourners. Everyone crowded around in the morning sun. Disbelief and anguish disguised their identities. She was lowered slowly into the three by seven foot rectangular shaped plot. The sweet smell of lilies filed the air. My senses tuned in to the sound of water gently trickling down the nearby stream. Beneath the great oaks of Bryceville is where they laid her body down. I could hear her voice still clinging to the breeze.
Soon after the burial there was a gathering at the ranch. It was about a quarter of a mile down the tracks from her home. All that were there shared their favorite memories of this woman. They said “It is such a tragedy for her to go so young”. They could not say “At least she did not suffer”, for suffer she did. Many wept, and many laughed at stories of the quirky wonderful things she had done here. Me. I walked around in a daze with my head limp upon my fiancés on my shoulder. I quietly observed as the children ran around playing games; just as they would on a holiday gathering. Not really understanding the gravity of the moment. Knowing Retta for quite sometime I would think that she would be happy to see such a celebration following her death. I envisioned her looking down upon us and smiling. After all, a mother of five finds the delightful laughter and bantering of children to be a most pleasant thing.

[frades]

this text is entitled : A particular second reading of the history in the light of the theory of " heurs ".



The word "heur" is a word invented for this theory. Inspired by the word "humor", the word "heur" designes a fundamental metabolic function of the body. As every human being owns a sexual function, a nervous system, or a wakefulness function, each of them steers the behavior of any human being so that it is satisfied . It's a sort of internal drug that can put an individual to reach "happiness" or that can make him suffer if not regulated. So every individual is summed up by three physical factors that features his behavior : the intensities of his sexual heur, his emotive heur, and his nervous heur.



Before beginning it is necessary to understand indeed the notion of emotion used in this theory. In fact we could also call it "the emotional wakefulness": it is his system of defence that urges him to make sure the biggest possible safety. Such an individual is then attached to the values of the good, the peace, the society. It is his system of defence that must not be merged with the popular notion of emotion.
When we look in the current works of psychology, we find two sorts of definition for the word emotion:

Either it is the enjoyment, the sadness etc. For me it is rather a reaction to a victory or to a sexual defeat.

Either it is the fear, the stress. That is better, but it is always a reaction with regard to an outside danger.

You see that this popular notion of emotion is more a part of the sexual sphere of the individual. It has more to do with affective matters.
In this theory, I speak about the permanent wakefulness of the individual, which is the system which can activate this state of stress.
The more the emotive drug is present, the more she can create a state of important stress. It is this suffering which the individual absolutely wants to avoid by trying to go away at most from dangers.
This is a quite new definition of emotion... I practically think that individuals owning this emotive drug in high quantity are blue-eyed.



The sexual heur was the first one three heurs to have had an influence on the behavior of the individuals. It appeared among the first vertebrates of the submarine world and we call the spawn this period of sexual dependence which pushes the individual in search of a sexual partner with the aim of the reproduction.

The birth of the sexual dependence as to heur is situated at the time of the first mammals. The sexual cycle which was previously annual accelerated to become a permanent dependence and not periodic . That was translated by an increase of the dimorphisme between the male and the female.



The nervous heur is the third one of three that allows to reform all human behaviors. Exactly like the three fundamental colors can reform all colors. For example when you associate more nervous heur and more emotive heur, you can reach to a very proud behavior. If you associate more nervous behavior with more sexual behavior, you can reach some romantic behavior.
Naturally each of these three heurs also give to the individual they belong some practical skills: more attentiveness for the emotive heur, more agility to hands and muscles for the sexual heur, more speed during the fights for the nervous heur.

By looking for in the history the signs of the presence of heurs, we can establish periods when the sexual heur was predominate with regard to the heur emotive: Prehistory, Middle Ages and romantic era of the 18 th century. In the other periods it was the emotive heur which was predominate with regard to the sexual heur: Antiquity, revival and era with social dominance of after the first world war.



In this second reading of the history we shall speak about few individuals in particular but rather about the type of society to which they belonged.
We shall end either in a society with dominant emotive, where is present at most of the individuals the pride, the pride of the membership in a civilization, the claimed divine nearness of this society and all its members, or in a society with sexual dominant, the values of which are rejected by communities with dominant emotive or by the individuals with dominant emotive being a part of this community.



During all the prehistoric period, the individuals trying to assign a space deprived in their group put this last one in danger.. The rising emotional wakefulness of all these individuals took into account this threat and marginalized the individual more strongly sexual by appropriating logical priorities on the resources considering their availability towards the interests of the group. We find it examples at the stony age where the best pieces of meat returned by the hunting were reserved for the wizard of the group. But this period, always in sexual dominant, also saw the blooming of the arts, that they are rupestral or of finery. And these individuals expressed constantly their submission in the supernatural strengths which they did not know.


With the Neolithic took place a revolution, it is a change of ascendancy of the sexual heur in favour of the heur emotive. The man stops being a hunter nomad to sedentarize and learn about the agriculture. It is the birth of cities and the debuts of the civilization.

This reorientation of a sexual heur dominance towards an emotive heur dominance reached its highlight in the antiquity where the emotive persons were for the key posts of the society and crushed strongly the sexual individuals and charged them all the problems. This period indeed marks the beginning of what we call the history. The antique Greek world put the foundations of the western civilization. They were conscious to belong to the same community, by opposition to the world of the "barbarians". This period is marked by the appearance of the towns to which citizens were very attached. This pride was accompanied with a big patriotism which we find at all the Roman historian's.

Their works are for the glory of " first one people of the earth". This antique period valued also letters, eloquence, big monuments, architecture. All the the tracks of beauty in this society of very emotive dominance were more valued while the humanism understood as a synonym of "sympathy" was not present in this community. For example, we know that the newborn children considered too weak by the old men were thrown in ravines. This community thus looked for a dynamics which it did not find due to the lack of technical knowledges that could improve the level a life. And the pride continued to rise, because it was the only opened way. The heraldic emblems are then born.

Every family or every body was equipped with signboards which represented it. The pride outbid the pride and the families, while agreeing on the fact of belonging to the same community, cast themselves arrogant glances. Like the Greeks and Sparta who formed two similar communities, but two different communities. The pride of the participation in one of both communities did not thus prevent a war with the other community, which would allow to deflate this pride. The war of the Peloponnese between the Greek towns and Sparta, not that it is wished, was led of itself. And it is under pretext to shoot down the arrogance of Peloponnesians that the Greeks declared them the war. But this war did not mark the end of the period of emotive dominance, this one lasted until was heard "the voice which shouts in the desert ", that of the first prophets.


While The emperor Constantin chooses the Christian religion begin the Middle Ages in Europe.. It is the end of the Antiquity and the beginning of a period which is said to be dark, with the Christianity for only light, as long as the sympathy and humanism lauded serves. It is difficult to understand to what is due this change of polarity and the inversion of ascendancy between the sexual heur and the emotive heur. We can think that the accumulation of the Christian martyrs made press a moral responsibility on the emotive heur which made spend the baton to the sexual heur. Saint Augustine fixed the objectives of the Middle Ages by evoking two cities. The ground city of which it is necessary to throw back the properties and the heavenly city which it is necessary to look for.

The life of the Middle Ages was apparently more difficult than that of the antiquity. But it's still difficult to understand why this period was more cruel and why people were less well bloomed that in the antiquity. perhaps the more cold and weather did not helped. It is know that the twelve century was a galcial period. In this period, the infant mortality was high. In the thatched cottages of the rural world, the children were often born from several layers. The catholic authorities tried to make sacred the marriage bonds. This difficulty of the purge of customs is well represented by the Romanesque art which symbolizes the submission of the society of the Early Middle Ages to a terrible God. In time the Gothic art began to express the confident spirituality of a medieval society more strengthened glorifying the creator.

--- to be continued in following post ---

[frades]

But the darkness were always present in this disturbed period. And the catholic authorities did not succeed in maintaining the flame which would allow to hold the medieval society. The crisis of the Protestantism is the mark of this breathlessness. And it is the beginning of the revival, that is a return in grace of the period of the antiquity. Those who the books of history call the "humanists" expressed a new morality for which the active commitment in the public life has so much value as could have the virtues of renunciation lauded by the Middle Ages.

As well as for the end of the antiquity, it is possible that this change of ascendancy in favour of the emotive heur is due to the moral responsibility of the darkness of the Middle Ages. Well oriented towards good values, this period of the revival looked for the beauty as had been looked for the good in the medieval time. The eloquence is revalued. Florentine painters who returned to the painting its former dignity and its highest good name are praised.

In all the arts, We turned away from the roads of the idealism to have eyes opened on the daily reality of the man, his body and the nature which surrounds him. We were interested in the art of the portrait, the baroque art is congealed in statics. To the theater, the grandiloquence of the speeches is the rule. The atrocity of the subjects reveals the orientation of the emotive heur to get itself an emotional shock to vaccinate itself, quite as we make it recently with the feast of Halloween.

In this period, we search for legendary countries and for paradises on Earth. We discover America which makes dream by its treasures.. We admire Adam and Eve with melancholy, living in a garden where the time has no grip. The time of the lights will prolong this period of the revival with the period of the "lounges" where the beautiful speeches are for the honor. We also see in this period the effeminate style of the Rococo.


At this time, the critics of the lights period began to denounce the threats that made weigh the liberal individualism on the cohesion of the society. The bourgeoisie and the industrial development grew throughout the 18th and of the 19th century in favour of the change of ascendancy and perfectly took advantage in the revolutions of 18 ème century.



It is the 19th century which lived the implementation of the liberal society and the capitalism. The bourgeoisie is the main beneficiary of the economic enrichment. And it is from this bourgeoisie that often arise the romantic artists. The word romanticism makes reference to novels and to medieval tales.. As says it Lessing: " night of the Middle Ages, be, but a radiant night of stars ". This romanticism excites the expression of the feelings against the reason of the lights. This period proclaims the meaninglessness of the reason and the size greatness of the instinct.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the bourgeoisie sees its highlights with "the beautiful period". This period sees the appearance of the science fiction, the advertising, the comic strip, the photography, the cinema. All the arts grow rich with the impressionism, the abstract art, the symbolism. But with the capitalism, we also see the rise of the nationalism and the imperialism with all these economic and financial rivalries which will lead to the first world war..

And it was the end of this period in sexual ascendancy. Two big anti-individualistic stones will fall on this adventure from 1917. The communism and the fascism carried the hatred of the bourgeois democracy and the liberalism. In Italy, it is the third period of nationalist ecstasy: after the Antiquity and the Revival, it is Risorgimento.

The Russian revolution of 1917 hopes to propagate the communism all over the world, but collides with the powerful western liberal block. And it is mainly on the way to manage the relations between capitalist and communist countries that these last ones will part and will turn around some against the others. Germany, Italy and Japan form an anti-Comintern pact whereas third international communist appoints the generic enemy under the term of "fascism". These two parties will be engaged a wild war during the second world war. But the western powers went out victorious of this conflict and even if they were too in emotive dominance, they within themselves let express sexual strengths as in May, 68 which had the material conditions necessary for their emancipation.

[chicka]

Hop on Pop

No No

You must not hop on Pop

one two buckle my shoe

three four shut the door

one fish two fish

red fish blue fish

[batreleaser]

file:///D:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Adam/My%20Documents/JOURNALISM%20CLIPS/zocalo%20clips.htm

file:///D:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Adam/My%20Documents/JOURNALISM%20CLIPS/zocalo%20clips%204.htm

file:///D:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Adam/My%20Documents/JOURNALISM%20CLIPS/Cannabis%20News%20Clips.htm

file:///D:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Adam/My%20Documents/JOURNALISM%20CLIPS/Tucson%20Weekly%20clips.htm

some of my journalism clips

[Derek]

hearing birds in the sky, blue and desolate.
extend your reach to the hills, upon the grass and dirt, to feel nature's gift.
it reminds me of your soul, a wildflower painted and confined to a frame
in which i can view your calmity, a part of the hillside that reflects the sun.
a tree settles to the surrounding sand with the wind; reminiscent of the spiritual
serenity that surrounds your ears.
i could lay claims of masculinity in a whisper, take the skin off your nose,
but you are a seasonal beast which lays in hope of ascension.
starving, hysterical insomnia, dressed in intrusion of thought;
sometimes i phrase words weirdly
in a portrait of calloused emotions
but the colours leave me hung.

with your palette of prophets juxtaposed between speeches, leaving bones frail
and dressed in opression.
your truth is distorted, blinded by the punches in which disconnects you from this plane.
placed a hand on the riverbed and became enraptured by it's flow,
a chimerical look into what my future entails. just days moving sluggishly
desiring a more abrupt fashion. days i have spent pondering, an impetus for change.
kindred spirit of gregor samsa, empathetic to the cycle of trying to adapt everyday
and fighting change, unaware of the distrusting glare loved ones place.
if your body is ugly, but your soul remarks beauty then they will not take heed.
dragging my metaphorical conscience through mud, flower up my memory and
display my brain as simply a sum of parts
for i can not dowse myself into expression any longer.
though another form has engulfed me, appearance stands still, so what has changed?
a lifetime of taking breaths is all i've amounted to,
adjusting my trousers to the same part of my waistline everyday.

counterculture immunity,
a pool of mediocrity hinders my swim.
but alas approaches the creeping of the subterranean that pales,
pouting "ignorance is bliss"

[Lurker]

Originally Posted by Glice

Schopenhauerian will-to-power

I think you're a bit confused there mate...

[pbradley]

Not really all that confused. Schopy was all about the will to live.