We have power again, just no hot water. Don't ask. There are people in far worse condition, so I'm not complaining. Had ideas for several blog posts / interesting moments over the few days without internet access, which I recap (but do not reprint in full) now:
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"In Absentia" was released on Indiefeed's Performance Poetry podcast this morning. Nice timing. And a nice outro by Mongo. :-)
I need to start putting together a set list for the shows I'm giving next year. New pieces to add to the lineup present on Arts & Crafts: "A priest, a minister, and a rabbi," "Mabel's Cards" (improv structure), "Why [name of other poet] is going home with somebody tonight and I'm not," "The Magician and the Mice," "M.B.F.T.M.I.W.O.K.T.T.T.P (My Black Friend Told Me It Was OK To Tell This Poem)" (for Crystal), and "Shirts and Skins." Perhaps a few others.
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An old man in a wheelchair trying to remain relevant.
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Kate saying "garbanzicide" in reference to eating a tasty bean dish.
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I'm fascinated by the differences between evergreen trees covered in snow and in ice.
Snow carries with it implications of sky, as though the trees might shake themselves off like dogs and the flakes fly upwards. Despite collecting in piles, snow is individualized, faceted, like diamond(s). You know it's cold, but it is also soft. Snow gives.
When a tree glazes over with ice, all things point downwards. The weight is not like snow, which can be divested. It is a permanence even though we know it will also melt. It is singular, unceasing. Because it is so much like liquid water, there is the fearful sense that if we touch one of the branches, we too would be pulled inside. Ice takes - see the sunlight it amplifies and runs along a branch?
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I don't think about the dark in the dark. I'm thinking about what things would look like if they could be seen, or what they feel like regardless, or what they sound like. The dark is not quite a blank slate for my impressions - but when it is present, I'm trying to move beyond it. On the other hand, when the heat shuts off, as it did, cold is present. Cold cannot be negotiated with, only held back by blankets other warm bodies. When I try to find something that is not-cold, it isn't like my search for not-dark. It is a struggle against an active rather than passive adversary.
Posts
Ben Sloan | Who and What We Are
5 days ago
