Category: People

May 17, 2005 /

I’ve written about talking on the phone to Sumana before, but now you can experience it vicariously yourself: her interview with Diana Abu-Jaber resembles my own conversations with her. Ms. Abu-Jaber is much quicker on her feet than I, of course–even the moment when she belatedly realizes that she and Sumana have met before is graceful. (Oh, spoilers!)

I would have said “priceless” for “graceful” there, but Mastercard has ruined that word forever. I wish they’d make that campaign die, but this is unlikely as long as I keep pouring money into them.

Sumana also has a brand-new permalink to her column, MC Masala. It is an excellent column!

May 12, 2005 /

David Flora steps up with a terzanelle of his own–ignoring word count, but with fantastic use of full-line rhyme as a substitute for repetition and slick iambic pentameter (in which terzanelles are really supposed to be).

Fixed-format poetry was just one more subgenre of constrained writing, which is probably why I find old forms so much more interesting than those of modern and postmodern poetry. Constraints like the terzanelle provide so much opportunity for innovation, as Holly and Flora have just demonstrated. I still think the best explanation of the value therein comes from Constrained.org’s FAQ:

“Constraints set additional challenges to the writer. Writing to a constraint is like solving a puzzle. Graceful solutions have a pleasing feel – like watching the moves of a chess master – on top of their value as stories.”

I’m always delighted to rediscover that my friends are masterful, in some way or many.

May 11, 2005 /

In other Anacrusis-tangent news, I’m happy to report that Holly threw my gauntlet right back in my face and did, in fact, prove me wrong. I reprint her story-poem here, with her permission, to keep it from getting lost to the winds of LJ-feed comment rot:

The Burger King is fat with youth,
With adolescent pageantry,
With shining eyes revealing truth.

He’s fifty-two; unagingly
He lounges over golden thrones
With adolescent pageantry.

Unwrinkled cheeks, uncreaking bones;
But nothing sinster to dread.
He lounges over golden thrones.

No bloody baths, no gingerbread.
He chargrills souls to golden brown
But nothing sinister to dread.

Adorned with shining paper crown
His sceptre’s high; his forehead clear;
He chargrills souls to golden brown

And swallows them with ginger beer.
The Burger King is fat with youth,
His sceptre’s high, his forehead clear
With shining eyes revealing truth.

May 11, 2005 /

You won’t be able to read this without an LJ account and a membership in Anti-Afflatus, but the mighty Riana has posted a brilliant sequel to Asuka.

Lessig and company have been saying this for so long people have forgotten about it, but this is exactly why it’s good to let go of the protection and restriction of full copyright: if you let people use your cool stuff without begging and paying and declaring intent, there will be more cool stuff than there was before.

May 7, 2005 /

Bee and Graham are here! We ate some tremendous meals and toured our favorite parts of Bardstown, which entailed me buying a lot of crap. One of those meals was my second time eating the Tierra y Mar, now called the Beef and Shrimp Diablo; I also talked Michael, Lisa and Graham into trying it. We unanimously agreed that it did not put the lie to my earlier ravings. If you are in Louisville and looking to find maybe the best single meal in the city, you need to go to the Mayan Gypsy and order the Beef and Shrimp Diablo with corn cakes and fried plantains. Get the goat cheese and black bean empanadas, too, and try the exceptionally rich chocolate mousselike cake.

I felt expanded in more ways than one after that meal: as if my consciousness were enriched, my senses stretched out and switched on. I felt taller. I felt really, really full.

Obligatory reflection

May 5, 2005 /

Thanks for everybody who called, wrote or commented to send me birthday wishes, and to all the people who showed up at my partylike entity. You’re all great! And I am made happy by material possessions: DC gave me more of the awesome restricted-access Actors Theatre notebooks, and Maria gave me about a jillion books and DVDs and an ice cream cake and apparently something else that hasn’t arrived yet, and Lisa gave me–exclamation marks!–my first-ever illustrated story! (Of Fortado.)

Despite my inexplicable knee-jerk belief of the past several months that I’ve been 26, I’m 24. Tonight I sent off the third-to-last thing I have to do to graduate. Almost done.

It doesn’t honestly feel like I’ve lived in Louisville that long. I feel so much more competent now, in so many areas, than I did two years ago: working with humans, writing code, writing, traveling, using public transportation, applying the principles of aikido to solve nonphysical conflicts–all the things I want to spend my whole life doing.

Also, I think this is the year my brain starts dying!