re:ignition

Dude! My friend and tattoo artist, Dave Moore of True Love Tattoo told me he was in a band, so of course I went to listen to them, and they are rad! They sound really tight and remind me a little of the good ol' days of Soundgarden. Who knew Dave, who is a really soft-spoken guy, had such a set of pipes on him?!

freakshow, or self-portrait.

Check it y'all: Ammie and I had our good friend Jon Stich paint us a portrait. And damn it looks fine. Check it out on his site:

http://www.jonstich.com/

Look under illustrations, the title for the piece is Freakshow.

It's hanging over our couch, right now.

Shinden Fudo Ryu - Gekkan

Just thought I'd add this. I saw the clip tonight, and thought it well-done. I like how Sean isn't blasting in with a kick to the uke; instead, he just places his leg there, almost like an obstacle, which folds the uke over. Very smooth.

Sean Askew performs Gekkan from the Bujinkan Dojo's Shinden Fudo Ryu Jutaijutsu.

The Philosophical Zombie

Dude! I am so excited to have ordered Th e Undead and Philosophy! (Which you can order from my bookstore, Diesel, A Bookstore).


Kasey Silem Mohammad is not only a great poet and thinker, but is one of the foremost zombieologists / necrophycists in the U.S.--perhaps the world. When the zombies invade from below (or perhaps from the deeps of space) I could do no better than to have Kasey by my side. Barring the actual person, The Undead and Philosophy might be next best for its assuredly insightful illumination of the undead existential-state.

East Bay Buyu has arrived

Well, I wanted to train more often, and so asked permission to start a Oakland study group for Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu--the art that I have been playing with, fighting with, conceptualizing, becoming frustrated with, and most of all, absolutely loving for the last five or so years. My teacher, Dale Seago, granted said permission and now, hurray, I can train more and do my best to bring this training to the Oakland area.

Check out the site at: www.eastbaybuyu.org.

Yeah!

my first time with CSS...

Wow! My first website using CSS! And it's all hand-coded! Yippee!

Just like a good relationship, you've got to put a lot of time in and not take any shortcuts. That menas no fancy-pants editing software. No Dr. Phil. Just me, my page, and a lot of work.

Check it out at:

http://senna.sjsu.edu/dfaires/trevor/week5/eastbaybudo.htm


Sweet!

An interview with Jet Li leads to Jungian self analysis

Recently, I read an excellent interview with Jet Li in Kung Fu Magazine. Jet Li mentions that "the most important enemy is yourself." Now, at first I scoffed at this as a trite aphorism; however, one word snagged me: "important"(not "worst," as is typically said). Now call me a Jungian-buddhist-hippy, but Li's choice of "important" strikes me as very insightful because any enemy/agressor/challenge needs to be understood in order to respond appropriately, but to value an enemy as important and vital as your self is to overcome your own ego-driven limitations and thus to achieve a sort of, not transcendence--too lofty--but accurate comprehension of yourself. And when these enemies are your own weaknesses, better to value them, engage with them and transform them rather then to constantly ignore them or feel guilty about them.


So I started thinking, "Trev, what are your weaknesses? Looking at girls in short skirts, smoking cigarettes, being generally lazy." And then, of course, I started feeling bad about this and thought, "No more. That's it. Eat right. Think right. Act right. No ciggies--EVER, no checkin' out the ladies, more exercise..." the list went on. Luckily, though, I suddenly remembered a little something about forging swords--you can over-work the metal so that it becomes brittle and will likely break under stress. A katana has a really sharp edge, but retains a lot of flexibility along the spine. So the challenge is recognizing flexibilty from complacency. So I won't have a smoke right now, or a beer, but I might later on.

Oh my heavens, just take a look...

Okay, I am stealing this under cover of night from the stealthy Shinobi at Book Ninja, but it is so rad--and thus must have greater saturation: Library Smut. Such things make me tremble and stand very still, breathing.

I've been tagged by Saudade

1. What is a book that changed your life?

Wow, they all do, at least incrementally. How does a modestly well-read boy choose? I’m looking at my book case right now, pondering, and I realize that all the books on it are those I’m still meaning to read. Drat. I suppose one of the big ones is: zen buddhism by d.t. suzuki. This book, I am sure, changed a lot of people’s lives, but nonetheless, zen buddhism by d.t. suzuki really did set my personality on the path it’s been on for a long time; a path, ironically, that has not led me to Buddhism as a faith structure.

2.What is a book you've read more than once?

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy. This book, I suspect, has also changed me in ways I am as of yet unaware. Blood Meridian was recommended by a close friend for years, and I never got around to it as I never really got into the western genre (always have leaned more toward fantastic/fabulist in fiction), but when I did finally begin the copy he gave me—I was, words cannot describe this well, but perhaps “sand-blasted” is an appropriate metaphor. This is a hard novel to read, and more than once I had to just put it down, but its poetry, its raw and unerring insight is awful in the oldest sense of the word: awe-full—the holy terror of which William James spoke in The Varieties of Religious Experience.

3. What is a book you'd want with you on a desert island?

Not either of the above. I’m with Saudade—the S.A.S survival manual. If not that, then the collected works of W.B Yeats.

4. What is a book that made you giddy?

Hmm..either Pynchon's V. or Ring of Fire by Lisa Jarnot. Almost by their nature, these books allow a reader to become lost but simultaneously enjoy the exploration. Both of these make me very, very happy to be alive.

Wow, I am totally cheating—multiple responses galore! Ah well.

5. What is a book that made you sad?

Technopoly by Neil Postman. Technopoly’s subtitle is “The surrender of culture to technology.” Postman is not a doom-and-gloom writer (who are very easy to compartmentalize and ignore), but instead is really interested in human civilization—and his fascination is immediately contagious. He also is not one of those who demand that we, unrealistically, throw out anything that requires electricity. Nonetheless, Technopoly quietly wove itself into my fabric (see question 1, again), and makes me sad in a way that is, ultimately, helpful. I truly believe that western civilization has sold itself out in a lot of ways to our machines and that we have lost a lot in the process. The “net may be vast and infinite” but it, and other technologies, are tools that we should not be in the service of, but quite the opposite.

6. What is a book you wish had been written?

You mean it hasn’t? I thought I simply hadn’t yet discovered it.

7. What is a book you wish had never been written?

Any book that tells me the truth, and especially those that do so with a cute talking animal, or pithy and wise old man/woman.

8. What is a book you're currently reading?

Three actually, and I’ll limit each to two adjectives:
a)Endgame by Derrick Jensen: Frightening and uncomfortable.

b)The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth by Robert Graves: Immense. Detailed.

c)A Strange Market by Robert Kelly: melancholy and human.

9. What is one book you've been meaning to read?

Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan. Also…no, I just can’t begin. There’s a lot.

10. Now tag five bloggers.

Okay. Hmm…that’s hard as most the bloggers I'd tag already have been. But here’s a few peeps from whom I’d like to hear:
Nick Piombino
Clayton Banes
Catherine Meng

Well, three's close enough. It’s early mornin’ and time for bed.

Last night, Ammie and I...

Last night, Ammie and I went to the Acme Bar in Berkeley to have a drink and support a local tattoo artist, and friend of friends, D. The Acme was having an art show/raffle to raise money for D.'s hospital and recuperation expenses. You see, less than a week ago, he sustained a shot from a pistol through his head during a home invasion. 'Cause he's a tattoo artist, I suspect he doesn't have any insurance, but already close to $10,000 has been raised. Now, this amount is small compared to his hospital bills, but luckily he was helped by an awesome organization Victim Witness Assistance Center. This is a stellar organization that provides vital services to those in moments of immense need.

The event was fun, drinks were imbibed, raffles were had, and everyone came together and had a wonderfully fun night--I suspect that this tide of affection,concern, and empathy will help D. in his recovery. Once, very long ago, something similar occurred to me, and I am certain that a very similar tide crashed on me and somehow renewed and helped fill me energy and life. I believe that events like last night's will help re-vitalize D. as well.

And you, dear reader, if you would like to make a donation:

Devon Get Better Fund
c/o Sacred Tattoo
707 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94607

Too late for a good title, or too early

Okay, it's almost 4:00 in the morning, and I was going to post tonight, but instead got involved in re-vamping the ol' digs. I think it looks better now, and I've decided to expand the living space: no longer just musings narrowly poetic; now we consider poetry expansive enough to encompass myriad insights,experiences, writings, and life,life,life! I think that poetry is happier, now.

To celebrate and begin this new largesse, and to add some elegance to the new room, here are some lovely blue flowers that grow next door to my apartment-building.

let’s not dismiss our distance as easily conquered

(for Michael Roberson in Maine)

No one ever should
do anything.

Let’s be plants.
No modalities just
insistence and the soak
of light.

I’ll sit here.
You’ll sit there.
The soil between
expanding, collapsing.

Liz Willis' Meteoric Flowers

Just bought Liz Willis' new book, Meteoric Flowers, and it was as good, if not better, than my high expectations. Meteoric Flowers is part Baudelaire, part natural history, and part oracular verse. Reading these prose poems is like wandering through a forest when every sensation carries with it a vivid recollection of yet another forest. That said, the brevity of the book is deceptive—like Borges' Garden of Forking Paths, we can easily become lost. Each poem invites (or pehaps mesmerizes) us to look in new directions and, like the best poetry, allows us discover new correspondences in the world around us. One should, perhaps, read a few, and then make to take a long walk and let the poems work their magic.

Eugene Ostashevsky's Iterature

Here's an unabashed plug for a book I recently very much enjoyed:

Eugene Ostashevsky
Iterature
Ugly Duckling Press
$12


Right from the start, Ostashevsky’s Iterature declares itself: the cover shows, apropos, the headless horseman rearing up, the wind blasting behind him. And, indeed, we’re in for quite a chase through Romania, Coke ads, Spinoza, safaris, and rhyming, rhyming, rhyming!

Ostashevsky plays with language and narrative as if they were taffy:

Do-ra-me-fa-so-la-ti-do
We did what we had to do

We rhymed pillage with village
The responsibility rests with language.

We had nothing to do with it
We’re just a bunch of fictional characters

We don’t have any other characters
Except for out letters, that is our characters

Iterature is so rad: it moves a whopping pace and, believe me, it’s a pleasant sort of work keeping up with the layered references, entendres, and linguistic gymnastics. Honestly, and strangely enough, despite the suffused wit throughout, Iterature is very nearly mythic.