Intimacy

The place where I felt closest to nature was the rugby field behind Queen Elizabeth elementary school in Vancouver, where I grew up. Every day after school in the fall and winter we would walk from our high school blocks away down to the pitch with our cleats in our hands. Before we reached the field we could smell it, the muddy soil and surrounding pine trees rising up to meet us. Part of the intimacy of the field was that it was an enclosed space, a pit deep below the school, with dark woods on every side. When the field came into view I always felt a small quaver of excitement. The pitch was ours. I felt close to that field, every day pushing my body to its limits. Sweating and gasping in the cold air. Racing on the soft soil calling for the ball. There is a science to tackling that many people don't understand, and so they would be shocked that a guy of my size could excel at the game of rugby. But to tackle someone, you have to know what you're doing. Without pads you can't simply hurl your body into an opponent, knock him over with the sheer force of your velocity. You have to be precise. You have to be very aware of your own body. I remember the smells and the cold air, the sense of privacy that we felt each day as we trudged down Blenhem street towards the field. I remember the first long drink of water at the end of practice, our bodies colored with grass and mud. 

Malick's view of nature

When Wit asks in the Thin Red Line "Is there an avenging impulse in nature?" he is speaking in the context of a horrific battle that has just taken place on the hills of Gaudelupe Canal, in WWII. The vengeance that has been leveled has purely been by humans destroying the land--with bombs, beatings, overall cruelty. Wit links human cruelty to humanity's attitude towards nature. This is typical of Malick. I believe he sees a direct link between the two. His attitude towards nature is complex, but it is clear there is a distinction between the way his characters often perceive nature and the commentary about nature that the film makes on the whole (or that "malick makes"). For Wit, his question comes out of a deep respect for nature that is developed throughout the film. He sees the wonder all around him and struggles to reconcile this with the damage that humans have inflicted on the land and each other. How can this be? 

As to how Malick represents nature, generally it is not as vengeful or aggressive, but almost the opposite--uninterested, though perhaps watchful. It just exists. He portrays nature as an extremely vital and specific community that is going on at all times regardless of what humans are up to. He is known for his visual attention to detail in nature, sometimes just watching, not trying to evoke beauty so much as register it. In his attention to detail in nature, he indicates that humans are not separate from nature, but rather inter-dependent. The visual space in his films is one that is occupied powerfully by both nature and humans. The plots of his movies often demonstrate a rupture in the nature-human balance that is largely uncommented on. I wouldn't say that Malick portrays nature as a nemesis, although this is how it is sometimes perceived by humans. The more accurate description might be nature as seeing everything, watchful in a kind of disconnected sense. This is demonstrated for example, in Days of Heaven, in the important scene where Bill steals from the farmer and snoops on his conversation with the doctor. Here, Bill hides behind a cart and overhears that the farmer will die in 6 months. On thing that is interesting about this shot is the way that, although Bill is hidden from all humans, he is circled by a flock of geese, just pecking around him. I don't know exactly what Malick is up to with moments like this, but it is a frequent image--nature looking on, or simply being present, at the sight of human deception or cruelty. 

drafting for essay

reflections on travel--soon to become academic-y.

I’m sitting with my Uncle, Anthony, in Stanford Village, eating tall pastrami sandwiches at Cameron’s, our favorite deli in the area. Whenever I come up to see my Uncle at his home in San Mateo, the town in northern California where I was born, we make a stop. We used to come down as a family every winter, all of us piled into the Accord for a three day road-trip. Those were good times. My brother and I would entertain ourselves in the backseat. We would bring books to read, play Tetris and Donkey Kong on Gameboy. I was amazed by how many cars we passed. I would fill pages documenting each brand, the color and shading. Silently, I would be rooting for the dark blue Accord, our family vehicle, to win out. But I never gave any sign of this. As official recorder, I had to remain impartial. I took my job very seriously. With each car I saw, the world seemed bigger and more mysterious. Then at night there was the excitement of the hotel, some new city we’d never been to before. There was something magical about that, like the world had expanded viscerally, changed in a fundamental way. I remember the strange thrill of opening a fresh bar of soap in the hotel bathroom (need to develop this). Odd little things like that are what I remember. When I was young and on those road trips, the simplest things--a latenight stop at Denny's in Eugene, a morning drive through the Red Forest Hills as we entered California--seemed full of wonder.

When I think of San Mateo I see us driving up to my Uncle’s home on 217, Sunset Terrace. The too-dry pale grass of the lawn. It is a broad, one-floor brick property, with a corner garden of polished rocks, browns and white and silver. From his backyard you can see all of Monroe and Foster City, in the flat distance the green-blue Oakland hills. Everything washed-out slightly from the long stretch of nothing-but-sun from February to November. The Foster City racetrack, where my Uncle and I used to watch the horses on Saturday mornings, has closed down, the huge plot of grass grown tall and brown-white.

My Uncle swirls a fry in a puddle of ketchup, holds me in a long, sober gaze. There is no anger in his eyes, no emotion to speak of. This is his serious face, the look he gets when a) he’s trying to bluff in poker (always unsuccessful), or b) I have just said something that makes him feel concerned. He becomes very still in these moments, almost comically so. Every inch of his body slows to a crawl—including, it seems, his thoughts—in order to remain composed. A Zen-like stillness overtakes him. It’s both amusing and slightly unnerving. I mean, make no mistake, he is staring at you. My brother coined it ‘The Look’ when I was six and it stuck. I can rib my Uncle about it, and he’ll laugh, but this can never take place while he is actually giving The Look, only well after.
In these moments, my Uncle’s humor becomes insanely dry. Today, for example: I’ve just told him that I am dropping out of school, that I’m flying to Naknek, Alaska to do unknown things to recently slaughtered salmon; that after this I will take my earnings and backpack for nine months around the Maritime region of Eastern Canada. He’s quiet for, I don’t know, two minutes (an hour?), stirring that soggy fry the whole time, then he says, slowly, “When does the great adventure begin?” Not a cock of the eye, nothing.
“I’m flying to Naknek next week.”
“What happens to school?” He says this softly, his dark brown eyes scrunched, a little pained.
“I’ll go back in a year,” I tell him. But the truth is I don’t know. In the last few months
"Why Eastern Canada?" My Uncle tugs on his lower lip with his incisors, pulling the skin up half an inch then releasing it. Now, this is a fair question, a good one in fact. Why ? I knew little about the region apart from reading Annie Proulx's 'The Shipping News' in high school, and of course the TV show Anne of Green Gables, filmed on Prince Edward Island just off the coast of Nova Scotia. In Canada, everyone knew Anne of Green Gables. When I told my friends from home about this trip, they focussed on this point. "You'll have to make sure to bring a dress," Dottie, my old friend, said. "Oh, don't worry about that," I responded, as my friends laughed. Images of Ann frolicking in lush green fields filled our heads as youths. She was always wearing some new quilted dress that her mother had made for her.

911 and the Sublime

I think one reason I feel that 911 is a sublime experience is the way I experienced it. That day I was without TV completely and so the only contact I had with the event was by listening all day to the radio. I heard everything, people shouting threats at the "towelheads" and others trying to keep some calm. Then I wandered out of my apartment to see my friend, Sean. Sean is from Karachi, in Pakistan. He knew a little bit about Bin Laden.
He had two other friends hanging out with him on the porch and we talked about the attacks. I don't know why I didn't ask to see a TV. I think by that point the event existed so fully in my imagination that seeing the real thing seemed almost too much. So we sat on the porch and talked about it. I've never expressed hatred towards anyone before--okay, maybe that's not right.. I've never said I wanted to kill someone before--until then. I was talking about what a huge shitkicking Afghanistan was going to get and I could feel my blood pumping faster. But it felt good to say. I can't believe some of the things I said, but in that moment I was completely angry and terrified. I wanted to fight and briefly, and I mean extremely briefly, considered joining the military.
There remains something mysterious and bigger-than-this world about 911. I admit to a fascination with the image of the planes flying into the building. Susan Sontag said something about the beauty of that scene, and she got absolutely flayed for that. But it's undeniable there is something too that. It does carry that feeling of the sublime. I associate the sublime with a religious concept. I grew up believing in God and even praying most nights, but that kind of went away by the time I hit high school. But there are still moments where I am awed by a feeling that there is something bigger in the world, more beautiful and also more terrifying than I can comprehend. I experienced this perception a lot while travelling around Eastern Canada, and particularly the tiny village next to the Atlantic, Darling Lake. The ocean was so immense, the beach went for miles of beautiful clear sand, and there was no one around. The hills rose above the water, jutting up and down while long grass blew constantly. There was an overwhelming feeling of silence at Darling Lake, a deep silence in the world behind all our daily thoughts and activities.

For me, 911 feels uncanny also. It is so unfathomable, but yet so symbolically rich. With all the power we have as a nation, there seems an increasing level of insecurity. 911 doesn't make sense but yet, like a dream I guess, it completely resonates on the subconscious level. Everyone fears flying at least on some level, right?

Peggy's Cove

Hey all. I'm going to try to include about 5 poems in my creative project, so I'm going to use this space to sketch out ideas/drafts. As I mentioned in class, this is related to a year I spent travelling and working in Alaska and eastern Canada when I was 20. I'm not sure yet how I will incorporate research/external sources. This is also Prompt #1 (I think).

Peggy's Cove

We meet at one in the afternoon to drive to Peggy's Cove,
a tiny fishing village on the northeastern edge of Nova Scotia.
The day is bright and crisp, early in fall.
The blue sky pounds through my temples.
Dry cherry and mustard-brown leaves scatter the steps
outside the Heritage House Hostel, in downtown Halifax,
our home this week and maybe next.
As we make small talk, getting to know our weekend companions,
our breath draws cloud-rings in the air.
"Hi, my name is Marc." I can be anyone, and you
too. Anxious smiles and cold hands.
Today, a new country to discover.

Louis and Lynda, proprietors, organize road-trips
Bi-weekly excursions.
Sometimes just to a park on the other side of the city.
Always a rush to the clipboard,
but I know
the time it appears, outside the kitchen door, Sunday evenings.
I wait silently.
We can't resist.
Fools for a new piece of land.
I've been here two months now. Each day people coming
in and out.

On the T.V, the Leafs are losing to Montreal.
Louis says there is a storm warning but chuckles
touching his round belly. "You'll never make it
to Peggy's if you wait for calm weather." Lynda stares
absently at the screen. Two dozen people around the long couches
with beer and popcorn. Domi scores and a cheer erupts,
mingled with a few lonely boos. A man with a shaggy blonde beard
waves a Leafs flag.
"Bring an extra pair of socks,"
Lynda says finally, a thin smile, her eyes not moving from the game.

Haven't been to P.E.I yet. Meaning to go.
Louis says maybe November. Hoping this trip
better than last.

Labrador wasn't so good. 6 days might have been
overly ambitious, looking back.
Louis can admit as much
now. We spent the morning climbing in the damp woods of
Grand Hermine Park.
Mid-afternoon, a middle-aged woman
had a nervous breakdown while climbing a rocky waterfall.
She was wearing a shirt that said "Life's a beach and then you die."
Earlier that day, I had talked to her.
Jill, I think
her name was. She'd said she'd left her family,
husband and two kids a year before.
Had been travelling ever since.
"Why did you do it?" I asked. She said her husband
was a first-class jerk and her boys were college-age
(my oldest looks just like you, she said, touching my chin lightly)
She said she had forgotten who she was.
The kids would be there when she got back.

Now she was up there perched on a slick rock
like an injured bird, shouting nonsense.
Bizarre family tangents.
A young man, Jeremy, unofficial leader of our group,
went up to rescue her but he slipped and fell badly,
caught between two sharp slabs. "Oww, fuck," he cried.
Jill was still going off.
A group went up to help Jeremy. I stayed below.
I looked high up, past the noise and pain. The view
was breathtaking.
Light through the leaves. Glinting off the
tumbling water.

Outside the hostel, tapping my feet
no one left to talk to.
Avert eyes from the woman from last week. Spanish with
black braids. I think I told her I fed
tigers for the national circus, was on a mission
always a mission
to find my father, a fall-down drunk and failed poet.
She knows too much.
But she's on the same game, pretends not to see me.
A fat pigeon struts around her feet.

Our van goes clumping up a bumpy road while the sun
lowers behind us, spreading hues of pink and gold.
I'll spend my time getting to know a girl from Germany
she smiles while we talk.
Starting to feel Jack Keuroac. Talk some shit about the banalities
of college, the couped-up life. On the road to Peggy's Cove.
Consider quoting Neil Young, Hey Hey My My
but decide against it.

And when we settle on a hill against the Atlantic pummeling,
I can see the whole of Halifax, the bay splashed with moonlight.
I can hold the small, decent homes in two hands.
The sky is dark, roiling.
Below, the ocean is righteous, tossing two white ships,
a mile from shore, around like toys. "Come in, come in,"
I start to say, but they only twirl and bounce.
Mattias, our driver, a lanky Italian kid not much older than myself,
calls us back into the van.
A light rain, warm on the skin, begins to fall.
Gusts of sea-salted wind gather strength.

Everyone has turned to leave but I wander out
to the cliff's edge, where a man with frosted white hair
and black-frame glasses looks down at the water.
He is from our group. I look back at the blue van.
Heads sticking out windows, unknown faces.
"They're going to start honking," I say.
He nods. "We can't do anything for them," I say.
"I know," he says.
The sky, a tangle of black-blue clouds, is lowering, like
a closing lid. I look back at Mattias, who is making frantic
arm gestures at us, all dramatic.
He calls out, but the wind, firm now, swallows his words.
I can hear the engine kick, wheels grinding on the gravel path
but I don't move. The man beside me looks up.
"It's going to storm," he says,
touching my shoulder. "We should find shelter."

Can Art Grow Out of Theory?

What makes this question really interesting is the word 'legitimately'. Without it, the answer would be fairly straightforward. Yes, good and important art can and has grown out of a theoretical concept of art's role, its specific limitatons and purposes. The French writer Artaud, for example, thought that theatre should be a 'cruel' experience, and in his plays set about jarring the audience out of a comfortable perspective. In his goal of destroying barries (or at least revealing them) between stage and audience, performer and spectator, he would stop at nothing.
Screaming into the faces of unsuspecting viewers, actors bloodying themselves with knife slashes, hurling actual feces, or just sitting on their hands in silence for hours--it was all fair game. And what was the point of all of it? I'm not sure I know, completely. And how does this relate to Blake? Well...
The idea that an author (musician, etc.) will have some contextual framework for their art is hard to dismiss. Even stuff that claims to have no other context than life itself--like say the realist stories of someone like Raymond Carver--is unavoidably making certain distinctions about what does and does not constitute art. Carver would say that all it takes to be a writer is the willingness to stop and stare, and notice the detail of a sunset or the way someone snorts with laughter after a certain joke (bad paraphrase there). But then he would really get his back up when someone like John Barth would talk about formal experimentation in writing, deconstruction, etc.. because that wasn't what writing was, no. Anytime you are devoting entire essays to lecturing people on what art is not then you... are likely operating from a theory of some sort. Sorry Ray, though I love ya. We (particularly my 18 year old poetic self) are often tied to the idea of art being free, or outside, of the conventional definitions of order and logic. And that's fine. I think that good art will always contain some irreducable element--something of the contradiction and mystery of life. When you can reduce a piece of art to a message, no matter how moral and worth stating, that does seem like a lesser result. Actually, this element of 'mystery' is what Flannery O'Connor defined as the highest quality she aimed for in her writing. And to her, like Blake maybe, that was tied to a religous aspect to life, something that always went a little beyond human knowing. Here, the theory itself includes the irrational, so the art remains open. It works.
On my evals last semester, a student, on the suggestions page, wrote simply: "No More Cryptic Stories". I sympathized, a little, and the fact that the printed letters took up the entire page led me to know how serious he/she was about this. Sometimes the stuff we read can be baffling, can make you feel that the writer may be throwing shit at you, at least metaphorically. Going back to what a few people said during the 'poetry' blog, staying with the work, even in its uncertainty and contradiction, seems like one of the more important lessons that reading brings.

Nature and the Imagination

Darling Lake

To be between these cracking brick walls
that catch every wail and child's moan
With cinder dust trapped in the dawn light
and outside my cramped room, a woman,
her skin chalky and creased with anger
at me and who else
banging her tiny fist and shouting my full name
"Marc Angelo", that I haven't heard since I was six.

I had an idea of a quiet place
far removed
where I could read Anna Karenna, finally, or if not,
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintance, again,
and things I had only heard about or seen on TV,
white pebbled sand, trees, an ocean greater than I could imagine.
At Darling Lake, town of 65, in Nova Scotia, Canada,
I lay down on a styrofoam bed for days
and didn't move, didn't make a sound.
trickling river, smells of beech and pine.