Fiora

Anti Lamentation

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don’t regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering
any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

Dorianne Laux

James Joyce...

From the Epiphanies…

That is no dancing. Go down before the people, young boy, and dance for them… He runs out darkly-clad, lithe and serious to dance before the multitude. There is no music for him. He begins to dance far below in the amphitheatre with a slow and supple movement of the limbs, passing from movement to movement in all the grace of youth and distance, until he seems to be a whirling body, a spider wheeling amid space, a star. I desire to shout to him words of praise, to shout arrogantly over the heads of the multitude ‘See! See!’ …His dancing is not the dancing of harlots, the dance of the daughter of Herodias. It goes up from the midst of the people, sudden and young and male, and falls again to earth in tremulous sobbing to die upon its triumph.

“We are all of us participants in a world of concrete music, geometry and number … a world of sounds, forms, motions, colors, so mathematically related and coordinated that our bodies, equally with the farthest star, vibrate to the music of the spheres.”

Claude Bragdon and the Beautiful Necessity

Flavors.me

Flavors.me is the coolest website - it lets you stream all your feeds to one pretty site you set up yourself - Hallelujah! This essentially means you don’t need another homepage that you have to pay $$$ for. So as an artist with a tumblr, twitter, soundcloud, flickr and now bandcamp account you can stream all those feeds to one page you set up on flavors - for free! Really easy to use and ofcourse you can use your own url. I know I sound like a salesperson here but gosh! here’s to logical tools that make life easier for the DIY.

The Ground Rules - by Miyamoto Musashi

Miyamoto Musashi is known as the greatest Japanese samurai that ever lived (1584 -1645). Years ago I read his 9 rules that set up the philosophy of his life. I always reeeeally liked them - very simple and very clear. 9 basic guidelines to live by - by Musashi.

1. Do not think dishonestly.
2. The Way is in training
3. Become acquainted with every art.
4. Know the Way of all professions
5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.
6. Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.
7. Perceive those things which cannot be seen.
8. Pay attention even to trifles.
9. Do nothing which is of no use.

My Magic Wand