10/29/2006

i won...

Blog Of The Day Awards Winner
...and I didn't even know I was in the running! Levi nominated me for a Blog of the day award, and I'm flattered. Flattered enough just to know people beyond my friends are actually reading my ramblings. So thanks Levi! I think I won for my Late Delivery post, which he said reminds him of Richard Brautigan, one of my favorite writers, who I don't think I could have survived college without. Levi has some pretty great ramblings himself, so be sure to go and give his blog some love. And because Richard Brautigan was a much better writer than me (but I'm honored to be compared to him) and just in case you haven't experienced his beautiful little poems, I'll post some below. I just looked for my Brautigan books and can't find a one, I fear they're in Jersey, hopefully not in a water damaged box in the basement. But thank god for the internets, I found this lovely site, where you can feast on Brautigan's delightful words until you're full. Here are some of my favorites:

THE SHENEVERTAKESHERWATCHOFF POEM

For Marcia

Because you always have a clock
strapped to your body, it’s natural
that I should think of you as the
correct time:
with your long blonde hair at 8:03,
and your pulse-lightning breasts at
11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30,
I know I’m right.

IT’S RAINING IN LOVE

I don’t know what it is,
But I distrust myself
When I start to like a girl
A lot.

It makes me nervous.
I don’t say the right things
Or perhaps I start
To examine,
Evaluate,
Compute
What I am saying.

If I say, “Do you think it’s going to rain?”
and she says, “I don’t know,”
I start thinking: Does she really like me?

In other words
I get a little creepy.

A friend of mine once said,
“It’s twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them.”

I think he’s right and besides,
its raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That’s all taken care of.

BUT
if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
“Do you think it’s going to rain?”
and I say, “It beats me,”
and she says, “Oh,”
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think: Thank God, it’s you, baby, this time
Instead of me.

DEATH IS A BEAUTIFUL CAR PARKED ONLY

For Emmett

Death is a beautiful car parked only
to be stolen on a street lined with trees
whose branches are like the intestines
of an emerald.

You hotwire death, get in, and drive away
like a flag made from a thousand burning
funeral parlors.

You have stolen death because you’re bored.
There’s nothing good playing at the movies
in San Francisco.

You joyride around for a while listening
to the radio, and then abandon death, walk
away, and leave death for the police
to find.

KARMA REPAIR KIT: ITEMS 1-4

1. Get enough food to eat,
And eat it.

2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

4.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

These are some of my favorite Bratigan poems as well. The series with Baudelaire is also quite instructive regarding "where his head was at."

and of course ...

"I want High School report cards to read like this ..."

Anonymous said...

you've come a long way, baby. congratulations!

Anonymous said...

congrats!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!

And thanks for the link- I bask in your reflected glory.

Anonymous said...

hey, i forgot about the karma repair kit, I think you wrote it to me in a letter a long time ago and I loved it.
-C