jueves, 20 de diciembre de 2012

STOP IT – YOU’RE HURTING MY EARS!


A Well-Reasoned RantPart One

So it’s still about written versus performance poetry, is it?   

I’ve read in various places that “the written word is dead” and that “no one reads anymore.”  One ‘column’ in a local lit journal by the sois-dissant ‘Psycho Boy’ desperately tried to make a case for dealing the final blow to ‘written poetry’ on the basis that “no one wants to read.”  But styling oneself ‘Psycho Boy’ is enough against-the-grain truth in advertising for sensible persons to take his message with about a pound of salt.  

Psycho Boy would do well to look beyond his narrow confines – there are tens of thousands of people out there who love to read from the page (and a growing number who now like reading from a tablet – oh, how the Sumerians must have howled when it looked like there was in the wind a move from cuneiform impressions in clay tablets to ink-marks on parchment).

Look, we’re all of us – we poets and performers, we poet/performers – self-combusting elements trapped in this thing of art and artifice.  No one of us writes or performs because we want to.  Those who only want to write are not poets, those who want to perform are audience members on open-mike night.  It’s clear to me that we – the poets – stay in the poetry game because we have no other choice.

Ignoring those exhibitionists who just want to make noise while others must sit watching and listening (please let us dispatch them quickly, Psycho Boy, here at this point and later, in the galleries and coffeehouses), we can look at this “artistic division” in the light of a similar dichotomy of two musical styles.  The analogy will only stretch so far, but let it have its distance to find its range.

For a trained opera singer, the “primitive” 3-chord progression of American blues is a low form of art.  Blues is all emotion, all emotive power, while opera starts in artifice and works its way through carefully-planned “attacks” (a common term for the actual approach to the musical exercise, with any instrument – human or mechanical).  The music in each of these forms is conceived, written and performed differently, and the audience seeks different things. But the heart of the matter, in each case, is that the vocal instrument will affect the audience and (it is hoped) bring about new insights or rekindle certain feelings.

So we don’t expect John Lee Hooker to get up and sing the arias of Nemorino or Calaf, because the form of his music is fundamentally different.  There is a natural separation between these two forms – a fact for which many of us are grateful.  Nor would Pavarotti have belted out Stevie Ray Vaughn or BB King or Robert Johnson (though a trained opera voice would have a better chance in an acceptable attempt at crossover than would a blues singer).  (In fact, Pavarotti did welcome James Brown to his stage and even sang a song or two with him - but as i pointed out, the analogy would only stretch so far.)

In poetry, as in music, the person with a stronger foundation from which to build will most likely be better able to express emotion in words; such a poet will probably be better prepared to delineate and capture the essence of a scene.  Then, carefully overlaying the artifice of skilled performance, the poet subtly manipulates the audience so that they will feel those things which he or she initially intended (at the conception of the piece) for them to feel.  There is an aspect of determinism to this art, as with all forms of art.

I once watched a grown man rub halves of a raw onion in his eyes while reading a diary entry through a paper tube jammed in his mouth – it was not poetry, but it certainly was performance.  It did awaken certain feelings in the audience:  nervousness, unease, shock, disgust, pity.  Had he written his work with some craft and wit, had he determined to prepare a specific set of actions and emotions, then the onion would have added a dimension to something already existing.  As it was, the onion shone brilliantly – as the sole star of an otherwise execrable act.

This ‘feud’ (if that word does not dignify the situation too much) between written and performance poetry is pointless, since the two aspects of poetry are not strictly comparable – it’s like saying “Who is the better athlete, Arnold Palmer or Willie Shoemaker?”  Moreover, the two aspects are not mutually exclusive (doesn’t Willie play golf in his spare time?).  So why create a conflict over a difference in style?  And why create conflict where none needs exist?

Meaty questions indeed. 

© 2012 Hakim - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: use without profit allowed only with author’s express written permission. Please don't wake up my attorney. Please.



martes, 11 de diciembre de 2012

Online Privacy & Where It's Headed

For anyone interested in maintaining any kind of online privacy, the vast array of information corporations out there is dead-set against your success.

Companies operating two or more personal-information websites, each with a different marque, are not in competition with each other - they're increasing their chances of getting your business.

And when it's time to correct or delete information from these 'services,' you'll have twice the fun trying to get the job done.

And some of them even have further offerings – so-called ‘deletion services’ that will undertake to contact all the other companies on your behalf to remove incorrect or troublesome information about you and your family.  Thing is, many of these deletion services demand even more info about you in order to ‘verify’ that you are who you say you are.  And when you give them that further information (phone number, driver’s license number) who’s to say that they will not actually add that info to your file?

The process, even with a deletion service, is bound to be long and arduous.  I spent a hour on the phone with a bright young lady who was as helpful as she could be, despite the silly rules of the game (seems that, when you hire a deletion service, they are not really acting as your agent; in other words, you can’t verify your identity once with them and be done with it – you have to then call each and every company to pass on even more of your information as a means of ‘verifying’ yourself).

And note that you may have to email or fax them even even more data - but if you are interested in cleaning your online slate, you're going to have to trust them to not use it!
 

So here is a list of the companies to help you take care of that monumental problem.  Good luck!



Contact:              Spokeo        6a-5p PST   877-913-3088
                           Epsilon          see below
                           Private Eye   M-F 7a – 6p PST  800-610-2703
                           Acxiom          877-774-2094
                           Archives         888-896-4442
                           USA People Search   800-248-1544
* People Lookup           see below
                        * US Search         M-F 5a – 6p PST  800-877-3272
                        * Intelius

* Need additional verification info (address, phone number, DL number).
Epsilon:  Privacy
2550 Crescent Dr, Lafayette, CO 80026    888.780.3869  privacy@epsilon.com
4401 Regent Bl, Irving, TX 75063     800.309.0505    972.582.9600    

Private Eye       800-610-2703   M-F 7a – 6p PST, S-S 7a-1130a , 1230-330p PST

US Search        800-877-3272   M-F 5a – 6p PST        S-S 6a-4p

Acxiom            888-322 9466   501-342-7799    601 E 3rd St, Little Rock, AR 72201 

 

© 2012 Hakim - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: use without profit allowed only with author’s express written permission. Please don't wake up my attorney. Please.

viernes, 13 de julio de 2012

Travel Notes

I am, in a way, a very lazy traveler – indolent, distracted, dilatory. I take the road as it comes. I wander. I meander - but with determined step.

I hate to rush, though I am able to do so when necessary – but even the slightest quickness of movement may mean at any time that I forget some crucial piece of the whole exercise. I dislike running to airline gates, frantically waving down cabs, and not being able to enjoy the sights along the way. I proceed with measured step and roving eye - a study in avid and unhurried perspicacity.

On the whole, though, in travel it seems that I generally have a specific or general mission: a place to be and a task to complete. But everything up to and everything after the actual activity of the mission is up more-or-less up for grabs.

And, as I have gotten older, I also can be incredibly laissez-faire about how and when that mission is accomplished. A whiff of savory cooking? I might just veer off for a 'quick' repast.

Jumping in, taking the road as it comes, arriving at whatever hour and taking my chances: why?

Because I enjoy trusting to fate, finding amusement in making a specific act of faith, and because having a bit of adventure takes the edge off my almost-fear in certain circumstances such as medical testing (though I’m ‘care-less’ of medical testing and other things when not in that particular zone called 'travel'). Whole freeing me from may decisions ("Better train in the morning or afternoon?" "Arrival after dark as opposed to in daylight?"), my ‘care-less’ habit also provides situations about which to make other decisions.

For instance, my decision to either give up the guild meeting in Los or stay on sked by having the data sent via email. Not an extremely important decision, but as it eventuated, things happened that altered plans and so the resolve necessitated a bit of both possibilities – I had to give up the meeting and I had to have the test results sent to me. But that particular situation was dictated by outside influences over which I had no direct control.

Plus, there is a sense of ‘safe’ uncertainty. Nothing that would happen will turn out quite as I expect it, but most changes can be counted on to take place within safe bounds. Since I have gotten older, I choose adventures (much like the notorious trike-ride from San Jose to Oakland) that are almost guaranteed to steer quite clear of mayhem, death and even minor destruction. Such is the habit of one type of lazy traveler - it helps to allow me to return home unharmed.

051612

© 2012 Hakim - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: use without profit allowed only with author’s express written permission. Please don't wake up my attorney. Please.