On My Mind _ Throwback to 2020

~ notes from the archives ~

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Blaise Pascal

Pensées (Thoughts, 1669). In that book, he describes his famous wager, arguing that if God does not exist, the skeptic loses nothing by believing in him; but if God does exist, the skeptic gains eternal life by believing in him. He also argued that it is the heart that experiences God, and not reason.

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1964 that the United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act after a long battle in the Senate.

When he signed the bill into law, Lyndon Johnson said: “We believe all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty. Yet millions are being deprived of those blessings … because of the color of their skin. The reasons are deeply embedded in history and tradition and the nature of man. We can understand — without rancor or hatred — how this happened, but it cannot continue. … Our constitution … forbids it. The principles of our freedom forbid it. Morality forbids it. And [now] the law … forbids it.”

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Walking My Seventy-Five-Year-Old Dog by Billy Collins

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who knew

online shopping

would be such a problem

in the apocalypse?

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3am

Judged

Humiliated

Embarrassed

Stupid

Useless

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Social media and checking for "news" updates has become disturbingly time consuming in the pandemic.

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I struggle to find a way to integrate listening to music, turning to podcasts or an audiobook or dare I say a physical book. I'm distracted at every turn.

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Dinner seems to preoccupy about 1/3 of the day.

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I feel very little agency. I feel like I'm considered a sick patient while also being scolded for lack of handling each and every situation. Mocked at every turn. An embarrassment. A disappointment. A failed project. Little expectation that I will be able to do anything of significance. Damaged goods. Nearly disabled.

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"I want mango sliced by a dude named Noah" -Ali Wong

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WHAT HAPPENS IN THE PANDEMIC STAYS IN THE PANDEMIC

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Mamba Mentality

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Now electric cars get 238 miles per charge

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The white car along the bushes

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I should have said, "I will never stop reading aloud to you" & if luck would have it that would have been enough to make you stay

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wherever will be

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Collection title:

ok

emotions

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Don't chase the surge

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Interview yourself to gain clarity and perspective and solidify views

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cloud seeding

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MINIMALIST MAXIMS VS. MATERIALIST DRIVE YIELDS FUTILE SISYPHEAN NIGHTMARE

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Idea for a grant application:

Writing in public libraries across America

Take a road trip

Goal: to better understand class disparity on a state to state / regional level

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Getting back to civil dialogue would be lovely

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Campaign Slogan ideas:

B&B

Bloomberg / Booker

United for a Better Tomorrow

[or]

Bl20mberg / B20ker

United We Stand Strong

#UWSS

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socially progressive pragmatist

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Blackout Shakespeare love poetry

Take 3 sonnets

Blackout every 3^rd word

Swap every 3^rd line of 1 of the other 2 sonnets

Rinse. Repeat.

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From a Note to State Representatives:

A society without The Arts is a society without a heart. Please provide funds to let us sustain the vibrancy of our literary and visual arts. With Gratitude, Mark Danowsky

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Caprice

noun

1. a sudden and unaccountable change

of mood or behavior.

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Tell me who I'll be next

"In America you will see an average of 500 advertisements a day." -Facts app

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Self-esteem test:

How long

can you look

at yourself

in a mirror?

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Portrait of the Artist slumped over with their head turned towards whatever lies beyond the windowpane

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Ten years later back on a medication that makes me feel icky for the third time

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Two springs ago there was a version of me who was going to the gym four times a week

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How am I this crushed?

This must be a grave psychological defeat.

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“Maybe I’m just thinking”

-it doesn’t have to be mindfulness or rumination or ptsd-related necessarily

...sometimes throughout history there have been people who just sit and think

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The many voices of inner talk

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The Beige-Gray Bloom

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We are so many lonely

as if our situations require

suffering not for humanity

but instead to prove oneself humble

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Does not someone want to share in this?

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Need to automate / reduce friction for my writing habit as well as listening to audiobooks

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Have weird days

Build in unpredictability

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Zipcode destiny

A good man

Snowsquall

The Still Bird

Save yourself

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"...but eternity has its demands"

"experienced students of the darkness"

[from] "Morning"

-Adam Zagajewski

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~persona poem~

TRUMP

I took all my rage

& put it in a brand

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Maybe everyone looks old when they make the "plea" face

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December: unintentional tour of lights

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Page 1: Who am I now?

Page 2: So, what’s next?

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The boy returns from battle a shell

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To Die before you’ve come of Age for Chance to be elected President

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All that & I go to bed feeling sad

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The Abyss Gazes Back

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“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

-Edith Wharton

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I have what feels an essential thought on the quote above from Edith Wharton. I feel this same sentiment expressed by Wharton applies to the idea of Stewardship in The Arts and the value of being an editor.

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Including this bio about Marie Duplessis because it seems shocking (yet unsurprising) how this reads as a young woman repeatedly taken advantage of by men and left alone to die at 23. It seems she lived a memorable life that wasn’t entirely bad, but still...there’s also this sense of her being a sort of muse with her own potential she never had the opportunity to fulfill.

[from] The Writers’ Almanac:

French courtesan Marie Duplessis, born Alphonsine Plessis in Normandy (1824). She was a beautiful young woman: petite, dark-haired, and slim. She was working as a laundress at the age of 13 when her father decided that prostitution paid better. He sent her to live with a rich and elderly bachelor in exchange for cash. After a year, she went to live with cousins in Paris. For a time, she was kept by a restaurant owner, who gave her a place to live in exchange for her favors. It wasn't long before she set her sights higher. She learned to read and write, and she studied a wide variety of subjects so that she could hold her own in any social situation. She started appearing at places where the rich and powerful were likely to be, and she attracted lots of attention.

She suspected she had tuberculosis when she developed a cough that only got worse. She was treated with everything from spa cures to strychnine to hypnotism. And through it all, she kept dressing up and holding salons and going to the opera. Having grown up in poverty, she couldn't get enough of luxury. Noblemen from all over Europe would call on her whenever they were in Paris, and they brought her expensive trinkets, which she sometimes pawned to support herself between lovers.

She began an affair with Alexandre Dumas the younger when they were both 20 years old. He was a struggling writer, and he wasn't able to give her lavish gifts like her other lovers. He kept her with him out in the country for a while, for the sake of her health, but she missed the lively Paris scene and went back to the city after a year. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore, and broke it off with her, writing in a letter, "I am neither rich enough to love you as I could wish nor poor enough to be loved as you wish."

Duplessis never answered Dumas's letter. She was too ill, and she had begun an affair with the composer and pianist Franz Liszt. She wanted Liszt to bring her along on his concert tour, but he was afraid he would catch tuberculosis from her, so he left her behind. He promised to take her to Turkey one day, but he never saw her again. After she died at the age of 23, Liszt regretted not coming to her bedside, and said: "She had a great deal of heart, a great liveliness of spirit and I consider her unique of her kind. [...] She was the most complete incarnation of womankind that has ever existed."

Four months after Duplessis's death, Dumas published his novel The Lady of the Camellias (1848). It's the story of a courtesan named Marguerite Gautier, based on Duplessis. She breaks the heart of her lover — Armand Duval — to spare him from ruin. Dumas wrote it in four weeks. It was later made into a play, which in turn inspired Verdi's opera La Traviata (1853).

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Texas can only be one of the many reasons

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let me rest

awake tomorrow

do something useful & good

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and then i read my own poems & they become Ash in my mouth

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Admit You Put On A Game Face

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"I'm not doing what I want to do; is anyone?"

-         Weldon Kees

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