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Michael Parker's Journal
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Wednesday, November 30, 2005 |
You are Form 0, Phoenix: The Eternal.
"And The Phoenix's cycle had reached zenith, so he consumed himself in fire. He emerged from his own ashes, to be forever immortal."
Some examples of the Phoenix Form are Quetzalcoatl (Aztec), Shiva (Indian), and Ra-Atum (Egyptian). The Phoenix is associated with the concept of life, the number 0, and the element of fire. His sign is the eclipsed sun.
As a member of Form 0, you are a determined individual. You tend to keep your sense of optimism, even through tough times and have a positive outlook on most situations. You have a way of looking at going through life as a journey that you can constantly learn from.
Phoenixes are the best friends to have because they cheer people up easily.
Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005 |
Click here to try this personality quiz.
Simply click on the design that most appeals to you, considering both the form and color. And presto, you are awarded with a near immediate description of your character traits. I’m introspective, sensitive, and reflective.
You come to grips more frequently and thoroughly with yourself and your environment than do most people.
You detest superficiality. You'd rather be alone than have to suffer through small talk.
Your relationships with your friends are very strong, which gives you the inner tranquility and harmony that you require.
You do not mind being alone for extended periods of time. You are rarely bored.
6:46:24 AM | |
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Sunday, November 27, 2005 |
When Madonna's latest pop song "Hung Up" jumped into the number 7 on the US Hot 100 Singles this week, she tied Elvis for the most top ten hits ever at 36. Her top ten hits started with "Borderline" in the early 1983. It has taken 21 years to tie Elvis for this extraordinary milestone. Madonna has had 45 Top 40 hits, the record for female vocalists. "Hung Up" comes from her latest #1 album, titled Confessions on the Dance Floor.
Read the Reuters news brief here.
I'm trying to track down a list of all of Madonna's top ten hits so that I can post them. So far, no luck. But Wikipedia has a great bio of the Material Girl.
9:06:03 PM | |
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Thursday, November 17, 2005 |
The first issue of the online poetry magazine Small Potatoes is now available.
Titled "A Dedication to Survivors," this issue honors the survivors and souls lost in the hurricanes that ravaged the Gulf Coast. The editor of Small Potatoes, Sirrus Poe, says about his premiere issue: "This project was created to encourage fellow poets to donate either their time, or money, to those who have been affected by the hurricanes of this historic hurricane season. At the beginning we were focused on Katrina, but soon discovered that she would not be the only hurricane to touch so many lives here in the US. In the end anyone who donated to any effort was eligible to be included on the PWSS page."
Poe and his editorial board selected some exceptional works. The Survivors issue features poems with themes centered on New Orleans and the disastrous flood that buried the city; and also poems that had nothing to do with the hurricane and its aftermath, but focused on general themes of loss, heartache, and the fragility of life.
I have not read anywhere on the vast Internet any project that compiled poetry written in response to the flood of New Orleans. So there is an immediate uniqueness to these poems. I would like you to consider the extraordinary poems "When the Levee Floods the City" by Gary Blackenship (set to the rhythm of a Louise Armstrong song); "A Blue Wake for New Orleans" by Lorna Dee Cervantes; "She Rides" by Freada Dillon, and "Gulf Lake," by Kathryn Rantala.
The remaining featured poems (not specific to New Orleans) are no less amazing. Please consider the poems "Blood of the Rose" by Pris Campbell, "Drifting too Far From Shore," by Alex Stolis, "In Retrospect" by Helen Losse, "Deaf Things" by Michael Ladanyi, and "Completed" by E.V. Noechel.
In all, "A Dedication to Survivors" is a splendid collection that evokes a gamut of reactions. I think of survivors as those who live to tell harrowing, painful experiences, who end up carrying a weight they may learn to live with but may never be able to put down. It’s important then that the content and themes within "Survivors" stay real in a way that portrays the effects of disaster and her spoils with honesty. Poe’s project from the get-go was about remembering. Leave not one soul forsaken. I feel "Survivors" accomplishes this. It is thought-provoking and poignant; raises hope and inspires.
To read the first issue of Small Potatoes, click here.
11:45:30 PM | |
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Monday, November 14, 2005 |
The Most Intriguing (and Sensual) Male Poets calendar is now available online. And yours truly is Mr. February! The thought of sharing this month with Valentines Day.....well....[The sound of laughter pours from my mouth and wakes up the sleeping children]....I'm simply not worthy! I've been known to break mirrors, you know.
But all jocularity aside. I am honored to be part of this project! Not only are there many critically-acclaimed poets highlighted within its pages, but the proceeds from the sales are all going to the CFIDS Foundation.
Click here to view a sample of the calendar and learn more about CFIDS.
Congratulations Pris, Jenni, and Didi on a job well-done.
10:17:46 PM | |
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Sunday, November 13, 2005 |
it is something
in the returning
these strangers
in my night dreams
keep saying
and their offer
of a handful of yellow earth
for my soul
seems so strange
till I wake
with the taste of dust on my lips
This is how Neil Aitken opens one of his earlier chapbooks, titled "Yellow Eath Songs" -- haunted by the reoccurring visits of strangers who offer handfuls of yellow earth. Later in this first poem, from which the title of the chapbook is derived, "Yellow Earth," he reveals the yellow earth is the dust of his heritage, from his mother's side. It is inviting his return home from whatever exiled land he lives.
This past week, I was fingering through the books on one of the lower shelves of my bookcase and came across Neil's chapbook, which was published by Willow Tree Press in Provo, UT, 1997. I have this image in my head of meeting him at a reading, purchasing this copy, but so much has come and gone since then that I do not know whether that image is accurate.
I was so intrigued by the opening of Earth Songs that I googled his name to see if he was still writing. The answer, dear reader, is Yes.
One of the first poems I encountered was a thoughtful work published at Prairie Poetry, titled "Adrift". Seven years since Yellow Earth, he's older and his poetics are more mature. He's still alive with explanations of evocative visions and dreams:
All night, locusts fly from my dreams,
the sky peels back from sky, twin heavens
reeling in a dark net of stars.
And still alive with the taste of the experience of life, the dust of it:
Each gravel road turns a vein, a slow pulse of dust
rising in waves like semaphore or sign against the clouds,
the thunder, the coming rain.
All night, I drive this empty ship into a storm,
the long-shadowed world below, the moon buttoned fast to the sky,
and the desert asking if the land would make a better sea.
Aitken's thoughtful regard of the landscape, his awareness of it, makes for highly surprising, catch-your-breath like phrases and images, like the last line "the desert asking if the land would make a better sea."
I emailed Neil to tell him that I had re-discovered "Yellow Earth Songs," that I had read some of his current (and wonderful) poetry, and that I had found his insights on writing (on his blog) astute and personally meaningful. IN fact, I wrote down one of his thoughts: "Writing is an invitation to the world of ghosts and memories to step into a moment."
His reply to my email was likewise meaningful, amazing, leaving me with this nugget of wisdom from the essayist, Andre Achimen:
...in his collection of essays titled "Letters of Transit," [Achimen] notes that every exile suffers from a form of double-vision where it is impossible to view one city without seeing the city one came from as well. I feel much the same way -- each place I end up is haunted by the ghosts of the places I've been.
In many regards, it seems that the writer, the poet, makes himself/herself an exile so that he/she can have that unique perspective of the exile. Writing is a lonely art. Writers are always in search of "home."
*****
Neil Aitken maintains the Eurasian American Literature Resource website and serves as co-editor-in-chief of CRATE, the new literary arts journal of UC Riverside. He is presently working on a MFA Creative Writing at UC Riverside. Aitken has just finished his first full-length poetry manuscript "The Lost Country of Sight."
To read Adrift, click here.
To read his exemplary and thought-provoking insights on writing aesthetically, click here, here, and here.
And for an additional treat, please read "Counting Winters in Los Angeles," which opens with the magnificent line: "I no longer mark what falls in passing..."
Neil has told me that CRATE is currently taking submissions for poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, critical essay, and plays for the upcoming issue.
10:32:46 PM | |
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Thursday, November 10, 2005 |
I’m in the middle of writing my new column for MiPoesias. But I got online to check my email and saw this startling news link Robertson warns Pennsylvania Voters of God’s Wrath.
Consider these two paragraphs from the CNN article:
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."
"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there," he said.
I don’t like to speak about religion because I feel strongly that it is a very personal matter. But yes, I consider myself religious and spiritual. Having revealed this, I must say that Robertson, to me, is of the same ilk as the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ time, who spoke more out of a desire to have other men hear them pray. Oh, and I’m sure money plays nicely into the equation here.
After watching the election results come in this week, and seeing the subsequent NBC poll yesterday that showed Bush’s approval rating at its lowest percent, it appears that reasonable Americans, whether they be Republican, Independent, or Democrat, are beginning to ignore the intolerant and unreasonable rantings of the wingnuts such as Robertson.
Now, I can’t speak for God. But I sure do know that Robertson paints God in the wrong light, as someone no more in control of their emotions than a mere mortal who needs to enroll in anger management class. This is simply not the God I believe in. And I really wonder if America is waking up and realizing that they don’t either.
Also Commenting on this Topic
Oliver Willis: Flat Earther's Roar
10:01:43 PM | |
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Monday, November 07, 2005 |
Yesterday, the deadly tornado that ripped through Evansville came five miles close to my brother Ben and his family’s home. They are alright.
Today, I received a call from my mom. She passed on terrible news that one of our family friends died in a tragic car accident. Kerryanne Booras Neilson was on her way up to Orem to stay with her mom, who is dying of cancer. She brought her four year old son, Callen, with her. Just fifteen miles from her destination, outside of Santaquin, witnesses said that the vehicle started to the left side of the road, onto the shoulder. She overcorrected and the van went into the median and rolled across both southbound lanes. Her son was ejected; Kerryanne had to be extricated from the van. They were immediately killed.
Kerryanne leaves behind her husband Chris and two children, Kennedy (11), and Kade (7). This is a tragic loss to the Neilson and Steve & Sue Booras family. They have been great friends to me and my family and our hearts and prayers go out to all of them in this tragic time of passing.
Rest in peace, Kerryanne and Callen. May your spirits' flight find their place not too far off from those who love and miss you most.
A story: Years ago, when I was probably six or seven. My family drove to California to visit them, before they moved to Utah. While we were there, the parents went out for an evening and left us kids with a babysitter. That evening, we watched the Miss America or Miss USA pageant. Miss California won that night. I remember how Kerry, who would have been four or five at the time, pranced around that evening, pretending to be Miss California, expressing that she wanted to be her. Ever since that young age, Kerry was always Miss California to me.
From John Donne's Divine Poems, I introduce you to sonnet X:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desparate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
8:32:19 PM | |
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Friday, November 04, 2005 |
A new Zogby International poll shows that 53% of Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq. Specifically, those 1,200 U.S. Adults were asked if they agreed with the following statement:
"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
Last June, this same question resulted in only 40% of Americans wanting impeachment. To read all of the demographical details of the poll, click here.
11:29:12 PM | |
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Thursday, November 03, 2005 |
I'm picking up the paintbrush tonight; gonna begin a creation, spread colored oils over a prepared canvas that is graphed, with a lightly-drawn outline of an autumn scene. Wish me luck. I need it. I haven't painted in years.
Also in the works: my second column for MiPoesias.
8:13:33 PM | |
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Tuesday, November 01, 2005 |
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The Holy Trinity of Truth |
Just when I had said to too many people too many times that the Democrats were spineless, lap poodles, Reid goes and does something as extraordinary as this so that I have to swallow everything I've said. And you know what, I don't mind because, damn, what a brilliant move this was on his part. So brilliant in fact that Frist had to cry foul and say he would be "unable to trust Senator Reid for the next year and half of this Congressional session."
I'm going to use my good friend Brian's exceptional phrase: "Oh please, someone call a Wwwwaaaambulance!"
Frist. Talk of trust from his mouth is cheaper than a McDonald's 99 cent Value Meal! Why this is the man who's under investigation himself for getting rid of his shares in his family's company before its stocks plummeted. And this from one of the leaders of a GOP party whose current role call is resembling a rap sheet! No. Trust is not a monicker that sticks very well to these guys right now.
So yes, Mr. Frist, it looks like Reid is going to rumble in the gutter and it is high time. Let's stop the stonewalling. Let's get to the bottom of this investigation of spurious intelligence that the White House used to persuade very good and patriotic American citizens to "pre-emptively" go to war.
P.S. I stole the picture from Oliver Willis' post regarding today's rumble in the senate.
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