Cemetery Project

This essay now appears in The Rumpus under the title "A Memorandum of Ghosts." Thank you for reading!

Photo by Rusty Clark

The Audible Snail

The Chicago Independent Radio Project

   The Audible Snail on CHIRPRadio.org every Sunday  
   from Noon-2pm.

   Here is a sample playlist from today's show. Send   
   requests and condemnations to CHIRPDJ@gmail.

1PM Hour

1:59 PMThe Fall Laptop Dog from Ersatz GB (Cherry Red)
1:56 PMStephen Malkmus & The Jicks Dragonfly Pie from Real Emotional Trash (Matador)
1:49 PMRatatat Breakaway from Sun and Shade (XL)
1:45 PMThe Dutchess and the Duke Let It Die from Sunrise/Sunset (Hardly Art)

1:40 PMConor Oberst Milk Thistle from Conor Oberst (Merge)
1:36 PMKid Koala Music For Morning People from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (Ninja Tune)
1:32 PMFiona Apple Extraordinary Machine from Extraordinary Machine (Epic)
1:30 PMJEFF The Brotherhood Stay Up Late from We are the Champions (Stolen Recordings)
1:26 PMThe Riverdales Judy Go Home from The Riverdales (Lookout!)
1:20 PMZombi Time of Troubles from Escape Velocity (Relapse Records)
1:16 PMTom Waits In The Neighborhood from Swordfishtrombones (Island)
1:12 PMTori Amos Frog On My Toe from Talula (Atlantic)
1:07 PMJames Blake Measurements from James Blake (ATLAS)
1:03 PMDinosaur Jr. Ocean In The Way from Farm (Jagjaguwar)
1:01 PMNirvana Molly's Lips from Incesticide (DGC)

12PM Hour

12:58 PML7 Shove from Tank Girl Soundtrack (Warner Bros./Elektra)
12:51 PMRainer Maria Mystery and Misery from Long Knives Drawn (Polyvinyl)

12:46 PMSocial Distortion Winners and Losers from Sex, Love and Rock 'n' Roll (Time Bomb Recordings)
12:42 PMThe Mutts Pray For Rain from Real Bright (8eat8)
12:36 PMThe Kills The Last Goodbye from Blood Pressures (Domino)
12:33 PMAmon Tobin Piece of Paper from ISAM (Ninja Tune)
12:29 PMThe Roots The OtherSide (featuring Bilal Oliver & Greg Porn) from undum (Def Jam)
12:22 PMDaft Punk Human After All from Human After All (Virgin)
12:18 PMGogol Bordello Start Wearing Purple from Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike(SideOneDummy Records)
12:14 PMFeist Graveyard from Metals (Cherrytree)
12:10 PMWoods Be All Be Easy from Sun and Shade (Woodsist)
12:07 PMFleet Foxes White Winter Hymnal from Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop)
12:05 PMSarah and the Crosscuts Tighnioga from Gun Shopping With Clint Eastwood (Self-Released)

On Shortcomings & Poetry

Photo by Matthew Williamson

I like to dream in small revolutions, small successes that support and give voice to a whole. These small revolutions are inspired by Dear Sugar #86 on the Rumpus. 

The socio-economic demographic under which I was raised ingrained a temporary, yet useful, solution to attain upward class mobility: to move and to move fast. I did this academically, but when a person becomes so goal orientated that they forget whose goals they are actually achieving, they get lost. Somewhere in the last two years, I got pretty lost. I stopped looking at my life for what it was and obsessed over what it was not. 

In recent months I have learned that small revolutions are equally as qualifying as large ones, if not more so. It is difficult to reconcile an old habit of survival, but in an attempt to do so I have made a pact with myself to be patient, to be kind, to honor my shortcomings and to appreciate what they are able to achieve.

In the past month, I'd say my shortcomings have been up to some pretty good business. Listed below is where they will appear, or have appeared, in November. 

You should invite yours to join them.
   
November Poetry Readings

Chicago Stories - A Reading at the 2011 Chicago Book Expo
Presented by ACM and Cubside Splendor
Saturday, November 19, 5-6pm
Uptown Goldblatt's Building (former Borders Books)
4720 N. Broadway

Potluck 2.0
Mac 'n Cheese Productions
Wednesday, November 30, 7:30-9:30pm
(address will be provided once ticket transactions are complete)

November Radio Voices

Marketplace Interview with Kai Ryssdal
Thinking Optimistically And Realistically In Your Job Search
American Public Media
Aired Thursday, November 3, 2011

Take Up Your Arms

When I dream of my future, I dream of a cottage and kin. I dream of a matriachy, a community of family and women and children. I don't dream of a husband. I dream the way this writer does. I out-intuit myself. I love openly and freely. I will tell you where you stand. I will ask you to leave when I need to. I will take care of those I love and recognize those who love me. I will not fault them for it, but commend their bravery. Women, take up your arms.

 

The Fantasy in Horror

Spanish translation of Clive Barkers' Cabal.
Film adaption: Nightbreed.

From the age of six, I have been a fan of horror. It began with an old Jerrold cable converter box in a small living room in the small apartment of a small town. On weekends, my parents and I would snuggle up on the couch under blankets, switch the converter dial to HBO or Showtime, and watch a family movie. 

Except sometimes my parents would fall asleep, and I would fall asleep.

Then I would wake up. It would be Midnight, the TV still on, the dial still set, and I would peek out from under the blankets. In these glimpses, I caught gruesome scenes from Child's Play, The Nightmare on Elm Street, some sick twisted movie in which a man is tied to table-saw in a meat packing plant, and a vague recollection of giant, frothing, rabid, killer rabbits. 

I loved Jaws.

What I find curious about all of this is that, as a six-year-old girl, it never occurred to me to wake my parents during these films. Perhaps I was afraid of getting into trouble, but more I think I was fascinated by these horrifying worlds, somehow attracted to the fear of the unknown. I found pleasure in them, particularly the ones that portrayed a supernatural or fantasy element. The table-saw, honestly, I could do without, but the dream scapes and the ghost stories? Yes, please.

The way my mind compartmentalized terror manifested itself in a rather comic way: the first nightmare I remember took the form of a Woody the Woodpecker/Frankenstein-type character. In typical Looney Tunes fashion, I ran, terrified, through a Bugs Bunny animated forest, chased by the monster who wielded a machete. I awoke screaming, the only time I recall ever making the long trek down the dark hall to my parents' bedroom. I crawled into bed with them, but I don't think I ever told them why. 

Until one evening, my mother and I sat on the couch and watched The Lost Boys. I hid under the blankets, disturbed by the Doors' song in the opening credits that lead to a creepy carnival in Santa Monica.

I never wanted to move to California.

Then a curious thing happened: my mother assured me that the movie was not scary and that I would like it, if I just watched. So I did.

Why my mother assured me this movie, in particular, was not scary, I can only guess. It is light horror, and what she gave me then was a respect for the genre, a profound understanding of the good in evil, the complicated, beautiful, fantastical realm of the undead.

I began to understand the macabre through an awareness that not all monsters are bad, a lesson I think every child should learn. 

Now it is the 1st of October in 2011, and I am 29.  It has been years since I indulged in horror (literary or film), but I am excited to embark on it again during the month of hallows. I will steer clear of the torture and horror porn - I have no time for senseless brutality and bodily disfigurement - but I do have time for ghosts, for tricksters, for the walking dead, for the misunderstood, for the monsters, for the gorgeous and complex story behind each tale of darkness.

For fun, I will tweet horror trivia each day until Halloween in order to summon what lurks under the bed at night. I will also embark on writing my first piece of horror fiction, inspired by the masters, Stephen King and Clive Barker, works by whom I have read nearly everything.

I will now attempt to turn off all the lights in my house without making a running leap to my bed. It is cold in here, and the chill in my bones convinces me that there is a spectre in every corner.

Read your child a ghost story tonight. 

She will thank you later.

From The Orphanage

Poems About Radios

So, many of you know that I appeared on NPR's Marketplace this past Wednesday in a segment about unemployment. What the segment failed to mention, however, is that I am a writer. Specifically, that I am a writer who has taken this time to write, to work on a project that focuses on the afterlife, and to further pursue a growing interest in women's health and gynecology.
 

I worry that the segment emphasizes a sense that something is lost, rather than a way of life that is being found.

I haven't listened to the series in full, so I do not if the realization of dreams in this market is in any way addressed, but my point and criticism that prompted the interview in the first place focused on the fact there is so much room for job growth and creation - it is simply not being assessed or reassembled in a way that is productive.

What I have found in the last several months is that I am leery of taking jobs I am overqualified for or jobs that are not fully invested in me. This is a hard game to play, but I go back to a firm belief in the inverse: that beggars can - nay, should - be choosers. Choosing is what enables a person to get to where they need to be in life while creating necessary boundaries of self-respect and integrity. What could be more important in a recessed economy than confidence?

And I am aware that I am lucky. I am lucky to have had my voice on public radio. I am lucky to have a father who has had the same job for 35 years. I am lucky to have such a beautiful, eclectic, supportive friend network.

What I think is that anyone collecting unemployment in this economy is lucky. Why? Because you get to choose. You get the option to change. You get the time and space to look at your life and find out what it is.

That is scary. That is a gift.

Here is a poem called Talk Radio. It is by the wonderful and contemporary poet Heather Christle. It, too, is about voice.

The jobs market to a 20-something

by the first of august / the invisible beetles began

Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 2, I will read poetry at the Tuesday Funk Reading Series at the Hopleaf in Andersonville at 7:30pm with writers: Tegan Jones, Eden M. Robins, Julie Rosenthal, Jerry Schwartz, and Karen Skalitzky. 

It is something like coming home in that place, a dim-lit universe of first beers with Eric, writing battles, and first mussels of the Midwest. It is a place of good friends and laughter, of coyotes in prairies in winter.

August marks a month for warmth and renewal, for orange days that never turn into evening. It is the anchor and switch, it is canoes and cicadas. It is wearing a sun hat all day. I wait all year to get here, and in two days it will be my birthday. I never worry about growing old because it's been established that happens. I worry I am not taking the time to make and build the life I want. I worry there won't be enough tea in the kitchen or pastries for everyone. I worry I may become complacent in a place that has never made me feel at ease.

August is its own namesake. It is regal. I will live alone for the remainder of it, but for the first time in two years, in September I will live with housemates again.

Anne Sexton understands why.  

I Remember
by Anne Sexton

By the first of August
the invisible beetles began
to snore and the grass was
as tough as hemp and was
no color—no more than
the sand was a color and
we had worn our bare feet
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while
the sun blew out of sight
like a red picture hat and
one day I tied my hair back
with a ribbon and you said
that I looked almost like
a puritan lady and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine. 

the trick is to use a primer of crushed pearls for a spectacular under-sheen

Yesterday, my friend Sarah sent me this poem. It is disarming and reminiscent of Anne Sexton. It is a reminder that to be strong does not mean to harden the heart, but to learn how to pry it unapologetically open.

The Tired Mermaid

by Mathea Harvey

The Tired Mermaid wishes for once her horoscope would just read: hungover today, stay in bed. Instead it feeds her false futures and she starts each new day expecting to finally shine up her trident or compose a ship-sinking shanty. Too much Chianti and none of these things get done. The sun is a blade in the eye that hurts her seaweedy head and doesn’t help her stomach, roiling with bits of broken reef. While she’s contemplating brushing her teeth, the other mermaids go swishing off to Watercolor Class. The trick is to use a primer of crushed pearls for a spectacular under-sheen when the drawing’s dry. Later they’ll hold the paintings underwater and see which one fish try to swim into. Fish are efficient judges that way and no one holds it against them. If they’re fooled, they’re fooled. There’s always another day. The Tired Mermaid grimaces, then sneezes. Another day is precisely the problem. It’s time to get up. For a jolt of caffeine, she bites an electric eel, and the chill in her molars isn’t much, but it’s something.

Anne Sexton

List 4 : JUNE : THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY [or the extended demons I found in a used book]

1. HEROES : LYNDA BARRY
___________________________________

2. GIFTS/PRESENTS : A CAFECITO STORY
___________________________________

3. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT : GETTING AROUND TO SAYING
___________________________________

4. KINDS OF DANCES : OBEREK
___________________________________

5. THINGS THAT ARE BLACK : HOLLY
___________________________________

6. VEHICLES : SOMETIMES I DREAM OF THESE
___________________________________

7. TROPICAL LOCATIONS : MALABAR
___________________________________

8. COLLEGE MAJORS : TAKE TIME
___________________________________

9. DAIRY PRODUCTS : RAW MILK 
___________________________________

10. THINGS IN A SOUVENIR SHOP : SHOT GLASSES
___________________________________

11. ITEMS IN YOUR PURSE/WALLET
___________________________________

12. WORLD RECORDS : HULA HOOPS!
 ___________________________________

[please fill them in if you can]

What We Give

It is no coincidence the last essay I posted occurred the day before my mother passed in mid-March. I have been trying to find the angle and energy through which to write and I am beginning to suspect that it involves nothing more than simply being.

That day was quiet, and I took the time to write and reflect on a book I had read the night before. I might have stayed in my pajamas all day. I am in my pajamas today. It is raining. I have made an early afternoon coffee. It is hard to type these words.  

Today is the Buddha's birthday, or Hanamatsuri, and I attended the Zen Buddhist Temple in Chicago this morning, a practice I vowed to keep on Sundays once I returned to the city. That was two months ago. But I arrived at the temple wearing the old purple shirt Shannon had painted for me years before, Katie's running pants, a sports bra, no shoes, a new tattoo, and a slight disappointment at the loss of the zafus.

In those early moments of meditation, I wonder why I am there. Why I awoke so early to travel in the cold and the rain to sit in a room full of strangers, to quietly seek or to pray. After the second meditation sitting, after the chanting, after my mind twists and turns in its tangles into its high and dangerous places, the senior Buddhist begins the Dharma talk and wells at her own understanding of the importance of protection, of the importance of protecting what is cherished within us. The Buddha, the jewel, the being that is ours that stumbles and waffles and collapses and bears and gives and loves and nourishes and nurtures and needs.

What is not tradition on the Buddha's birthday is the recitation of a poem.

But the yellowed pages of an old book cracked open and I am grateful, relieved at what language I understand. The teacher read an excerpt from the poem I read in memory of my mother on the day of her funeral. 

Because I don't know what else to say, and because what we find profound sometimes has no words, except for the ones that sneak up on us, and follow us, and remind us how right we are no matter how wrong we would have liked to have been.

What I can't forget, what I forgive, and what I can give, for my mother, on the day before spring.

The Summer Day 

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?