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Forty Days #3 You shouldn’t do that

Posted by Aaron - 11/03/11 at 08:03:00 pm

I was working late one night and one of the page designers came by my desk to check his mail. This is common. My desk is in the far corner of the newsroom, near the office mailboxes. Every night, the latecomers, the sports writers, the copy editors, the page designers, come into the office and stop, briefly, at the mailboxes to check.

I’m new, still new. I’ve been at the paper a year and a month. And I’m not part of the clique. At least I don’t feel like it. When I was really new, during my first months, my first 10 months, probably, I went to the bars with the rest of the reporters, whole groups of us. The patrons of the bars new us collectively as the CitPat, the paper’s nickname, a name I was trying hard to avoid becoming the paper’s permanent moniker. Not that I like the Citizen Patriot, a product of a century-old merger, if my newspaper history serves me correctly, which it doesn’t, but the CitPat, I felt, was worse, new in that way that things were new in the 1990s and 10 years later everyone realized they were just bad ideas.

Like laser discs.

I go out with the CitPat much less now. It’s because I don’t like most the bars in this city.

This page designer, who stopped to check his mail that one night, he’s a newsroom legend. When someone says “Mark” everyone knows who they are talking about. I assume it’s the same way with “Aaron,” I just haven’t felt it yet.

When most people stop to check their mail, they don’t talk to me. I’ve learned not to look up from what I am doing. I did at the beginning. I looked up, thinking they were coming over to talk to me, and made eye contact. An awkward hello often followed. I learned, quickly, not to make eye contact. It has made for equally awkward silences the few times someone has come over to ask me a question. Usually just Brian, an editor who I work with rarely, and who I think will stand quietly near my desk forever as long as I look busy forever. I have played games, sort of like chicken or staring contests, where I see who breaks first. I knew Brian is there but kept working to see how long he would stay. We’re about even, if anyone is keeping score.

So Mark stopped by that night to check his mail. I was working late that night, and hard, because when I work late it is only because I am working hard. While he checked his mail, I took my glasses off, sighed and went back to work.

Mark wears glasses too.

“You know we’re not supposed to do that,” he said.

“Huh, what?” I was startled.

“Take our glasses off and stare at the screen.”

“Oh. It’s something I do,” I said.

“But has it ever helped? Has it ever made you feel better?”

“No. I guess not.”

“Yeah. We’re not supposed to do it.”

He walked away. I put my glasses back on.

At my first job, for a small newspaper in the middle of the desert of California, taking my glasses off was a cue to the rest of the newsroom. It meant I was stressed and to not bother me unless you were going to make my life easier, which was almost always never the case, or it was really important, which always seemed to be the case, no matter the issue. The technique, I will confess, failed to keep the badgers away.

I take my glasses off much less now, and if I do, I put them back on promptly, realizing that it is something we’re not supposed to do.

Forty Days #2 No Tourists in Munising

Posted by Aaron - 10/03/11 at 11:03:41 pm

When it’s spring and the sun thaws creak start running though the north again enough water to drink and the sun stays our long for a good day’s hike, that’s where I’ll be. When the weather’s turned the corner, and another corner, a straight shot then, north, one long highway that used to dead end into the rippling of lakes, two lakes, Great Lakes Huron and Michigan, now separated by a suspended suspension Mighty Mac Mackinaw Bridge, a border line that crossed the sea a straight shot high above the water until you make a sweeping left, now, in the Upper Peninsula, winding through two shack towns, hunting cafes.

No one is a tourist.

In Munising, there’s a restaurant on the docks on the bay where a man broadcasts a radio show, he could do it all day, from a booth behind the hostess stand. She’ll seat you because you waited because the sign said to, out of courtesy, even though the place is yours.

“The fish fry, on Fridays, is quite the event, get here early,” she tells a couple seated after you. The man might have said “Oh boy” and rubbed his hands together inches from a busting grin. He pledges to come back on Friday.

“Won’t we honey,” he says to his wife, who orders a cinnamon roll.

“Big as the plate,” the waitress says. “Would you like warmed up.” She does.

You’ve ordered eggs and toast and potatoes and have lots of coffee because you slept last night in your car under a street lamp in a rest stop about 30 miles outside of Munising. And sleep is generous because you realized why the other cars, mostly trucks, its mostly trucks 30 miles outside of Munising, why the other sleepy trucks parked far from the street lamps.

You parked near one for safety, you thought, entertaining wild notions of a homicidal mad man raging through the rest area with a taste for human blood, especially 27-year-old blood, disemboweling only those parked far from the street lamps sleeping peacefully in the dark. The street lamp saves you.

And you do not sleep peacefully. If a mad man, if any man, woman or child, for that matter, escaped from of those up north prisons, maybe not a child then, or just a man looking for a quarter, a ride, a pair of socks, a sip of water, a swath of flesh, were to ramble though the half-circle drive off the local highway 30 miles outside of Munising, you’d know right away. You could speed away because of the street lamp, because the street lamp kept you awake with its light and buzzing.

You raided your pack for a few t-shirts to wedge in windows rolled down and then up to catch the hem and hang like curtains, your dirty laundry. How far your car seat reclined surprised you and morning came quick. You washed up over the sink in the Lysol-smelling bathroom.

Munising was 30 miles away and the morning djs on the morning show on the morning radio station joked about the weather as the sun peaked east in the early September sky.

Forty Days #1 Bob Dylan fail

Posted by Aaron - 09/03/11 at 11:03:08 pm

In college, I started a tradition that did not catch on at all.

I’m not Catholic and never was good at giving things up, if even only for 40 days during Lent. Plus, all my friends who tried, and in college, it was friends who tried to give up drinking for 40 days, spent the usually three or four days of abstinence complaining and whining. It was, in part, to show off “Look at me, I’m not drinking for 40 days and you know how hard that is” and, in part, suffering, which is the point isn’t it.

Well, instead of giving up something for Lent, I added something. This, like I said, did not catch on, and I think the first thing I added that first Lent had lots to do with it. For that first Lent, I added to my life that when ever anyone mentioned spring break, I had to yell “Spring Break 200(whatever). Woohooo! Show us your titties.” After my friends learned this, spring break (Spring Break 200(whatever). Woohoo! Show us your titties.) became a frequent topic of conversation. Until it became annoying. And sadly, my resolution to add something to Lent lasted only about as long as those who gave up something for Lent.

But the suffering, the suffering under my yells of Spring Break!, it was universal. So, I won.

Now I’m bringing back the Lent addition tradition. For the next 40 days, I am going to write. And what I write, I’ll publish here.

Round 1 … Bob Dylan fail

For a moment I think of all that I’ve failed to become and that is Bob Dylan because Bob Dylan never sat in a carpeted studio apartment with matching furniture and a tiny bed. Bob Dylan had a big bed and that was his only furniture because that was the only furniture Bob Dylan needed because Bob Dylan fucked a lot. Nothing matched.

And Bob Dylan wouldn’t have a guitar with rusty strings, one broken, cased up in the corner like I do. Bob Dylan’s guitar would be out, lying across his coffee table or couch or bed, because that’s the only furniture he really needs, and he would tell his girl to mind the guitar while they fucked. He’d have extra strings too.

He had no use for carpet, or sweatpants, which he might not have even known about because why would Bob Dylan need to know about sweatpants. His bed had rumpled blankets, probably white, and red sheets. None of the bottles in Bob Dylan’s apartment had labels, because, well, fuck labels, and fuck sweatpants, because maybe he knew about sweatpants because it’s fucking Bob Dylan and who knows.

So, with sweatpants on, in a tiny bed, carpet floor with a guitar forever in its case and bottles with labels and no fucking, I’ve failed at being Bob Dylan. I had my bottles with labels lined neatly in my kitchen where clean dishes dried in the dish machine, and the recycling was divided into glass, plastic, aluminum, paper. Maybe I’ll start a garden in the spring.

I love recycling. Going to the long slugs of recycling dumpsters at the fire station near my apartment is like taking a walk in the woods, coming back fresh and refreshed with a new, superior even, glow. I know a secret — recycling — a secret to simple bliss.

******

“What’s the word for Bob Dylan?” she asks, the next night, looking up from the carpet in front of the coffee table where she fumbles with her phone.

“Musician?” the girl sitting next to me on the couch says. Always the basics, the most trusted answer, the simple and the correct, she is rarely wrong.

“Does fucking awesome count?” I say. I don’t know why. I wouldn’t consider Bob Dylan fucking awesome. Top 10, for sure, but not in the fucking awesome stratosphere. I probably say it because the night before, I wrote this stuff in my journal about how I failed at being Bob Dylan and all the ways Bob Dylan was not me or I was not him. How he would not be in my apartment with my things, ever. So maybe, to vindicate myself, the fucking awesome response was more that it is fucking awesome that we’re talking about Bob Dylan because I just wrote about him and now the reality in which I write is merging with the reality in which I live and then … BOOM … I’m a writer.

“No,” she on the carpet says. She’s drunk, has already thrown up in the bathroom. She comes back and continues to drink more. “It’s like wasting beer,” I say, as the other boys, her friends from college, on spring break, feed her more PBR. She is the intern. It’s a Monday night and her friends are down from a college and it’s spring break and I’m there.

I feel old. I am old. Twenty seven. I’m the oldest one there and the soberest and the best at quarters.

“No,” she says. “What’s that word for someone who you don’t know if they are a man or a woman?”

“Androgynous?” I say, hoping she doesn’t ask me how to spell it and hoping that’s not what she was asking in the first place.

“Yeah.”

“Androgynous is the word for Bob Dylan?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“No. You think Bob Dylan’s androgynous? He’s a guy.”

“Nope. He’s androgynous. Cate Blanchett played him in that movie.”

“And she was awesome,” chirps one of her college friends.

“She did. What was that movie called?” I ask.

“I’m Not Here,” one of them says. “It was awesome.”

“I didn’t like it,” I say. I really didn’t. I’m not just trying to be difficult. “But Blanchett was good. Sort of a reverse Shakespeare.”

I don’t know where this conversation went. The girl on the carpet never expounded on the androgyny of Bob Dylan. Maybe to her, and her friends, and people her age, Cate Blanchett’s performance makes Bob Dylan androgynous. Maybe that’s too bad.

But I don’t, then, feel too bad about failing at being Bob Dylan.

The blizzard

Posted by Aaron - 05/02/11 at 03:02:23 am

The night before the blizzard, I went to shopping.

I bought two cans of whole tomatoes, an economy size bottle of shampoo and a twin pack of deodorant.

“Stocking up for the blizzard?” the lady at the register asked me.

“At least I’ll be clean,” I said.

That was Monday night. The snow hadn’t started falling, but it was coming. Two feet, they said, high winds, ready to sock Michigan Tuesday night. The National Weather Service wasn’t fooling around. They started issuing warnings and advisories on Sunday.

I already had plans for chili.

The night before the blizzard, I chopped an onion, a green pepper and a few spicy peppers. I minced a few cloves of garlic. I opened the cans of tomatoes, drained them, and chopped them too. It all went into a crock-pot — one given to me by my parents, of course. On the stove simmered a pot of beans, kidney and pinto. They had been soaking for days.

I added a can of diced tomatoes, a can of Mexican tomato sauce and a can of Mexico jalapeño sauce. I’m not sure what the jalapeño sauce is, but it comes in a green can, is sort of a greenish red and balances the spice and smoky taste of the peppers nicely.

In the back of the freezer, I found a container of ground beef already browned. I dumped it into the crock-pot, still frozen, still in a square from the container. After all, a blizzard was coming.

The beans, soft but not mushy, went from the stove to the crock-pot. They covered the vegetables, the sauces, and the square of meat. The beans reached to the brim of the crock-pot. I shook in a healthy amount of chili powder, some salt and pepper, and it was done. Into the refrigerator it went.

The morning of the blizzard, the snow hadn’t started falling yet. There was no wind, either. The sky was blue. There was sun. Before work, I skied along the creek running through the park behind my apartment. My skis glided across the snow, settled and packed.

I took the chili out of the crock-pot, plug it in and set it to low. A whole day of cooking ought to do it, I figured. I left for work.

The day of the blizzard, the snow hadn’t started falling yet, but the weathermen said it would that evening. Schools were already closing for the next day.  Co-workers left early, to beat the storm home. I stayed, to monitor the storm, because that, that night, was my job.

The snow started falling around 5 p.m. It got worse around 6. By 8 p.m., it the blizzard was here.

I work with Nick. He called me once the blizzard started. His job, that night, was to drive around and photograph the storm. He had to find people suffering in its grasp. He couldn’t find anyone. The streets, as I had observed from my second-story window at an intersection downtown, were empty.

I told him about the chili. He told me about his whiskey. We decided after work to wait out the storm together, kept warm by whiskey and chili.

The phones went dead at work, but that, they told me later, had nothing to do with the blizzard. Still, it was sort of scary. No one was on the roads outside, which quickly became white. By 9 p.m., all the schools were closed for the next day. By 10 p.m., snowplows were rumbling down the city streets, a fruitless war.

I left work at 11 p.m. and drove to my apartment alone. The streets were empty. The snow was high and blowing. I couldn’t see much ahead of me, just snow whirling toward my windshield and disappearing when it hit. My car slipped and slid, but I wasn’t worried. I drove slow and figured anything I hit would be cushioned with a layer of snow.

I didn’t hit anything.

When I opened my apartment door, I could already smell the chili. It’s an unmistakable smell, but indescribable. It’s that “I’ve been cooking all day” smell. I changed, bundled up, grabbed the pot of chili and walked to Nick’s apartment. It’s not far. I wouldn’t normally drive there and couldn’t that night.

The chili was warm. The whiskey was warm. Nick and I sat on his couch, watching television. Outside, the storm blizzard did whatever the blizzard wanted.

When I lived in the California desert, I missed this. I missed the yearly battle against the elements Michiganders call winter. It makes us tougher. It brings us together. The winter weather keeps us inside and there, we find each other. We bundled up and gather around for a few months each year. Each spring, we emerge victorious, to birds and budding trees and the sun. Each spring, we emerge with the common bond that we had survived the winter.

Around 1 a.m., I got up from the couch and peered outside through two slats of the blinds. The outdoor lights of other apartments lit up flakes of snow as they swirled.

“No peeking,” Nick said.

Thoughts on Jackson Police Officer James Bonneau almost a year later

Posted by Aaron - 29/01/11 at 11:01:07 pm

As I think back about the days immediately following the shooting, one conversation sticks with me. I didn’t have it. It wasn’t an interview I conducted, but one I overheard.

Jackson Police Officer James Bonneau was shot and killed just after midnight on March 9, 2009. About mid-afternoon that day, a woman called the newspaper and wanted to talk to a reporter about Officer Bonneau. Danielle Salisbury took the call.

The single mom lived in a not-so-nice part of the city and called the police frequently. Noises scared her, worried her. She kept an eye out for suspicious people and activity and called when she didn’t feel safe. Bonneau worked the night shift in her area and often came to her house.

She said he was always nice to her, re-assuring. He listened to her concerns, would check around the house and promise to drive-by during the night to watch. He would, she said. She saw his car.

He made her feel safe, she said. And now he was gone. She wanted to tell someone that.

I don’t know the exact conversation Danielle and the woman had. I don’t know her name. I don’t remember if she ended up in a story. I can’t know exactly why she called, but I can guess.

Many people after Bonneau was killed felt something. Few people knew him as a police officer and even fewer knew him as Jim. But many people felt something. I did. And many people did not know what or why.

I suspect she was hurting. She felt this inexplicable loss, a loss that perhaps her family, her neighbors, they wouldn’t understand. She didn’t know Bonneau, but his death hurt. She wanted to tell someone she hurt. She wanted to tell someone why, her story, how she knew him, how much she liked, appreciated and will miss him. She wanted to tell someone that she was not OK with his death.

I think a lot of us wanted to tell someone that.

She wanted someone to listen, someone to understand. She wanted to talk to someone. She picked up her phone and called the newspaper.

Beer selection

Posted by Aaron - 29/01/11 at 11:01:01 pm

“What kind of beer do you want?” Aaron asked.

They walked into the beer cooler at the food store in Petoskey. Marcus slowly spun around, looking at the pallets of beer arranged in cardboard boxes. It was unimpressive.

“Well,” Marcus said, still turning, “That’s always a lengthy process.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Aaron protested.

They — the five of them, Aaron, Katie, Marcus, Gina and Dylan — had already spent too much time inside the food store looking for a lunch and dinner to make inside a hotel room with only a coffee pot to heat water, a microwave and mini refrigerator.

Sandwiches for lunch, roast beef, pretzels, salad with Caesar dressing, they decided. Gina and Dylan already had mustard, no need to buy that. Dinner, quesadillas, made in the hotel microwave, another decision was made. With chicken, a rotisserie chicken, someone suggested.  Aaron added a bag of rice cookable in the bag in the microwave. Gina and Dylan grabbed a zucchini, a squash and a red pepper, also a jar of salsa. Tortillas and cheese later, and dinner was in the cart.

Do we have enough plates? No, Gina and Dylan said. They actually did. We should have raided the continental breakfast for plates and plastic silverware, Aaron said. They got plates.

“And booze?” Aaron asked. Wine for dinner, a white, beer for later, they decided.

Back inside the beer cooler, “It doesn’t have to be,” Aaron said.

“But I don’t like hops,” Marcus said, standing near a corner where six-packs cost $10.

“OK, I want something cheap.”

“Do you like Killians of LaBatt?” Marcus was moving closer to where Aaron stood, reasonable beer.

“I love LaBatt,” Aaron bent toward the cases of LaBatt. “Cans or bottles? Should we get this 15-pack?”

He reached for the big cardboard box before he even asked and did not listen to the response. Decision made.

They walked out of the cooler and stood looking at the wine.

What’s your favorite color?

Posted by Aaron - 22/01/11 at 06:01:45 am

“What’s your favorite color?” Nick asked.

Aaron started, “I was talking to my mom the other night, complaining about Jackson.”

“I don’t get you guys and complaining about Jackson,” Nick interrupted. “Unless you grew up in some great city, what is wrong…”

It was Aaron’s turn to interrupt. “I’ve narrowed my complaints to two,” he said. “There is no 24-hour coffee shop and no home delivery of the New York Times.”

“That’s simple,” Nick shot back. “Buy a coffee pot and go out and buy your papers.”

Aaron started to protest the response as the two walked into the food store. Flour, milk and something else, they needed.

“What’s your favorite color?” Nick asked again as they stood in line at the checkout.

Aaron scanned the store to see if a color caught his eye. Nothing.

“Definitely not blue,” he said. “I’m sick of blue. Perhaps that color.”

He pointed to a shade of brown or green, he couldn’t be sure, on a sign in the store.

“Band aids,” Nick said. “Where are the band aids.”

He had forgotten band-aids.

“I know where they are,” Nick said.

He left Aaron to stand in line with the basket and went in search of band-aids. One man in front of Aaron had three bags of oranges and two cases of Mountain Dew in his cart. Nothing else. Aaron wondered. He looked at his own cart. Flour. Milk. Granola. His eyes glanced over the headlines of the checkout aisle magazines. Breakups. Celebs getting fat. Lesbians.

Nick returned just as Aaron walked up to one of the checkout stations. He handed the basket to Nick who started scanning the items.

“I was hoping we’d get this one,” Aaron said, grabbing a magazine from the rack. “I wanted to know how he broke her heart.”

A photo of Taylor Swift was one the cover in the lower right corner. Above the photo, the headline, “How he broke her heart.” Aaron’s dad hates Taylor Swift. He saw her once on television and just said, “She’s terrible,” before changing the channel. George H.W. Bush, the older one, Bush I, doesn’t mind Taylor Swift. In an interview with Esquire he called her “an unspoiled girl.”

In that same issue of Esquire, director Aaron Sorkin said you are allowed on “fuck” in a PG-13 movie. Unfair, he claimed. “Not all fucks are the same.”

Nick had trouble scanning in the items. He cursed. A lady came to help. She entered codes on a touch screen with robotic enthusiasm. Nick’s card wouldn’t swipe. He cursed. A lady came to help. She entered codes on a touch screen with robotic enthusiasm. By the exit door, a teenage male employee of the store was talking to a teenage female employee. She had long hair, dark blonde, in a ponytail that sat calmly on the back of her blue uniform face. She had a cold but refreshing. He liked her.

Aaron and Nick left the store. Aaron doesn’t know Nick’s favorite color. He’s never asked.

Dinner along Lake Superior

Posted by Aaron - 30/09/10 at 02:09:48 am

I cooked dinner as the sun set into the Lake Superior shore. And as the stars came out, I made my tea perched on a flat rock. The waves crashed below. The last rays of sunlight faded west.

“It is still daylight in Canada,” I said, looking north. Dim, narrow bands of light glowed; wildfires stretched along the horizon.

“Is that Canada, those lights?” I thought.

My tea cooled slowly. I waited, taking small sips, burning my tongue at first.

I waited. It was warmer tonight than last, and clearer. There are so many stars. I lay back — my back against the rock — and looked up at the stars.

I listed all that I had seen that day: a snake, a frog, two freighters, a park ranger with a gun. I found a quarter dropped on the trail.

And now all these stars, there were more than I was used to.

I sat up and tried my tea, still too hot. I held it between my hands and dangled my feet over the ledge. The water faded from a deep blue to empty black, matching the sky. I looked at nothing. The bands of fire had fizzled.

“Maybe that wasn’t Canada,” I thought.

The shoreline’s details became finer as my eyes adjusted to the darkness: the dollhouse-size steps cut into the cliff’s sandstone face, blackened by algae or fungus or sediment, the outline of a stranded log pushed by waves onto the beach, footprints left in the sand.

“If I could stay out here long enough, I would not need this light in my pocket,” I thought.

“I’d be like a wolf,” I said, out loud.

Or like a deer, or cat. How do animals see at night? What do they see? Do they see?

More stars now, but I don’t know who they are. I look to the southwest and see what could be a galaxy — the Milky Way — or a cloud, illuminated by starlight. I want to know so much: constellations and what they mean, the names of plants and trees.

What kind of snake was it I saw today? Where were the freighters going? Where is that blinking star above me, with wings, flying, and who is onboard?

I wish I knew about rocks. I saw an opaque one that looked brand new and a grey stone that looked old.

And fish, how to catch, clean and cook them? Does Lake Superior have tides? Where is the moon tonight? How far north does the North Star still work?

I wish I knew about rip currents. If I knew more about rip currents, I might not be so afraid of them, and I would have swam longer today in the crisp water. It felt so clean.

I took a big gulp of tea. It felt like I spilled something warm down the front of my shirt.

Elections concerns … which might not be real

Posted by Aaron - 06/08/10 at 08:08:41 pm

I voted on Tuesday and did a pretty good job of it.

While I won’t disclose who I voted for, I will say that no one I picked won. I’m like the political kiss of death. Sorry.

But I did get confused. After successfully navigating the ballot (it’s a primary so you can’t cross the center line and vote for both parties LAME), I couldn’t navigate my way out of the polling place. I walked right out the entrance and didn’t know until I saw the big signs — “Enter Only,” and “Exit Only” — in the parking lot.

Concerned, I did what anyone would do and wrote an email to the local reporter covering the elections.

Dear Holly, (she covered the elections)

After voting today, I accidentally exited the polling place through the entrance door. It wasn’t until after I was outside that I saw the big signs that said “Enter Only” and “Exit Only.” There were no signs inside, and I was very confused.

Will my vote still count? I hope so.

I think the confusing signs are a ploy by Obama or those Tea Party people to take away my right to vote for my favorite American Idol singer.

Signed,
Concerned/confused voter

She wrote me back.

Dear Concerned Voter,

According to city Clerk Lynn Fessel, your vote will still count despite the mishap. Signs were posted to prevent congestion at poll entrance and exits and were intended to smooth the flow of pedestrian traffic at precincts, given the tremendous voter turnout that is expected in this important election.

You are welcome to vote for your favorite American Idol contestant in the write-in portion on the ballot. However it is likely that person does not live in the applicable state House, Senate or Congressional district, so they could not take office (or become the next American Idol, which has a completely different voting structure).

Thinking all that was pretty funny, I came up with a few more, but didn’t send these to Holly. She was pretty busy with the real election stuff.

Dear Holly,

I was surprised to walk into my polling place and not have Simon, Randy and Paula (OK, Ellen, but I don’t listen to a word she says, love ya Paula) tell me what they thought of the candidates. How am I supposed to vote for the best one?

Signed,

♥♥

P.S. I couldn’t find numbers to text my vote to anywhere on the ballot. WTF?

Dear Holly,

I went to the polls wearing my Barack Obama T-shirt, the one with the really cool red, white and blue themed photo of him, the famous one. However, I did not see Obama’s name on the ballot. Voting for him is so much fun. Why can’t I vote for him every year?

Signed,

First time voter in 2008

Dear Holly,

I don’t see politics (or anything really) as a matter of black and white, so I brought a box of crayons to the polls today. I filled the bubbles next to the candidates’ names using a color code, like black for “I don’t like you,” and pink for “I really like you” and all the colors in between for “I kind of like you.” Around some bubbles I drew a heart or star to show that I really like them. For some candidates I took out my scissors and cut their names right off the ballot. We won’t go into why.

This way, I feel my true vote was cast. Will it count?

Signed,

Local elementary school art teacher

Dear Holly,
I voted today, and like I do every year, I voted for myself. Yup, I wrote myself in for every race on the ballot. And like every year, I except to finish with just one vote in each race (except for the county commission. Dave, I owe you, thanks for the vote.) And like every year, I expect to be shunned by the local paper. I spent $3 on my campaign (don’t worry about it Dave, the beer was on me), and it didn’t even buy me an article, photo or phone call. I expect, once again, that my name will not be included in tomorrow’s election results.
You call this democracy?
Signed,
The guy who also writes lots of letters to the editor

Enjoy.

On a Williams Carlos Williams kick

Posted by Aaron - 31/07/10 at 07:07:16 pm

A few days ago, I stumbled across this piece on McSweeny’s.

This is Just to Say
That I’m Tired
of Sharing an
Apartment With
William Carlos Williams.
By Laura Jayne Martin

Will, you are a dick. You’re goddamn right I was saving those plums for breakfast.

Fine, it’s not like they’re my favorite food in the world, but I mean, they’re a seasonal fruit, you scumbag. Buy your own food for a change. All you do is sit around the house all day writing about red wheelbarrows and junk…
read more

I had a good chuckle (I really think I did chuckle, not laugh) while reading it, imagining, in part, what it would be like to share an apartment with such an eccentric.

It got me thinking back to some of my favorite William Carlos Williams poems. None of these should come as a surprise; they are probably among his most famous, but that’s just because they are so good.

I’m going to share them (ps the great thing about WCW’s poems, most of them are short, except Paterson, which is six books long). Not sure if this is legal or not, but if some bloggers can get away with posting mp3s, I’m sure a little poetry won’t throw anyone into a tizzy.

The first, of course, is The Red Wheelbarrow.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Why so much depends upon a wheelbarrow or what it is doing beside the white chickens, I’ll never know. I did, though, come close to understanding the poem my senior year of high school. For a poetry a project, I picked Williams and The Red Wheelbarrow (I think my first choice was Bob Dylan and one of his songs but Ms. Kigar quickly put a stop to that). Somehow, I put together probably 10 pages or so about this 16-word poem. Not bad, eh?

Next is The Great Figure. This poem has tremendous potential energy (look at that, getting all sciency). It just builds and builds throughout and then rumbles away.

The Great Figure

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.

And finally … This is Just to Say. I don’t even like plums.

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

All of these poems were copied from Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams, which I own, but left at my parents house, so I used the library’s copy.

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