In the face of an obstacle which it is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid. If I persist in beating my fist against a stone wall, my freedom exhausts itself in this useless gesture without succeeding in giving itself a content. It debases itself in a vain contingency. Yet, there is hardly a sadder virtue than resignation. It transforms into phantoms and contingent reveries projects which had at the beginning been set up as will and freedom. A young man had hoped for a happy or useful of glorious life. If the man he has become looks upon these miscarried attempts of his adolescence with disillusioned indifference, there they are, forever frozen in the dead past. When an effort fails, one declares bitterly that he has lost time and wasted his powers. The failure condemns that whole part of ourselves which we had engaged in the effort. It was to escape this dilemma that the Stoics preached indifference. We could indeed assert our freedom against all constraint if we agreed to renounce the particularity of our projects. If a door refuses to open, let us accept not opening it and there we are free. But by doing that, one manages only to save an abstract notion of freedom. It is emptied of all content and all truth. The power of man ceases to be limited because it is annulled. It is the particularity of the project which determines the limitation of the power, but it is also what gives the project its content and permits it to be set up. There are people who are filled with such horror at the idea of a defeat that they keep themselves from ever doing anything. But no one would dream of considering this gloomy passivity as the triumph of freedom.

- Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

Reading philosophy is a skill I have yet to develop. I've read about a third of de Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity and really have no idea what she's getting at. I'm reading through a thick haze with sudden passages, like the above, bursting into clarity.

Caught the new Joe Strummer documentary last night. Maybe it was the wine I drank prior, or my semi-traumatized emotional state going in, but I walked out of that movie wondering how I got so distracted, so complacent, so bloated and ineffectual. I want to trim fat, I want to walk away clean, keep walking, keep writing, forget success and failure, forget status, forget reception.
I want to be productively angry.
I want to wear army boots again. Why the hell did I stop wearing army boots?

Overwhelmed by fonts.

Anxiety: too many projects, too little resolution, too many self-imposed deadlines, too many books on the go, too many lists, too many possibilities, too little focus, too much coffee, way too much chocolate.

Very taken with Rita Wong's forage lately. It's an incredibly full book, confronting so many different issues and taking on so much complexity. I thought a useful way to start summing up why I like this book so much might be to list in general terms the subject of some of the different poems. The list soon spiraled out of control, and I was just skimming the surface of her poetry: genetic engineering, US patents of wheat, seeds, grains, transgenic pigs, laundry toxins, chinese launderers, native american naming, chinese remedies, war, resistance, discarded computer toxins, oil, economy, smog, body toxins, prisons, wealth, weaponry, chinese language, capitalism, consumerism, endangered species, food, powell street, pride, connection.

It's a serious book, but also ironic ("disaffect, reinfect me.") and playful. Many pages have quotations in hand-written script scrolling along the sides, or Chinese characters nestled among the poems. The visual effect is one of having access into an author's notebook, where ideas and observations ferment among foraged materials. It's a subtle balance of political and personal, an organic panoply of affront at the myriad outrages committed on, by, and for us. Which us? Many us-es. It's a complex text, sensitive to the constantly shifting power imbalances that configure status in the hyper-capitalized, post-colonial, globalized world.

One of my favorite poems in forage:

canola queasy

vulture capital hovers over dinner tables, covers hospitals a sorrowful shade of canola, what gradient decline in the stuck market, what terminal severity in that twenty-year monopoly culled the patent regime, its refrain of greed, false prophets hawk oily platitudes in rapacity as they engineer despair in those brilliant but foolish yellow genetically stacked prairie crops. how to converse with the willfully profitable stuck in their monetary monologue? head-on collisions create more energy but who gets obliterated? despite misgivings i blurt, don't shoot the messy angels with your cell-arranging blasts, don't document their properties in order to pimp them, the time for business-as-usual died with the first colonial casualty. reclaim the long now. hey bloated monstrosity: transcribe your ethics first or your protein mass shall turn protean mess and be auctioned off in the stacked market and so you can reap endless cussed stunts.

- Rita Wong

I've been working on a couple of different "poetic statements" for the past few weeks, a form I'm not very familiar with. I seem to be going through some kind of academic backlash phase where I don't want to write about theory at all. I'm trying to make really honest statements about what I think about poetry without reference to academic jargon, and I'm finding it fairly difficult. Sometimes I think I've written interesting and complex observations, other times I think I'm just stating the obvious. The worst is when my attempts to state things honestly devolve into confessional, emotive psychobabbling. It's really disturbing how closely my concept of my poetics is linked to my concept of self. I'm not sure if that's a strength, in terms of writing, or if it's simply an inability to transcend the familiarity of the lyric. I think it's useful to put some effort into examining all this, why I write, what I expect from writing, etc. But there is an element of avoidance in it: I haven't actually written any poetry in quite some time. Oh well, stringing words together in some fashion is never really a waste of time, right?

I'm so upset that McNally Robinson is closing its Calgary location. Sure, it's a blow to the literary scene, since it's one less free, convenient, and most importantly, licensed location for readings. But even worse, it'll cause a major reduction to my quality of life. I live downtown, in a city of a million people. I should have easy access to all kinds of culture. But sadly, no, there are no other bookstores in downtown Calgary. Not even a Chapters. Oh yeah, I guess there's a Coles, but it's one of those sad, off-putting mall bookstores. And anyway I don't like to spend my money at the Indigo-Chapters-Coles empire.

Walking to McNally's, browsing their poetry section, their magazines, their prairie writers section, their sale section, maybe having lunch or a coffee, hitting a couple of clothes stores on the way home - this is one of the most satisfying ways I can think of to spend my time. I guess I could walk across the river to Pages on Kensington. I was there this afternoon, and I noticed they have a pretty impressive poetry section lately (they stock my book). But it's a much smaller store, and they don't sell remaindered books at superlow prices like McNally's and big box bookstores. I can't buy books (other than poetry books) for retail! That's absurd. Just last week, at McNally's, I bought a J.M. Coetzee novel and a University of Oxford Press book on Athenian democracy, each for under five dollars. How could I possibly make such random purchases at retail prices?

I was at Higher Ground earlier this afternoon, writing, and I noticed some lanky slacker type guy reading the same book on Athenian democracy I've been reading, which he clearly also bought at McNally's. In a city without an independent outlet-style bookstore, where are the kind of people who sit around coffeeshops all afternoon reading for fun and self-improvement supposed to acquire their reading materials? Damn you, McNally Robinson, the forces for good in this city are so few, how can you abandon us?

The KSW has recently updated its archive of audio recordings. Here's Juliana Spahr reading from a text that later became The Transformation.

Two of my favorite quotations. I remember finding these somewhere in my meanderings on the internet when I worked an agonizingly pointless job and spent most of my work days reading online. This was before Facebook so my use of the internet was actually pretty productive; I would read lots of articles, essays, opinions, poetry. I was trying to learn as much as possible to counteract the mind-numbing effects of my job.

The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's labor by force. It it immaterial whether this force be founded on ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live. - Tolstoy

All paid employments absorb and degrade the mind. - Aristotle

There's been an uncharacteristic lull in literary activity in Calgary for the past month or so. I think the last reading I went to was at the beginning of February. Looks like things are picking up a bit next week, and even more in April, thankfully. I hate not having readings to go to.

It is in the continual and violent refreshing of the idea that love and good writing have their security.

- William Carlos Williams

Neologism is an erotic act.

- Roland Barthes

Wow. David Bowie covering the Pixies. Apparently he performed this song when he came to Calgary in 2004, but I don't remember it. I do remember that the concert was incredible. He's amazing. I also saw the Pixies (in Saskatoon! in some kind of agricultural fair building!) and they were horrible performers. I mean they sounded great, but they were so uncharismatic. They didn't even look at the audience, they didn't even seem to want to be there. The bass player in this video also played with Bowie in Calgary and she was unbelievably good. She actually kind of upstaged him.

Lovely. Why do you believe in poetry?

Why do I believe in poetry? Solipsistic reasons, I'm afraid. I use I too much, anyway. The mark of self-absorption (awkward word: it sounds like the self is a sponge absorbing itself. self-absorbed-ness isn't much better. the state of being self-absorbed). I believe in poetry because I feel like it's the only way I can communicate. I'm obsessed with the way words work in my head. I'm obsessed with the feel of language in my mouth. I'm obsessed with the rhythm of my speech. I'm obsessed with myself.

Then again, reading and writing poetry is a good way to meet people. I believe in that part too.

As disturbing as the low voter turnout (around 40%) in yesterday’s provincial election is, I don’t think that’s the most disturbing aspect of the ridiculous political process in this ridiculous province. There’s no reason to think that the people who stayed away from the polls would have voted against the Conservatives; maybe they would have voted Conservative but realized the Conservatives could easily sweep the election without their votes. So there’s no point in bemoaning lost opportunities for change due to voter apathy. All voter apathy shows is how many people here (and across Canada, also in the US) take the power to vote for granted. I’ve never (until yesterday)* voted for a winning candidate, in any election at any level of government. But I don’t find that discouraging. The point has never been to vote to win, the point is to vote out of an appreciation of and respect for the democratic process. You live under a form of government that recognizes your voice: use it, for Christ’s sake! Less than a hundred years ago, I wouldn’t have been allowed to vote; how could I possibly not vote now? Even as I write this, of course, I recognize my idealism. I don’t actually have any respect for contemporary democratic process, any of the political parties, the political party system, campaigning, rhetoric, spin. I sometimes respect some of the candidates, but rarely the ones who get an opportunity to effect anything.

The most disturbing aspect of the electoral process is how many seats the winning party can take with a disproportionate percentage of the popular vote. The Conservatives won 72 of 83 seats across the province with only 53% of the votes. How is that possible? It shouldn’t be. The Liberals, with 26% of the votes, ended up with only 8 seats. Why should the Wildrose Alliance, with 7% of the vote, take no seats, while the NDP has 2 seats with 9%? I think it’s awesome that the Wildrose Alliance lost its seat, but it’s not really fair. Here’s how the legislature should look, if seats were allocated according to the proportion of voters who support each party**:

Conservatives 44
Liberal 22
Wildrose 6
NDP 5
Green Party 4
Other 2

Granted, the Conservatives would still hold sway, but at least other perspectives would have more of a presence.

There are alternatives to the first-past-the-post system. They been the subject of referenda in BC, PEI, and Ontario, but so far they’ve failed. Maybe partly because the various systems of proportional representation are so complicated, and maybe flawed. But I still think any system of proportional representation has to be better than our current blunt, simplistic method of determining who represents us. The federal NDP is a proponent of proportional representation, largely because it would give them significantly more power in Parliament. I don’t know whether the Alberta NDP party supports proportional representation, but even if it did, it would be an uphill battle trying to get the issue on the table. The Progressive Conservatives would never support proportional representation, at least not while the first-past-the-post system guarantees them landslide victories, and as long as the Conservatives don’t recognize the issue, neither will most Albertans, sadly.

* I voted for the successful Liberal candidate, Kent Hehr, because he seems like the most intelligent and reasonable choice, also because I figured he might actually win. I’m so glad to live in a Calgary riding with a non-Conservative MLA, but I feel a bit queasy about voting Liberal. Oh well.

** I’m curious about the 96 people who voted for the Communist party of Alberta, and the 51 people who voted for the Alberta Party (whatever that is).

Not sure what to make of this email:

Hello,

My name is Thomas Labelle and I am the Career Advisor for the faculty of Humanities here at the University of Calgary. This year our office (Career Services) is hosting a career Panel night destined to provide some insights and career tips from alumni (like yourself) to our current students. Designed to be an "Informal and informative" session, ideally panelists would be happy to share how they have used their humanities degree effectively in the world of work.

If you are interested please contact via email
The panel will be held at 5pm , March 11 (on campus), beverages and food will be supplied

Thank you for your time,
Thomas

They only seem to have my email address because I registered with the U of C job search site and have been checking it regularly, which would suggest that I haven't actually managed to use my humanities degree effectively in the "world of work." I wasn't aware that's what a humanities degree is for. In fact, in certain worlds of work, I've found it be more of a liability than anything else: sometimes people think you're odd, indolent, perverse, subversive, "uppity", judgmental, whatever, if you're too edumacated. Serves me right for working in Alberta, I guess.

Oh shit, I have to vote today! Almost forgot about that....

There’s no writer worth her salt who needs any help with self-destruction. (via Silliman's blog)

In the morning, I listened to the icy low of cows. The sunlight flickering off the frost like a whiteness, a white eyelet sheet over the mountains, over the window, over the bedroom. A thousand eyes peeping through. A thousand spies shivering, recording.

...

For every romantic gesture, a counter gesture. The wisteria shying from and needing the sun. Dependant too on latticing, old bark, fencing, things on which to cling.

- Jenny Boully, [one love affair]*

I'd like to be in Vancouver these days: upcoming readings by Rita Wong, Jason Christie, Wayde Compton, also David Chariandy, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Wayson Choy, Anne Simpson, not to mention recent readings by Maxine Gadd, Colin Browne, Kim Minkus... I have lit scene envy...