This made my Thursday morning. My enjoyment of O'Hara is relatively consistent, but when you add Drake it’s love all over again.
(via cassandragillig)
More you might like
Stethoscope on Glass
Just for clarity’s sake and
to avoid confusion: I’m
only looking for friendship
at the moment
I think you’re a really cool
guy. Super smart.
Interesting. And really
funny. I’ve enjoyed
spending time with you
too, but I’m not interested
in a relationship beyond
friends.
Well I think you’re super-
smart interesting and all of
those good things. I’d
definitely enjoy hanging
out again, but I’m not sure
that I felt that romantic-
datey spark…. I guess I
always try to be upfront
about my feelings in this
way because otherwise
feelings get hurt later on.
But I’m always in the
market for great new
friends in this city
And you qualify.
I had a good time with you,
but I think we’re not a
good match.
Regarding dinner, I
appreciate the offer but,
after much though, I must
decline. I very much
enjoyed the time we spent
together and getting to
know you, but I feel that I
must pursue a different
path right now. You are a
lovely guy and I wish you
all the best. I’m sorry.
Phone died as I was
walking home, sorry. I had
a great time with you as
well and feel we have a lot
in common. I guess I
wasn’t feeling things
romantically,
however, as trite as that
sounds. I hope to keep in
touch, though, as I really
do enjoy your company
and conversation
Sorry I’ve been
flakey since our date.
Wasn’t a matter of not being
interested. You’re
handsome and I enjoyed
your company. I just
don’t wanna make
someone a rebound like I
was. Although I prolly should
have realized that earlier.
Sorry for that.
A part of me is still madly
in love with you.
Real Estate
Unexpected visits and closed chapters peer from empty corners,
Parsing out “nots” and “can’ts” as we date
Translucent boxes folding into opacity:
The ninth of June
The twenty-third of May
The first of April
Starting a fool’s charade with no exit strategy,
Just setting the way to begin is a big bright spot–
But we are a half-finished book named Aeneas,
Fallen heroes, checking
the listings for
God’s promised home.
Heading to bed reading (A Resident In Love)
Mickey-Mouse ticks 11:26 on the wall
and the dog-eared page rips on its turn
Frank and Allen
I pretend to be an O’Hara, or maybe a Ginsburg, on most mornings. The grace of various living is like a prayer hastily uttered in the dark before sleep—of course, the one time Jesus listens.
Someday I want you to call me friend, love, for I have gone native in spite of our runs. After handing out flowers to girls on the metro and sharing secrets in digital spaces on Mass, I count pennies for a flight to the Middle, to meet you halfway in your own time and town.
Tradition has resisted questions of fragile duty and the fall of your voice–sighing, important–cracks the blow willow flowering your smiles. And still, I bell-stamp envelopes ringing with new words about old heartaches, marking the tune being fracked from the dusty sediment on the violin across the alleyway in hopes that it will be our first dance.
Sonnet LXXXIII Remix
Wagon
I’ve fallen off the most socially appropriate option:
A once-willing drinker–one, two, a few.
Saturdays of glass, an un-checkered stalemate, is nothing like
discovering your unconscious mind is staging a silent revolt.
You learn how fast two people are a multicar pileup on the lookout for changelessness.
I swear that we’re not born until we note our place with bookmarkers.
That measure we’ve shared, and the ticket seats are
numbered in otters, Duke Ellington, and convocation credits.
Head races, slow hand. Ears roar, tongue quiets.
I swear that I am made of comparative normalcy, of the things you need to pack.
Trust me, Mr. Benjamin, you are pretty much a hit
–my first attempt–
but the way you choose to look at me soothes unsettlingly.
So I could run strange figures in the planbook,
driving to the heat back in California, but there’s not actually a city named Paradise.
The blood lets greyer now, though the bow tie stands forth.
After all, a soothsayer bids I still fit into that old profile.
[Learn more about Out of Sequence: The Sonnets Remixed here.]
We have released over a million images onto Flickr Commons for anyone to use, remix and repurpose. These images were taken from the pages of 17th, 18th and 19th century books digitised by Microsoft who then generously gifted the scanned images to us, allowing us to release them back into…
The British Library has just released over a million images into the public domain. In a candid conversation about their limited knowledge of many of these images, they plan to launch a crowdsourcing application at the beginning of next year, to help describe what the images portray.
“Our intention is to use this data to train automated classifiers that will run against the whole of the content. The data from this will be as openly licensed as is sensible (given the nature of crowdsourcing) and the code, as always, will be under an open licence.”
This is a very cool project, and one that importantly creates a structure not only for future academic work, but also art and culture projects as the British Library calls users to “use, remix, and repurpose.”
Yesterday an interesting op-ed (entitled “Thesis Hatement"–tell me how you really feel?) on the realities of the changing job market in academia was published on Slate. Knowing highly successful job candidates and then some not-so-successful ones over the past couple years who have described their end-of-dissertation and job-application experiences, I think that the writer accurately discusses the highly competitive (and occasionally cut-throat) process of higher-education interviews and appointments.
For me, this article points to wider issues about university hiring—though I wonder how accurate her forecast of the next 10-15 years really is, particularly with respect to the idea of "tenure lines” dying. Within my own (comparatively limited) circle of academic friends, I know three who have recently secured tenure track positions either vacated by retiring professors or added to growing humanities departments. Perhaps this is a random fluke? Maybe I just have a blessed circle of friends? I know an equal number of persons taking visiting professorships or adjunct positions; one number does not seem disproportionate to the other. I suspect that many departments will see an overhaul over that time as the ‘baby boomer’ generation begins to retire, but schools and departments will always look to secure consistency and an intellectual life that is desirable to students.
I’m glad that there is a candid conversation around academia happening, but Schuman’s essay does smack a bit with resentment. Her experience on the job market is why I am taking so much time and consideration as to where I should study next.
Deola Thinking
Some art stays with you. It manages to that find small piece of your heart in perfect accord with your head and takes hold.
While the work—whether it be music, a painting, a poem, a play—is a revelation in your first confrontation, it somehow, strangely feels like something you have read and returned to hundreds of times already. It challenges you, speaking to your aesthetic as a thinker, as an artist, as a student, as a human. It comes to your mind as you fall asleep and escapes your lips when you wake, tirelessly re-emerging as innovation with each new encounter.
It’s not necessarily what you love, find to be avant-garde, or even ‘important.’ This is the work you find necessary. Educational. The work that tells you just as much about yourself as it does anything about the writer, the subject, or the form.
Stare sola, se vuole, al mattino, e sedersi al caffè. Non cercare nessuno.
21 December 2012
Good thing the world actually didn’t end, because otherwise I spent my last evening on earth eating a yoplait light with fruit and falling asleep early while reading a play.
I get a redo. I’ll try not to squander the next one with my lameness.