Some long dream this morning. My sculpture teacher Jake Grossberg once said, apropos of Jonathan Borofsky’s work: “Everyone’s dreams are equally interesting, which means they’re equally boring.” I’m tempted to write out my dreams here when I remember them, and a friend from college publishes a dream gazette, which is a great project, but when it comes down to reading other people’s dreams here on LJ it’s rare that I make it all the way through. The thing that unnerves and thrills us about dreams is their tone more than their events, and tone is precisely the thing that remain so elusive in writing.
Today also marks the beginning of a new experiment: poetry on the iPhone. In the same way that I have a hard time reading people’s dreams, I also have a hard time reading poetry. It makes me squirm to say this, since not only am I friend to several poets, but I fancy myself a cultured guy. There are any number of times that I go through a phase of buying poetry books, reading a few and then dropping them back on the shelf for a couple of years. I do love hearing poets read however, and on Sunday I had a conversation with Dominick about his recent discovery of audio books (something else I’ve been resistant to for years). Yesterday it occurred to me that there may well be quite a few sources for read poetry online. As of now, I’m just going with some podcasts I’ve found on iTunes, but I’m interested in expanding out from that – so if you know of an interesting source, feel free to suggest. This morning I listened to Elliot’s “Prufrock” some John Donne, and Christina Rosetti’s “Echo” which begins: “Come to me in the silence of the night; Come in the speaking silence of a dream;”. A poem about seeing one’s dead lover in a dream. Something I’ve had happen quite a few times. One interesting thing about poetry on the phone on the subway: it means that I can’t listen to something and read something like I often do. A good thing all in all.
What with the dreaming and the poetry, I rushed out of the house today neglecting to reinsert one of my sd cards into my camera, meaning that the pictures from last night’s office party remain unprocessed, and I need to pick up another card if I want to take pictures today. Better go do that.
