bike: 35 minutes
basement
outside temp: 34 degrees
It would be wonderful to be outside running, but my lower back is still a bit sore and I’m trying to be careful. Ugh — it’s hard to be disciplined, to not do something you want to because you know you shouldn’t. Oh well, the bike felt good. And I was able to watch more of Fame. And my back doesn’t hurt. And my legs feel good.
Anything in particular I remember from Fame? Mrs. Sherwood was being terrible to Leroy again — very old school in her efforts to be tough. Lisa, the dancer who never tries, was finally kicked out and almost jumped in front of a train in despair. At the last minute she stopped herself and said, Fuck it. If I can’t dance, I’ll change to the drama department. Another character’s response (Irene Cara): I tell you, you’re a fucking good actress. Bruno’s dad parked his cab and blasted Bruno’s music — the theme song. All the students poured out of the school and danced in the street, on the sidewalk, on the top of a cab. Bruno’s dad yelled out, This is my son’s music! Bruno Martelli!
A theme for their sophomore year: time to grow up and be honest with yourself and others. Dig deep, turn inward, expose your truths to others:
Last year we worked on simple observation. This year we’re going to turn that observation inward — work on recreating emotional states: fear, joy, sorrow, anger. And it will be more difficult, because you have to expose more of you, what’s on the inside of you.
Fame, sophomore year acting class (1980)
Yesterday I described the teacher’s description of freshman year acting class: to study your own mechanicalness. Then I thought about it in relation to running:
I could also imagine using this exercise while running or walking as a way to achieve “extreme presence” (from CAConrad). Focusing on breathing or the lifting of the foot or the swinging of the arms, etc.
While scrolling through instagram a few minutes ago, I found some running advice that fits with this. Focus on the elbow and think up up up as you run.
OR
Also yesterday I wrote about the poem “And” and an exercise inspired by it — pick another conjunction and turn it into a poem. I picked OR. Yesterday I wrote a list of words that had “or” in them. So much fun! This morning, I began picking out particular ones and trying to put them together. This is fun! I like it as an opportunity to open up more and become untethered from a particular outcome and idea of what I think my OR poem should be about. I wrote the list in my plague notebook. Note how I repeated some words. Also, if you look closely, you can see instances of words too crowded together or crossed out. Those are vision errors, when I didn’t see the words already written — they were in my blind spot.
Here are some word combinations/fragments I’ve come up with so far:
- author arbor ardor
- orchard porphyrion interiors
- enforce forest fortitude
- orphan sorrow’s origins
- distort mirrors
- orchestrate forms for dishonored categories
- forgive mortal organs
- support porch organizing
- reorganize ordinary colors
- mentor porous discord
- savor tomorrow’s flora encore
- scorch rigor
- torch dictators
- foreswear ordinary pinafores
- favor befores. adore no mores
- record evaporated forms
- flavor labor for transformation
- endorse Morris choreography
- reforest former ford factories
- sponsor spores
- border shores
- orbit remorse
- forge lorikeet collaborations
- forgive french horns, former neighbors, candy corn for horrible flavor
- forget hornet porn
- humor minor opportunities
Almost all of these (or, is it all?) begin with a verb and seem to issue a command. Where are my nouns?
- neighborhood semaphore
- oracle oration
- orange dictators
- scored arrows
- ornamental meteorology
- adorable albacore
- torrential labor
- stork storms
- born bored
- enormous unicorn orchestra
- pork-belly pallor
- factory folklore
So much fun!
walk: 20 minutes
neighborhood
41 degrees
An afternoon walk with Delia-the-dog. Everything melting in the warm sun. Drip drip drip! Gushing gutters, sloppy sewers. Bare pavement except where the plow or shovel missed. I’ll take it!
popped into my head: fORtune favORs fORgetful sailORs
Fortune favors affordable tailors
Fortune savors forceful flavors
I read these to RJP and she wanted to join in the fun:
Dolores ordered hors d’oeuvres
Fortuna major