Brother, Can you Spare a lot of Dimes?

It's finally that time of year to get tax money back. Maybe some of you already got it back. Maybe you filed early and have already enjoyed a little bonus. Maybe you just had a enough for a nice dinner or maybe you paid off a bill or maybe you had enough to put toward a computer. I have to imagine what people would so with their tax returns because in a recent phone call with my own tax man, my dad, I found out I won't be getting any money back. Me, a student who earned less than 10,000 the last year won't be getting anything back. But oh, it gets better. Not only do I not receive a return, but I owe money. I owe the federal government $250. That's practically a whole paycheck. How can that be? I'm baffled. Bamboozled. I feel as though I've been swindled. And I'm not normally a complainer on such matters. If I made more money than I would understand. I think that's fair, but this is not fair. However, I am willing to recognize that I'm lucky in many respects and if I need help with money I can get it-from my parents, from loans. I have options. But what if I didn't? What if the only money I had was the poverty level amount of less than 10,000? Something's up there.

Not a Poet. Now I Know It.

I was once a poet. I was a poet when poetry was easy and bad and all good poetry had to be was typed in a nice font and situated next to a neat picture inside a plastic folder with an equally neat picture on the cover. But now I find the more I study poetry, the more I read it and the more I write it, the worse I get. And not only that, but I don't feel like a poet anymore. I feel like a poser. Maybe that's because I write fiction. But poetry was my first love. It was what I filled up journal after journal and notebook after notebook of with horrible mopey self-indulgent poems. Of course I did alliterate quite nicely. Then again maybe I feel that way because the study of poetry has still not given my any hard criteria by which to judge what is good and bad. Some stuff is obviously bad, everyone knows that, but then there is poetry I am supposed to love, but can't see why. And of course there is no reason. It is a communication of the soul and is seemingly just as elusive.

Gettin' Some Help(!)

Yesterday I had the delight shall we say of seeing the Beatles' Help! up on the big screen at the much beloved and often defunct Senator Theater. It was a campy little romp with a weak plot and cheap thrills, but how could you not love it? It's the Beatles. And the Senator makes any movie better; the wide auditorium, the art deco fixtures, the mauve and gold drapery, the gigantic screen, and the ceiling of a cathedral where the angels sing, or the Beatles depending on when you go.

It's sad to see the place on such shaky ground. In the lobby you can find movie memorabilia on sale, which is fine and pleasant and full of nice memories, but you can also find film reels and marquee letters and I'm hoping I don't have to see the chairs auctioned off. Not to mention the place is a mess; boxes of junk everywhere. The whole place feels like a sinking ship except the auditorium itself. That place is full of so much wonder. It transports me back in time. other people feel the same way yes, everyone loves the place, but no one seems to know what to do. And no I don't have any bright ideas, but I have to believe there is still space in the world for an old theater and its movies. I have to believe there is still a place for technicolor.

And now to blog about the MFA reading series, which featured poet Adam Z on Monday night. Let's see, he was a little hard to understand and he read in a manner a bit too slow for me, but I know there was power in his words and I think if I sat down and read his poetry on my own I might appreciate it more. And it was a long reading and some of the poems were very long and as much as I tried, I just couldn't pay complete attention, and so while I think he is a very good poet I didn't walk away from the reading feeling amazed. In fact, what I like more was a comment made during his introduction in which it was said that when reading his work it seemed so perfect that it seemed that it had to exist, that it had always existed. I grabbed onto that sentiment and thought how perfectly it describes the things we love and are impressed by; we just can't imagine life without them.

Lincoln Lincoln I Been Thinkin'

I sometimes say that if I did not want to be a writer, I would want to be a dentist, but I think I would be just as happy teaching history. I am a history geek. But I don't have an area of expertise, just a wide area of interest. Of course high on that list is Mr. Lincoln and yesterday I got to go and see the man. By that I went to the Smithsonian and stood in a room full of Lincoln portraits. My goodness what an odd looking man, but although his contemporaries and his followers are quick to denounce his appearance, I can't think of a more impressive looking human being. They say he had grey eyes and that explains the vastness of them, the depth, the sorrow. I had always known he aged badly during his presidency, but the exhibit showed the staggering degree of how hollow and sunken and old his face became in just over four years. The first photograph taken of him as president hung on the opposite wall to that of one of the last taken of him and I hardly believed what. I collect a number of his portaits just to hang on my own walls, just to have around, just to look at and get lost in. Oh Lincoln Lincoln I've been thinkin. Thinkin about you and everything else.

In the Land of Ugly Sunglasses

Oh springtime and the birds are chirping and the sun is shinning and all around the world people are protecting their eyes with the ugliest eyewear they can find. It is no longer a bad thing to wear shades that harken back to Elton John's sequin days. We actually want to know again who that is behind those ray bans. If they look like they once belonged to your grandmother then your status is secure. The universe is all topsy turvy and bad is good and ugly is pretty and everything old is all of the sudden new, as though it never was once before. I'm just waiting for monocles and eye patches to be the next big thing. Wait! I got it. I'm going to head over to the nearest opthomoligist and pick up a paur of those disposable box shaped glasses they give you after you get your pupils dilated. Behold! I will be wearing the crown jewel of ugliness. All others bow to my greatness.

Hello Charlie

The other afternoon I found myself with a rare bit of free time, as in time that I should spend doing pertinent yet not required activities, and I decided to use that time to watch the last hour or so of Charlie Chaplin's classic Little Dictator. I think it holds up to its reputation. Ok, so it had its corny moments, and yeah the train moving through the station is a cardboeard cut-out and yes the ending, as inspirational as it is, was a bit heavy-handed. But I was amazed notwithstanding, by the cleverness of the movie, the genius of the comedy. It's a comdey that isn't low-brow. Imagine such a thing today. A comdey with intelligence. There was a part of me that didn't want to laugh at some of the 3 Stooges like slapstick, but I am willing to recognize the brilliance behind physical comedy; it's much easier to crack an audience up with sarcasm and lewd situations and who knows, pie fights, then it is to get them laughing over the way you move your body. Couldn't you just watch Charlie walk all day long? Or balance on a beam from the roof of a house? Or slather mustard all over bread? He has such a way about him on film.