Friday, June 27, 2008

The Bus Is Kind of Fun

Because it is an extra-super-quiet day here at the National Yiddish Book Center, I have decided to make a nice long list of all of my Bus People, if only to help decode my tweets. I have two buses, and they are full of regulars, and this means an awful lot of Bus People.

First, actually, I should mention Chinese Walking People. They are this little old Chinese man and woman, and they go on walks in the morning, and I usually pass them on the way to the bus. They always smile and say good morning, which makes me happy.
Belchertown Bus:
Slouchy Guy- my favorite bus person. He always sits at the front of the bus, and I frequently sit right behind him. He slouches a lot. Being near him improves my posture dramatically.
Slavic Lady- she looks kind of Slavic. I think she is a professor at UMass, as she seems a bit old to be a student, but too young to be the sort of person who has decided to take summer classes and go back to school. I heard her speak recently, and she had a Hispanic accent. I still think she looks Eastern European.
Bicycle Guy- I don't think I've ever seen him ride a bike, or bring a bike on the bus. He looks like the kind of guy who bikes a lot, though. He is very tan, and smiles a lot, but he has one of those faces that would make him a slightly evil, but maybe redeemable, prince in a Disney movie. This makes me feel very confused about him.
Reading Guy- I haven't seen him in a while, which is sad. He's always reading something that he seems very fascinated with, and I like him almost as much as Slouchy Guy. He may have simply moved to the back of the bus, where I don't sit and thus don't see many people.
Fish Bag Lady- She has a bag with skeletal fish on it. She also has hair that seems to fluctuate color wildly between blonde and gray, so much so that I thought she was two different ladies with the same bag for a long time.
Dour Woman- She tends to look rather dour, and she moves kind of stiff, like she's in pain. I guess the pain makes her dour.

Puffer's Pond/Atkins Corner Bus:
Jemaine Kid- He looks like Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords. He has an awesome retro bike. He even talks like Jemaine, except with an American accent. He is friends with
Joachim- I don't know why I call this guy Joachim, but I do. He is a Hipster in every sense of the word. He carries a neon teal-and-purple 80s duffle bag. He wears skinny jeans, and rolls them up when he bicycles. His bike is also quite 80s, just like everything else Joachim owns. He has another hipster friend, too, but I don't see him often enough to have named him.
Biker Girl- She actually has a bike that she brings sometimes, and her legs look like she is a serious biker-person. She has pretty awesome shoes that I am frequently fascinated by.
RISD Girl- She goes to RISD, which I know because I overheard her talking to Biker Girl about it. I'm pretty sure she works at Eric Carle. She eats yogurt sometimes, and she reads her Bible on the bus, which makes me lump her in with
Catholic Lady- Catholic Lady does her rosary every morning while she is waiting for the bus and while riding the bus. Once I saw her reading a book, and it was about Catholicism.
Bread Guy- He brings these HUGE bags of bread on the bus. I don't know what he does with all the bread, or where he's taking it, or even where he gets it, but dude has a lot of bread.
Fantasy Novel Girl- Fantasy Novel Girl only rides in the afternoons, and not all that frequently. She is a pretty stereotypical teenage geek girl, with her big t-shirts and long hair and glasses and reading of fantasy novels. They might be science fiction, but I think I saw her wearing a unicorn shirt once.
Hipster Hampshire Girl- She goes to Hampshire, but I don't know her name. She's not as much of a hipster as Joachim, but she definitely belongs to the Prescott/Dakin J set.

Those are all of the Bus People I can think of right now. I have some other people that I haven't really assigned identities to yet, but I may as the summer goes on. Bus People occupy a large proportion of my summer time thoughts, mostly because I don't think much during the summer.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

facing the way

I tweeted that I loved this poem yesterday, and it was really a reminder to put it somewhere that I won't forget it, like here:

the fundamental question about revolution
as lorraine hansberry was not afraid to know
is not simply whether i am willing to give up my life
but if i am prepared to give up my comfort:
clean sheets on my bed
the speed of the dishwasher
and my gas stove
gadgetless
but still preferable to cooking out of doors
over a fire of smouldering roots
my eyes raking the skies for planes
the hills for army tanks.
paintings i have revered stick against my walls
as unconcerned as saints
their perfection alone sufficient for their defense.
yet not one lifeline thrown by the artist
beyond the frame
reaches the boy whose eyes were target
for a soldier's careless aim
or the small girl whose body napalm
a hot bath after mass rape
transformed
or the old women who starve on muscatel
nightly
on the streets of New York.

it is shameful how hard it is for me to give
them up!
to cease this cowardly addiction
to art that transcends time
beauty that nourishes a ravenous spirit
but drags on the mind whose sale would patch
a roof
heat the cold rooms of children. replace an eye.
feed a life.

it does not comfort me now to hear
thepoorweshallhavewithusalways
(Christ should never have said this:
it makes it harder than ever to change)
just as it failed to comfort me
when i was poor.


That's Alice Walker, found in Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning, and it's just about perfect.


In other news, I like twitter because it's like writing poetry, while blogging is more like writing a novel (I write three volume novels). Stylistic impositions are very very good for me.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Tweet Tweet

So I've been kind of failing at traditional blogging, mostly because when I want to sit down and blog, I realize that I need to devote at least an hour to writing these long, entertaining, involved accounts of my life. And that's awesome- I love doing that, but my schedule doesn't always. So I have a new plan! Throughout my day, I'm always getting these little surges of inspiration for amazing things that I want to tell the world about my exciting life. Usually, I put these things into my facebook status or my gtalk or status or some such, but that is silly, and that requires that I sit in front of a computer. Now, in order to be more inclusive, I have switched all of that over to Twitter. If you have no idea what Twitter is, just watch that box over on your left that says Twitter on it, and know that it will update all the friggin' time. If you're already in the Twitter scene (and I am probably the last person on the internet to jump on this here bandwagon), well let's follow each other and keep up to date with our respective minutiae. 'Cause we were already doing it with Facebook status anyway.


Also: (1:33 pm) Sometimes I spend my day reading a book and I want to jot down various things that stand out to me because I'm trying to do more of that. Twitter is a nice place for that, because it wastes less paper than putting it all in my notebook, as much as I love my notebook. So when you're thinking "wow these are a lot of updates that seem to be quotes," you're right. Summer reading season is in full swing now, and that means that most of my life is on hold in favor of books.