Juliet Cook's Blog, page 141
September 9, 2013
Forth-A-Gothing Up the Hills
My last week of August was filled with a delightfully delicious and wonderfully unique vacationing array - involving my first time ever in Colorado, my first time ever spending a whole week with my positive energy field friend Bill (who awesomely sings along to oodles of songs), my first time ever hiking AND camping up mountains (Finch Lake and Pear Lake in Allenspark), plus other stuff before & after (Estes Park, Rocky Mountain Alpine Center, Mount Evans with the highest road in North America, Twin Lakes, Alpine Tundra, and then Denver). And creating a scrumpdelicious new drink called the Froth-A-Goth.
September 7, 2013
GLAMOURAMA (New Sein und Werden)
"Dark black church bells hot in the blankets (she's melting).
Fountains that churn liquid cement, not water (he's hardening).
He wants to erode her scapula. Pluck out her neurons."
from the poem Nether Chord, by Juliet Cook & Robert Cole
Which appears within the innards (along with lots of of other work) of the latest Sein und Werden's GLAMOURAMA issue here - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn13/index.html
According to the editor - "Here she is folks, wobbling on super high heels, the blood from a still warm animal dripping down her neck, a diamond choker slicing into the withered throat, centipede eyebrows dying, that permanent rictus grin... Let's hear it for Miss Glamourama 2013..."
Fountains that churn liquid cement, not water (he's hardening).
He wants to erode her scapula. Pluck out her neurons."
from the poem Nether Chord, by Juliet Cook & Robert Cole
Which appears within the innards (along with lots of of other work) of the latest Sein und Werden's GLAMOURAMA issue here - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/autumn13/index.html
According to the editor - "Here she is folks, wobbling on super high heels, the blood from a still warm animal dripping down her neck, a diamond choker slicing into the withered throat, centipede eyebrows dying, that permanent rictus grin... Let's hear it for Miss Glamourama 2013..."
September 5, 2013
New Review of Sister, Blood and Bone
A new review of Paula Cary's "Sister, Blood and Bone" poetry chapbook (published by Blood Pudding Press, 2013) appears within the latest issue of "Stirring: A Literary Collection" (thank you to Stirring and reviewer Ashley Roach) -http://www.sundresspublications.com/stirring/cary.htm
***
a snippet from the review - These are shimmering free verse vignettes that are simmered down to almost nothing but images. "In the Shallows" is especially lovely, the sound of water reflected in the consonance of "The minnow slipping through/ The edges of her fingers/ Which she catches/ With her other hand/ The minnow's dance cupped/ Its silver body shimmering/ In the dusk of a summer evening."
***
Sister, Blood and Bone is available within the Blood Pudding Press shop here - https://www.etsy.com/listing/150775648/sister-blood-and-bone-by-paula-cary-new?
***
a snippet from the review - These are shimmering free verse vignettes that are simmered down to almost nothing but images. "In the Shallows" is especially lovely, the sound of water reflected in the consonance of "The minnow slipping through/ The edges of her fingers/ Which she catches/ With her other hand/ The minnow's dance cupped/ Its silver body shimmering/ In the dusk of a summer evening."
***
Sister, Blood and Bone is available within the Blood Pudding Press shop here - https://www.etsy.com/listing/150775648/sister-blood-and-bone-by-paula-cary-new?
August 23, 2013
New Thirteen Myna Birds Guts
NEW Thirteen Myna Birds is hot and raw and red and bloody and sexy and strange - filled with peculiar offerings by J. Strife-Burgos, Adam Miller, Joseph Goosey, Shane Joaquin Jimenez, Tim Queen, and Roger Leatherwood here: http://13myna.blogspot.com/
“Shroud your guts in red things - duct-taped at each corner - I was a fool to think I had shifted - a trolley of surgical instruments - on her drowned lips - skin to silk - pale as a saint - my secret colors - sweet sacred venom - the music and the blood”
“Shroud your guts in red things - duct-taped at each corner - I was a fool to think I had shifted - a trolley of surgical instruments - on her drowned lips - skin to silk - pale as a saint - my secret colors - sweet sacred venom - the music and the blood”
August 22, 2013
Reverting back to child circles
Sometimes it's frustrating, my brain feeling like it retracted back to how it was when I was a little girl. I was brimming with creative flow, but could visualize my ideas/thoughts/feelings/creative concepts better than I could figure out how to express them the way I wanted to with words.
Over the years I worked my brain up to become uniquely, precisely, descriptively expressive in my own chosen word-based way - but then I lost some brain power. In more recent years, my mental uniqueness did not disappear, but the precision of my word-based expressive abilities dissipated.
Negatively speaking, sometimes it really bums me out that I can no longer express things as well and specifically as I used to.
Positively speaking, sometimes I try to craft my visuals into a different form of art, whether or not I can explain it with words.
Semi-neutral speaking, I don't really know what to do with these other forms of art. (I can creatively entitle them.)
I remember myself down in the dark, dank basement, telling myself fast visual-based stories inside my own head (but unable to extract them with words out of my own head), walking around in circles.
Over the years I worked my brain up to become uniquely, precisely, descriptively expressive in my own chosen word-based way - but then I lost some brain power. In more recent years, my mental uniqueness did not disappear, but the precision of my word-based expressive abilities dissipated.
Negatively speaking, sometimes it really bums me out that I can no longer express things as well and specifically as I used to.
Positively speaking, sometimes I try to craft my visuals into a different form of art, whether or not I can explain it with words.
Semi-neutral speaking, I don't really know what to do with these other forms of art. (I can creatively entitle them.)
I remember myself down in the dark, dank basement, telling myself fast visual-based stories inside my own head (but unable to extract them with words out of my own head), walking around in circles.
August 6, 2013
drain
Today i am feeling drained and uncertain about everything. What should I be focusing on? What shouldn't I be focusing on? Why? I don't know. Having one of my 'what is the point' of working on this, this, this, and this or ANYTHING days. I can't stay on top of it all; i can't stay in between it all. So far I've gotten a few tiny things done and don't even know how I feel about them. Maybe i would go back to bed, except that I already slept for 9 hours. August is a busy month for me and i guess i don't do good with business, because the very concept of staying on top of packing for two different trips, preparing for my dog, cleaning my house, sticking with my new exercise routine, and working on poetry stuff just seems too overwhelming for me, drains me, makes me feel like what is the point of anything? i'm not a good multitasker, i wish I had more energy, but I don't. I used to feel much more energetic; where did my energy go? Tiny little things suck my energy and drain me into feeling like relatively nothing.
July 29, 2013
Skulls and Ice Cream - New Thirteen Myna Birds - July 2013
NEW Thirteen Myna Birds with offerings by Bethany W Pope, Alessandra Bava, Tim Queen, Lyndon Seitz, Robert Cole, Jeremiah Walton, Sheila Murphy, Phillip Larrea, and Ricky Garni at http://13myna.blogspot.com/
"the bowl of my skull - bones-sparking - flawed but alive - unfed appetite for love - smuggled out in the slit lining - from friction they glow - sweet like lanyards and rope - in smoldering masks - a rubber chicken in melted plastic - a silver platter - imitative of a pyramid viewed from the inside - coconut on the ground - chills hard"
"the bowl of my skull - bones-sparking - flawed but alive - unfed appetite for love - smuggled out in the slit lining - from friction they glow - sweet like lanyards and rope - in smoldering masks - a rubber chicken in melted plastic - a silver platter - imitative of a pyramid viewed from the inside - coconut on the ground - chills hard"
July 28, 2013
Why I don’t always like the phrase ‘lucky to be alive’
Because yes everyone is lucky to be alive, but repeatedly hearing that phrase directed at me in particular makes me feel as if I‘m supposed to focus on feeling lucky to be alive more than focusing on actually living.
Because I don’t want to over-focus on the fact that certain life experiences might be a little more risky to me than to the average person. After all, I’ve always been a bit of a risk taker in certain degrees – and for the most part, I don’t regret that – and I don’t want to feel as though I shouldn’t take any little risks anymore, because I’m so lucky to be alive I should just sit around feeling lucky instead of having a new life experience that might include small risk factors.
Don’t tons of things include small risk factors? Is NEVER TAKING A RISK really good advice? Some people might say yes. I say no. I’m not saying I’m going out of my way to take silly risks without even thinking, but if I think about trying something different that is not wildly unsafe and I decide to go for it, then I’d like to be encouraged rather than discouraged.
If I had written this a few days ago, it would have been much more negative, bummed, and upset feeling - but now I’ve thought about it more, reasonably considered whether it was over-risky or not and decided it wasn’t – and I’m going to do it.
Why should I not partake of a one-on-one new life experience and see what happens?
Because I don’t want to over-focus on the fact that certain life experiences might be a little more risky to me than to the average person. After all, I’ve always been a bit of a risk taker in certain degrees – and for the most part, I don’t regret that – and I don’t want to feel as though I shouldn’t take any little risks anymore, because I’m so lucky to be alive I should just sit around feeling lucky instead of having a new life experience that might include small risk factors.
Don’t tons of things include small risk factors? Is NEVER TAKING A RISK really good advice? Some people might say yes. I say no. I’m not saying I’m going out of my way to take silly risks without even thinking, but if I think about trying something different that is not wildly unsafe and I decide to go for it, then I’d like to be encouraged rather than discouraged.
If I had written this a few days ago, it would have been much more negative, bummed, and upset feeling - but now I’ve thought about it more, reasonably considered whether it was over-risky or not and decided it wasn’t – and I’m going to do it.
Why should I not partake of a one-on-one new life experience and see what happens?
July 26, 2013
Insect Mounds and Tales
Yesterday I saw a cicada lying sideways on the ground in front of my garage door, unmoving. I picked up the seemingly dead creature and carried it into my house, thinking I would appreciate it in some sort of artistic capacity later (a painting, collage art, or maybe just interesting photo positioning). I set it on the side of my kitchen counter and then got to working on other things.
A little later, I didn’t see it where I had placed it, but found it fairly quickly, a tiny bit farther along the counter, moving its wings – so clearly it WASN’T dead. I carefully gathered it via paper towel, carried it back outside, set it on the ground and took some photos of it - then I carried it to a tree and placed it atop a small branch where it seemed fairly comfortable, and took some photos of it there.
Shortly after placing it on that tree, a man who lives in my neighborhood, who does a lot of walking (and since we were often encountering each other when I was walking my dog, we finally introduced each other some months ago and got to taking little talking breaks when we see each other in the midst of a walk) was walking past my front yard – and I felt compelled to walk over to him and show & tell him about the cicada.
I also told him about how many years ago, when I was a little girl and there was a cicada influx, my sisters and I would pick up small tons of dead cicada bodies off the ground, form them all into a circular mound, and then position our pet cat in front of the mound and watch it eat the cicadas.(Golly, after what happened yesterday, with me thinking a cicada was dead, but it was still alive, I hope we weren’t feeding that cat a bunch of cicadas that were still alive and turning our cat into some sort of small white casper the friendly ghost cannibal or something. That was our cats name. Well, not casper the friendly ghost cannibal. Just casper.)
Then the man told me an amusing tale about how years ago, his yard had a lot of hornets and his little boy and little girl were scared of being stung by a hornet, so they became uncomfortable playing outside. One day they were outside with him and one of his buddies and were about to head right back in as soon as they saw a hornet. He asked them why they were so afraid of hornets and they said because if a hornet stung them, it would hurt really bad. He told them so what if it stung them; it wouldn’t hurt that bad at all – and then he grabbed the flying hornet with his hand and flung it down to the ground. See it stung me and that didn’t hurt, he told his kids – and then they stayed outside. As soon as the kids moved away from the dad, his friend said, are you kidding? Getting stung by a hornet didn’t hurt you that bad? He said, hell yes it did, but now the kids are going to be comfortable playing outside.
***
I immediately wanted to tell him another story after that, but I could tell that my brain was going to have a lot of word issues if I quickly launched into that tale – and I didn’t feel like getting into the whole ‘why I sometimes have word issues’ talk with a guy I don’t know all that well, so that sort of bummed me out (but not nearly as bad as what bummed me out about my ‘health issues’ later last night, but I’ll get into that later, in a different blog post, maybe).
A little while after talking with that guy, I took my dog for another walk – and while walking him, I concentrated on trying to think of the easy words that wouldn’t quickly pop out of my head re: the next tale I’d wanted to share with him. The main two were ‘bee’ and ‘lemonade’ – but also ‘pheromones’ and ‘insecticide’. It took me a while to get all those words. They definitely wouldn’t have emerged in a sudden conversation, unfortunately.
However, now that I’ve finally managed to gather those words, I’ll tell the story to myself and whoever reads this blog. The tale was about how many years ago, when I was in high school, during some summers, I worked at the state fair, in some food booths. Once I was working in the homemade lemonade booth with another girl – and about five bees entered the booth and were buzzing around a window, so we quickly killed them.
What we hadn’t known but soon found out was that dead bees release pheromones that attract other bees. Within about half an hour our booth was infiltrated with hundreds upon hundreds of bees – and at some point we realized that killing them kept attracting more and more and more, so we stopped killing them. Since it was a fair booth serving a beverage we couldn’t spray insecticide in there and still stay open – and since the fair only lasted about a week, the owner did not want to close down the booth and lose all sales for a day – so we had to keep it open and be surrounded by bees.
I remember feeling very uncomfortable at first - remembering the discomfort of being stung by bees in the past and worried that now I was bound to be stung multiple times. Guess what though? I wasn’t stung a single time that day, even though I had times were a bee landed on me or was crawling on my hand. After a while, I stopped feeling uncomfortable and realized every time I’d been stung by a bee in the past was because I had been wearing no shoes outside and accidentally stepped on it. Why would a bee want to release its stinger and die unless that was a defense mechanism or a reaction to being stomped to death?
Hundreds of bees were flying around my head, crawling around the walls, crawling on the table near me, occasionally crawling on my hand and not a single one stung me. After that experience and what it lead me to realize, never again did I swipe my hand at a bee flying near my face or a bee accidentally landing on me and then crawling on my clothing – because it now seems obvious to me that if you swipe at a bee that would make it much more likely to sting, because it would feel threatened - whereas if you just let it crawl on you for a minute, it will soon realize you’re not a plant brimming with nectars and it will fly away. I still see lots of people swiping at bees though.
The only time I was ever stung by a bee in my adult life was when I was wearing flip flops, exited a car door and accidentally stepped on one.
***
Back to hornets though, those creatures are a different ball game. They’re mean, more aggressive, and more prone to sudden random stings. I guess my neighbor is lucky that one of his kids didn’t get stung by a hornet the next day and then lose their father trusting feathers at a young age.
A little later, I didn’t see it where I had placed it, but found it fairly quickly, a tiny bit farther along the counter, moving its wings – so clearly it WASN’T dead. I carefully gathered it via paper towel, carried it back outside, set it on the ground and took some photos of it - then I carried it to a tree and placed it atop a small branch where it seemed fairly comfortable, and took some photos of it there.
Shortly after placing it on that tree, a man who lives in my neighborhood, who does a lot of walking (and since we were often encountering each other when I was walking my dog, we finally introduced each other some months ago and got to taking little talking breaks when we see each other in the midst of a walk) was walking past my front yard – and I felt compelled to walk over to him and show & tell him about the cicada.
I also told him about how many years ago, when I was a little girl and there was a cicada influx, my sisters and I would pick up small tons of dead cicada bodies off the ground, form them all into a circular mound, and then position our pet cat in front of the mound and watch it eat the cicadas.(Golly, after what happened yesterday, with me thinking a cicada was dead, but it was still alive, I hope we weren’t feeding that cat a bunch of cicadas that were still alive and turning our cat into some sort of small white casper the friendly ghost cannibal or something. That was our cats name. Well, not casper the friendly ghost cannibal. Just casper.)
Then the man told me an amusing tale about how years ago, his yard had a lot of hornets and his little boy and little girl were scared of being stung by a hornet, so they became uncomfortable playing outside. One day they were outside with him and one of his buddies and were about to head right back in as soon as they saw a hornet. He asked them why they were so afraid of hornets and they said because if a hornet stung them, it would hurt really bad. He told them so what if it stung them; it wouldn’t hurt that bad at all – and then he grabbed the flying hornet with his hand and flung it down to the ground. See it stung me and that didn’t hurt, he told his kids – and then they stayed outside. As soon as the kids moved away from the dad, his friend said, are you kidding? Getting stung by a hornet didn’t hurt you that bad? He said, hell yes it did, but now the kids are going to be comfortable playing outside.
***
I immediately wanted to tell him another story after that, but I could tell that my brain was going to have a lot of word issues if I quickly launched into that tale – and I didn’t feel like getting into the whole ‘why I sometimes have word issues’ talk with a guy I don’t know all that well, so that sort of bummed me out (but not nearly as bad as what bummed me out about my ‘health issues’ later last night, but I’ll get into that later, in a different blog post, maybe).
A little while after talking with that guy, I took my dog for another walk – and while walking him, I concentrated on trying to think of the easy words that wouldn’t quickly pop out of my head re: the next tale I’d wanted to share with him. The main two were ‘bee’ and ‘lemonade’ – but also ‘pheromones’ and ‘insecticide’. It took me a while to get all those words. They definitely wouldn’t have emerged in a sudden conversation, unfortunately.
However, now that I’ve finally managed to gather those words, I’ll tell the story to myself and whoever reads this blog. The tale was about how many years ago, when I was in high school, during some summers, I worked at the state fair, in some food booths. Once I was working in the homemade lemonade booth with another girl – and about five bees entered the booth and were buzzing around a window, so we quickly killed them.
What we hadn’t known but soon found out was that dead bees release pheromones that attract other bees. Within about half an hour our booth was infiltrated with hundreds upon hundreds of bees – and at some point we realized that killing them kept attracting more and more and more, so we stopped killing them. Since it was a fair booth serving a beverage we couldn’t spray insecticide in there and still stay open – and since the fair only lasted about a week, the owner did not want to close down the booth and lose all sales for a day – so we had to keep it open and be surrounded by bees.
I remember feeling very uncomfortable at first - remembering the discomfort of being stung by bees in the past and worried that now I was bound to be stung multiple times. Guess what though? I wasn’t stung a single time that day, even though I had times were a bee landed on me or was crawling on my hand. After a while, I stopped feeling uncomfortable and realized every time I’d been stung by a bee in the past was because I had been wearing no shoes outside and accidentally stepped on it. Why would a bee want to release its stinger and die unless that was a defense mechanism or a reaction to being stomped to death?
Hundreds of bees were flying around my head, crawling around the walls, crawling on the table near me, occasionally crawling on my hand and not a single one stung me. After that experience and what it lead me to realize, never again did I swipe my hand at a bee flying near my face or a bee accidentally landing on me and then crawling on my clothing – because it now seems obvious to me that if you swipe at a bee that would make it much more likely to sting, because it would feel threatened - whereas if you just let it crawl on you for a minute, it will soon realize you’re not a plant brimming with nectars and it will fly away. I still see lots of people swiping at bees though.
The only time I was ever stung by a bee in my adult life was when I was wearing flip flops, exited a car door and accidentally stepped on one.
***
Back to hornets though, those creatures are a different ball game. They’re mean, more aggressive, and more prone to sudden random stings. I guess my neighbor is lucky that one of his kids didn’t get stung by a hornet the next day and then lose their father trusting feathers at a young age.
July 25, 2013
The Tao of Badass is a Big Gross Money Making Trail of Shit
Why in the hell is this online site related to a book called 'The Tao of Badass' appearing as the main source that's viewing my blog lately? Out of curiosity, I clicked the link and listened to part of the video about the book and the guy is going on & on about how to get lots of HOT YOUNG women to sleep with you every month, even if you're short, fat, bald, don't have any muscle, don't have any money etc...
According to him, women don't really care about any of those things (it's just the media trying to convince men that they do) - and men mostly just want HOT YOUNG WOMEN sex partners.
And women can quickly be triggered to be extremely attracted to ANY man if he does things like look at her lips while speaking to her and give her the impression that lots of other women want him.
According to this video, every woman is basically the same (except that some are hotter than others - and those are the ones that ALL MEN WANT AND DESERVE) - and every man primarily just wants to get tons of HOT YOUNG WOMEN to desire his cock - and to get that, men can trigger all the women they want by learning and following these easy steps (that they need to pay money to receive).
According to this video, 97% of women like men with no hair. So apparently any bald men staring at my lips is well on his way towards leading me into his bedroom, even if all he really cares about is hot pussy and will pull whatever maneuvers he can to get it.
ALL MEN want tons of HOT YOUNG WOMEN for sexual purposes.
ALL WOMEN can easily be triggered by ANY MAN who follows these easy steps.
Who cares about a man's or woman's true personality or interests or passion or genuineness, as long as they can trigger and be triggered?
I was working on a poem. Why did I take a break and listen to that shit heel crap? Now I feel like a time wasting barf bag.
Don't bother looking up 'The Tao of Badass' (even if you are an insecure man who wants lots of women and can't figure out how to attract them) - because there's not any one easy set answer that works for all men and women in the world.
This book seems to me like a scam-oriented, money-making piece of shit, suggesting that all women and all men are basically the same and human beings have nothing to do with truth, genuineness, honesty, or unique individuality.
Gross.
According to him, women don't really care about any of those things (it's just the media trying to convince men that they do) - and men mostly just want HOT YOUNG WOMEN sex partners.
And women can quickly be triggered to be extremely attracted to ANY man if he does things like look at her lips while speaking to her and give her the impression that lots of other women want him.
According to this video, every woman is basically the same (except that some are hotter than others - and those are the ones that ALL MEN WANT AND DESERVE) - and every man primarily just wants to get tons of HOT YOUNG WOMEN to desire his cock - and to get that, men can trigger all the women they want by learning and following these easy steps (that they need to pay money to receive).
According to this video, 97% of women like men with no hair. So apparently any bald men staring at my lips is well on his way towards leading me into his bedroom, even if all he really cares about is hot pussy and will pull whatever maneuvers he can to get it.
ALL MEN want tons of HOT YOUNG WOMEN for sexual purposes.
ALL WOMEN can easily be triggered by ANY MAN who follows these easy steps.
Who cares about a man's or woman's true personality or interests or passion or genuineness, as long as they can trigger and be triggered?
I was working on a poem. Why did I take a break and listen to that shit heel crap? Now I feel like a time wasting barf bag.
Don't bother looking up 'The Tao of Badass' (even if you are an insecure man who wants lots of women and can't figure out how to attract them) - because there's not any one easy set answer that works for all men and women in the world.
This book seems to me like a scam-oriented, money-making piece of shit, suggesting that all women and all men are basically the same and human beings have nothing to do with truth, genuineness, honesty, or unique individuality.
Gross.
