a poem as long as California

PSYCHOANALYSIS: AN ELEGY

What are you thinking about?

I am thinking of an early summer.
I am thinking of wet hills in the rain
Pouring water. Shedding it
Down empty acres of oak and manzanita
Down to the old green brush tangled
in the sun,
Greasewood, sage, and spring mustard.
Or the hot wind coming down
from Santa Ana
Driving the hills crazy,
A fast wind with a bit of dust in it
Bruising everything and making the seed sweet.
Or down in the city where the peach trees
Are awkward as young horses,
And there are kites caught on the wires
Up above the street lamps,
And the storm drains are all choked with dead branches.

What are you thinking?










I think that I would like to write a poem that is slow as a summer
As slow getting started
As 4th of July somewhere around the middle of the second stanza
After a lot of unusual rain
California seems long in the summer.
I would like to write a poem as long as California
And as slow as a summer.
Do you get me, Doctor? It would have to be as slow
As the very tip of summer.
As slow as the summer seems
On a hot day drinking beer outside Riverside
Or standing in the middle of a white-hot road
Between Bakersfield and Hell
Waiting for Santa Claus.

What are you thinking now?








I’m thinking that she is very much like California.
When she is still her dress is like a roadmap. Highways
Traveling up and down her skin
Long empty highways
With the moon chasing jackrabbits across them
On hot summer nights.
I am thinking that her body could be California
And I a rich Eastern tourist
Lost somewhere between Hell and Texas
Looking at a map of a long, wet, dancing California
That I have never seen.
Send me some penny picture-postcards, lady,
Send them.
One of each breast photographed looking
Like curious national monuments,
One of your body sweeping like a three-lane highway
Twenty-seven miles from a night’s lodging
In the world’s oldest hotel.

What are you thinking?










I am thinking of how many times this poem
Will be repeated.
How many summers
Will torture California
Until the damned maps burn
Until the mad cartographer
Falls to the ground and possesses
The sweet thick earth from which he has been hiding.

What are you thinking now?

I am thinking that a poem could go on forever.

Jack Spicer



Forthcoming from The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer
from Wesleyan University Press.

what does lola want?

why, i began to wonder, were depictions of sexuality so different, japan, france, new york, et al. so as usual i went to look it up, and there was an interesting variety of answers, some of which i was reminded that i already knew, and some were entirely new to me, and some disagreed with each other, and so what else is new.

we've talked about the censorship that happened and some effects on the ukiyo-e artists, but i hadn't realized the methods used to go behind the backs of the censors. when forbidden to portray kabuki actors they labeled actors' portraits as portraits of "loyal heros," or the "immortal poets"; they even put their faces on turtles, cats, and fish.

courtesans might be portrayed as wait- resses, but were still recognizable to all. instead of explicitly portraying seductive or overtly sexual images, the populace knew exactly what was being said when a maiden became completely wet while holding an umbrella. whereas if she's offering a cup, of tea maybe, or a clam- shell, to a gentleman, one would also know just what was being offered in fact.

but there's another whole perspective as well. "In Japan, a high degree of nudity was common in the daily life of most ordinary people (during the warm months, of course). Skin was no big deal, but splendid silk clothing was rare and expensive. In Tokugawa Japan, prostitutes, especially the elite courtesans, advertised their sexuality not by displaying skin but by parading through the streets in multiple layers of elegant clothing.

To touch and feel such exquisite cloth was something only the rich could do on a regular basis. For most Japanese, the fondling of such cloth might take place only in their fantasies. Thus, elegant, finely-woven, brightly colored cloth, not skin, became sexually charged in Tokugawa-era erotic art."

furthermore, "Because Tokugawa-period Japanese tended to regard the overall body shapes of men and women as nearly the same, the only significant physical marker of difference were the sex organs themselves.

In Europe at this time, by contrast, the bodily shapes resulting from secondary sexual characteristics were thought to be so distinctive in marking gender that no man could pass as a woman or vice versa, and attempts to to so usually took place only within the context of comedy or farce. Indeed, depictions of men, and, especially, women often exaggerated these secondary characteristics unreal- istically. Probably the most common example was exaggerating the width of the pelvic bone and hips."

i think i am beginning to understand my original question. "The main point of con- trast here is that in the Western world, at least by the nineteenth century, gender differences were regarded as hard-wired products of biology first and foremost, and social markers of gender were typically regarded as following "naturally" from these biological differences. In Tokugawa Japan, it was the social markers of gender that were most prominent in people's imaginations." 1

"Prints were a form of commun- ication about current political or social situations, especially in Edo (present-day Tokyo). Although the shogunate would not permit any military incident, military or governmental figure, or current event to be shown in a print, artists circumvented these limits by hiding taboo subject matter under layers of parody. Print designers were constantly subject to government restrictions, the policies of which tried to impede townspeople from spending their time and money on frivolous or salacious entertainments.

Because prints often promoted these types of enter- tainment and because all prints designs had to be approved by government censors prior to manufacture, prints became a focus for these government constraints. Publishers were limited in the quality of paper, the number of color blocks used on a single print, and the types of pigments. At times, they were even forbidden to portray actors or courtesans. As a result, print artists were constantly inventing creative solutions to maintain their customer base." 2

we've already looked at what happened to utamaro (his version is from 1804); is kunisada's 1865 version a tribute, or merely a celebration that the restrictions had by then begin to be released. (oh and you know, i had to put in lola! she walks like an egyptian!)

as in roses

There are many different meanings for red in every culture. It always means "blood" but even then it can be either blood shed heroically or the blood of a victim. In Asia, red is almost always good luck. Red (as with all colors) means different things depending upon the context in which it is used. In Japan, red ink is a traditional method of writing a letter than ends a relationship (like a dear

john, or a pink slip). A red sports car in the US might be thought of as a fun and "sexy" car, but if a middle-aged bald guy is driving it, it's seen as a pathetic display of male menopause. In most cultures, red is used to get attention. It's been a banner of revolution since the French Revolution (and probably before) and as a flag has become a symbol of populist, usually communist, revolts.


The Chinese, for example, have more than 30 single characters describing different kinds of red. Red of wine, red of silk, red of wood, red of meat.... Even more phrases are used to describe different levels of red. All these are not just about words, but how the meaning of colors evolves from daily life, not just for a single color RED. At least, we can know when is not a right time to use a color with right meaning

(wedding in Japanese uses white, while in Chinese is red.) 1

Colour was important in Hindu science and religion. For example, the spirit of red cloth, or redness itself, could combine with a person’s moral substance and transform it, such that a “red man” might be a sorcerer. Soldiers wore red turbans in battle, women wore red clothes and reddened their hands and hair during

marriage or fertility festivals. Influenced by soldiers of the East India Company’s ‘red coats’, Indian rulers in the eighteenth century adopted scarlet English broadcloth to make their own armies more impressive. The ‘red coats’ were appropriate to the tra- ditional colour-coding of the Indian warrior classes, and the use of red serge spread from Nawab of Awadh’s 60,000 man army to those of his competitors and others. 2

Cultures and Meanings:
Red

• Australian Aboriginals: Land, earth
• Celtic: Death, afterlife

• China: Good luck, celebration, summoning
• Cherokees: Success, triumph. Represents the East.
• Hebrew: Sacrifice, sin
• India: Purity
• South Africa: Color of mourning
• Russia: Bolsheviks and Communism
• Eastern: Worn by brides, happiness and prosperity
• Western: Excitement, danger, love, passion, stop, Christmas (with green), Valentine's Day
• Feng Shui: Yang, fire, good luck, money, respect, recognition, vitality
• Psychology: Stimulates brain wave activity, increases heart rate, increases blood pressure
• Roses: Love, respect - red and yellow together means


gaiety, joviality
• Stained Glass (Dante): Divine love, the Holy Spirit, courage, self-sacrifice, martyrdom. A warm, active color. 3

COLOR RED IN JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY

Red bibs, robes, scarfs, and caps are related to certain deities:

Monkey. Sannou Gongen. Expels Demons of Sickness; Deity of Fertility

Fox (Kitsune) is the
messenger of Oinari (Inari), Deity of Rice Harvest

Bindorabaradaja (J); Also called Binzuru (J). Pindola Bharadraja (Skt). Binzuru; Healer; Most Revered Arhat in Japan

Koyasu Kannon - The Child-Giving Bosatsu, Goddess of Mercy



Jizo and Koyasu Jizo - Patron of Children, Giver of Children

Daruma, Zen Patriarch, Protector Agains Illness, Bringer of Good Luck

Shishi Lion Dogs Guard the Gates to Shinto Shrines

The Nio Kings Guard the Gates to Buddhist Temples 4

Lalique revolutionized jewelry and glass design.

By Amber Haq

Newsweek International

March 26, 2007 issue - Around the turn of the 20th century, the French artist, jeweler and glassware artisan René Lalique spent hours studying Japanese plants in the botanical gardens of Paris. Japanese horticulture was in vogue all over Europe, and Lalique labored relentlessly to complete intricate sketches of unfamiliar plants such as hydrangeas and chrysanthemums.

His aim: "To create something no one has ever seen before," he wrote.

Now visitors to the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris can witness those wonders. "The Exceptional Jewels of Lalique, 1890-1912" (through July 29) is the largest-ever exhibition of the French master's work, gathering together some 300 pieces from around the world.

Visitors are plunged into a magical universe of color and texture: orchids carved out of opal and jade; Japanese-style hair combs adorned with wasps and Egyptian beetles; bats and cats in lacquered enamel; dog collars embellished with pearls; the soft, fleshy female form metamorphosing into a dragonfly, or couched supine on a bed of moonstone. more

(many of these pieces can be seen regularly at the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian.)