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11.17.03
I started to keep this daily (or nearly daily) record of strings of
words in couplets on the morning after California elected its second
movie actor governor, and its first cartoon figure governor.
I thought at the beginning I would make this a "public site"; I was
thinking that way out of a great revulsion and disgust for the state of
my state and state of my country. But also out of sadness, and I wanted
to "scream quietly".
Now over a month later, cartoon man has been sworn in as governor,
and I am just now making this site public. In fact, however, there is
little evident connection between any political event or events and the
brief entries here. Time and the seasons pass.
I have wanted, each day, to say as much as I could in a very
constrained space. On some days there are links to corollary thoughts,
origins, or something visual. This is not a personal journal or a site
full of contents and opinions intended to persuade.
I imagine continuing this "louche couplet" project for a year, a
cycle of seasons, but I have already noticed that the time taken
tending to it has had a detrimental effect on other writing. So I'll
see.
At best this place might be a catalyst, the stuff of it slight
enough to burn away and rocket a reader to some
thought-worthy zone of her or his own experience, an uncluttered or
unscheduled place to slow down and stay a while. But on second thought,
that sounds pretty pompous. This is really just a personal experiement
carried out in the small, silent public of a web site.
Maybe the most apt thing about what's here was said to me by a
friend, a friendly warning really (not about the web
site but "things in general"): "You've never been afraid to be
obscure." Fair enough, but on some days when I am hearing these small
phrases coming out of time like bird songs from trees or noise from
clouds, the words seem very, very clear and startlingly acute. But only
sometimes.
Perhaps part of the endeavor here is to attempt non-narrative
observations of time's subjectivity. And perhaps best to read from the
bottom up, since it's vaguely compounding, developmental and responsive
to accreted precedence. And to the seasons. | 
