1/31/08
TIM KAZURINSKY will show YOU WHAT THE WRITERS STRIKE IS ALL ABOUT
The writers want more money for content shown on the Internet.
SALLY FIELDS, ROBERT REDFORD and OTHER ACTORS FOR THE WRITERS STRIKE
A pause to hear Robert Redford say "It all begins with a story and the story is a writer."
1/30/08
COMMENTARY ON I"LL BE YOUR MIRROR NICO and THE VELVET UNDERGROUND
Nico and the Velvet Underground. I'll Be Your Mirror...
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
Look in the mirror and say aloud "I AM A WRITER!"
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
Look in the mirror and say aloud "I AM A WRITER!"
1/29/08
COMMENTARY ON PPSKAKIB W MOIM MIESCIE - KROSNO - MICHAL SMERECKI GRAFFITTI
Here's a documentary on the graffiti in Krosno, Poland by Michal Smerecki. Listen to the rap music in Polish. No, I can't translate it... all my relatives who spoke Polish spoke it rapidly and preserved it into the second generation...but like I said in my "Vanity Fair" interview with myself, my biggest regret is being monolingual.
1/25/08
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
1/22/08
JULIA ALVAREZ from ONCE UPON A QUINCEANERA
Julia Alvarez (heritage: Dominican Republic)
ONCE UPON A QUINCEANERA
C 2007 by the author
published by Viking (the Penguin Group)
...page 197
"I thrived at Syracuse University, falling in love, but not loosing my focus, and therefore losing my lovers. Over time I found that if I stayed true to what I loved to do most men fell away on their very own. Given their druthers men - at least of my generation - seemed to want a woman to be preoccupied with them, not with her poems and novels.
ONCE UPON A QUINCEANERA
C 2007 by the author
published by Viking (the Penguin Group)
...page 197
"I thrived at Syracuse University, falling in love, but not loosing my focus, and therefore losing my lovers. Over time I found that if I stayed true to what I loved to do most men fell away on their very own. Given their druthers men - at least of my generation - seemed to want a woman to be preoccupied with them, not with her poems and novels.
1/21/08
COMMENTARY ON ZERO 7 DESTINY
When I'm weak I draw strength from you...
I love this video which reminds me of riding the Red Line (the LA Subway into the city) and the MTA (the buses) in Los Angeles and watching people live and love.
I love this video which reminds me of riding the Red Line (the LA Subway into the city) and the MTA (the buses) in Los Angeles and watching people live and love.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA QUOTE
"Every beginning after all, is nothing but a sequel, and the book of events is always open in the middle."
-Wislawa Szymborska
-Wislawa Szymborska
1/20/08
WAYNE DYER quote
"You are not a human being having a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being having a human experience."
Wayne Dyer
Wayne Dyer
1/19/08
1/16/08
1/14/08
ARTHUR MILLER ACCORDING TO HIMSELF
Barbara Leaming, her book "Marilyn Monroe," page 23, regarding Arthur Miller;
"As he once said, he could not write about anything he understood completely. If an experience was finished he couldn't write it.
I believe from reading this book, which focuses on Marilyn Monroe's role in the business of her career, that Leaming intends to explain Miller and his writery nature as involved in mining his own confusion, in particular in life situations that are emotional. At what point, as he wrote "The Misfits," did he feel he knew as much about Marilyn as he cared to in one lifetime? Was she right to feel terrible betrayal at being used as an inspiration for a character, one not well regarded, for this work? An obect of fascination then and it seems eternally, Marilyn Monroe often encountered men who were in love with the character Marilyn; she portrayed her as the "happy girl" that men love. She was deeper and darker than that, and being able to relax into revealing the self with a man - a husband - was an experience she longed for and never really quite had.
Still, using real people as inspirations for characters or as characters - or using one or more for the same reason - is a literary tradition. Perhaps more than ever, friends and family are attracted like the moth to the flame to seeing themselves in someone's published book. I on the other hand have invented characters who real people claimed to be, when I wasn't even particularily thinking of them. I get the feeling that few moments of fame that Andy Warhol predicted to be the future is now!
How much do we write that is truly "autobiographical" in nature?
"As he once said, he could not write about anything he understood completely. If an experience was finished he couldn't write it.
I believe from reading this book, which focuses on Marilyn Monroe's role in the business of her career, that Leaming intends to explain Miller and his writery nature as involved in mining his own confusion, in particular in life situations that are emotional. At what point, as he wrote "The Misfits," did he feel he knew as much about Marilyn as he cared to in one lifetime? Was she right to feel terrible betrayal at being used as an inspiration for a character, one not well regarded, for this work? An obect of fascination then and it seems eternally, Marilyn Monroe often encountered men who were in love with the character Marilyn; she portrayed her as the "happy girl" that men love. She was deeper and darker than that, and being able to relax into revealing the self with a man - a husband - was an experience she longed for and never really quite had.
Still, using real people as inspirations for characters or as characters - or using one or more for the same reason - is a literary tradition. Perhaps more than ever, friends and family are attracted like the moth to the flame to seeing themselves in someone's published book. I on the other hand have invented characters who real people claimed to be, when I wasn't even particularily thinking of them. I get the feeling that few moments of fame that Andy Warhol predicted to be the future is now!
How much do we write that is truly "autobiographical" in nature?
1/13/08
LILY TOMLIN quote
"I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain."
- Lily Tomlin
- Lily Tomlin
1/12/08
COCO CHANEL quote
"Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity." CoCo Chanel
COMMENTARY ON THE PRETENDERS SHOW ME (the meaning of the word) Chrissie Hynde
Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders beg the question, SHOW ME (the meaning of the word.)
The word is LOVE!
New video summer 2016
The word is LOVE!
New video summer 2016
Next...Redux THE BERLIN WALL IS DOWN - IT'S TIME THE ORANGE CURTAIN WENT TOO!
THE BERLIN WALL IS DOWN
IT'S TIME THE ORANGE CURTAIN WENT TOO!
(A feature article in Next... magazine circa 1994)
By Christine Trzyna
Southern California poets, all writers, all artists, have unique rights and responsibilities. We illuminate or cast shadows, have the power to increase understanding or wreck havoc. We can choose to work within the stratification of Southland society or vacation into another culture just a few miles away.
A decade ago as a new immigrant to California, and a neophyte California, I came here "knowing" only that Watts was the slums and Hollywood, wealthy and glamorous. Hollywood is in the process of urban renewal. Its very pavement, embedded with honorary stars, needs sweeping. Fooled by neighborhoods of houses with grassy lawns, I drove fearlessly through Watts, my Yankee points of reference rocked with the police pulled me over and told me to get out.
I can now call myself a native, having served their prerequisite seven years. I seem to have taken root in a place that takes itself seriously enough to call itself No Ho, yea, like So Ho in New york, it's getting know for its creative culture. I gradually learned which streets are "safer." Eight years ago I placed a personal ad and first learned that men from Santa Monica, only a half hour away, think Valley Girls are geographically undesirable. In Los Angeles, the West-siders are horrible snobs about us residents of The Big Valley. But ask any Angeleno, event he supposed enlightened ones, and they'll tell you terrible things about Orange County.
Determined to know my city's history and neighborhoods and encounter culture, I got the Thomas Brothers Map books, the AAA tour guides, and religiously referenced the LA Weekly, Reader, and publications like Out Loud to fill my free time. I'd make a fantastic tour guide of the city of Los Angeles. But I still don't know a thing about Orange County. It seems the Orange Curtain has kept me out.
Last spring I made a rare trip to Dana Point to participate in a Paper Shredders reading at a cool surf shop. We surf poets have since been pretty well received. The stereotype of the surfer is a guy with a three word vocabulary, someone instinctual who doesn't think too much or too deep - certainly not enough to write poetry. And the stereotype of the poets - all angst and intensity, extremely verbose. Can surfers wear black berets? Do poets get tans or go about in flip-flops? The Paper Shredders readings may just be particularly fascinating because they bust though some of that old-think that can do us all in.
When I told the Orange County poets that I'd always heard there was no culture in Orange County, they responded by inviting me to their readings. They pointed out that the Laguna Poets have the oldest poetry series in Southern California. And then one of the men there said, "When I have to drive to Santa Barbara, I keep both hands on the wheel and just keep going, I can't relax until I cross out of LA into Ventura County." This from someone who has fearlessly tackled Hawaiian surf?
If any one's going to cross boundaries, it's going to be the artists and thinkers. Let's join together, become foreign exchange poets, and make Next... Magazine a vehicle that we can use to participate in a "society" that disregards the status quo.
Christine Trzyna
original C by Christine Trzyna 1994 C 2008 all rights reserved includinig Internet and International Rights
Commentary 2008 : As it turned out, I myself was unable to travel very far to read poetry, and I found myself either a confident performer who seemed to be in some sort of symbiosis with the audience or a shaky nervous wreck of a reader who looked out upon the audience and saw a sea of gaping faces expecting me to pull off something "important." Eventually, I also turned off the reading scene. Too much earnestness at the time, I suppose. There was also this snobby idea afloat about who was a "real" poet. I don't think I made the cut. Early in my writing I felt it was very important to be poetical in a short story.
Poetical + the "Writing Well" philosophy of William Zinsser" = that was my formula. Some people thought my short fiction at the time was "too easy." Contrast that with the stream of consciousness, Doors and the Beat poetry that had such meaning it , well, had no meaning.
1/6/08
Quote From THE ACTIVE SIDE OF INFINITY by CARLOS CASTANEDA
The Active Side of Infinity
By Carlos Castaneda C 1999
This was the last book he wrote before he died, and it is a memoir, or more correctly, "an album of memories."
Don Juan said: "The memorable events of a shaman's album are affairs that will stand the test of time because they have nothing to do with him and yet he is in the thick of them. He'll always be in the thick of them, for the duration of his life, and perhaps beyond, but not quite personally."
By Carlos Castaneda C 1999
This was the last book he wrote before he died, and it is a memoir, or more correctly, "an album of memories."
Don Juan said: "The memorable events of a shaman's album are affairs that will stand the test of time because they have nothing to do with him and yet he is in the thick of them. He'll always be in the thick of them, for the duration of his life, and perhaps beyond, but not quite personally."
1/5/08
Next Magazine Redux CHRISTINE TRZYNA articles coming up soon!
I recently found my collection of Next..., a thin newspaper sheet magazine founded by G. Murray Thomas and Lawrence Shultz, in support of the Southern California poetry community which went into start up in 1994. I was one of the original volunteers for Next... after meeting Murray and Lawrence when we did a surf poetry reading in Santa Barbara, California, and a proponent of the burgeoning "street" scene and open mic phenomena at the time, particularly at the NoHo independent "coffee house" (actually more of a creativity space since the coffee was pitch in the pot) called The Iguana.
I rarely worked in the office of Next. Instead I responded to thematics and deadlines from a distance and distributed copies to various venues in my area such as Emersons Coffee House and California State University - Northridge. My writerly contributions to Next... were with the understanding that all rights returned to me after printing. I have to say while I was reading my articles thirteen years later I felt a sense of pride in my writing. At the time I wrote these articles I was a less secure writer primarily because I was not on the right side of the politics of the poetry scene. It has taken this distance to acknowledge my very original "voice" and viewpoint, and to no longer feel the disapproval that came my way because some readers thought I was supposed to be in service of their vision.
Soon I'll be sharing my articles and providing some commentary on my own thoughts and feelings at the time I wrote the articles and the reactions that readers had to them.
I rarely worked in the office of Next. Instead I responded to thematics and deadlines from a distance and distributed copies to various venues in my area such as Emersons Coffee House and California State University - Northridge. My writerly contributions to Next... were with the understanding that all rights returned to me after printing. I have to say while I was reading my articles thirteen years later I felt a sense of pride in my writing. At the time I wrote these articles I was a less secure writer primarily because I was not on the right side of the politics of the poetry scene. It has taken this distance to acknowledge my very original "voice" and viewpoint, and to no longer feel the disapproval that came my way because some readers thought I was supposed to be in service of their vision.
Soon I'll be sharing my articles and providing some commentary on my own thoughts and feelings at the time I wrote the articles and the reactions that readers had to them.
Christine Trzyna
................... Stay tuned for Next... Redux.
1/3/08
A VANITY FAIR INTERVIEW BY ME WITH ME
"Vanity Fair" magazine is one of my long time favorite magazines, outlasting my interest in "Cosmopolitan," which plummeted with that editor Bonnie Whashername, who took over from the essential Helen Gurley Brown, and ruined it. I never met a monthly edition that didn't have at least one really great article. I have a whole personal archive of Vanity Fair articles that I had to rip out and save (the rest of the magazine went to recycling) and it serves my interest in persons of substance better than any People could. I love the interviews at the back, which generally ask various persons about the same questions every month, so you get to compare and contrast and see how the famous wrangle out of the too personal. Now if Vanity Fair called me and asked me to take the quiz, this is how I would answer. (And this is enough information along with my profile for you to ever know about me!) Note that I've made some variations on the questions to better suit this blog.
That I'll die before I accomplish everything I hope to.
But then I just know I will die with more to do!
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Benjamin Franklin.
Which historical figure would you most like to interview? Mark Twain.
Which living person do you most admire? Mata Amritanandamayi - AKA Amma - the Hindu saint, who may be the reincarnation of the Blessed Mother. She was given the 2002 Gandhi-King Award for Non-violence: http://www.amma.org/amma/
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I hate to give up on someone I love who doesn't love me.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
I hate it when someone goes behind my back, even if they "mean well."
What is your greatest extravagance? The Time to Write, which is also essential.
What is your favorite journey? Point Lobos Seal Reserve near Carmel.http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=571
What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Faith.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"Great" Like in Chinese it has a dozen or more connotations depending on the tone, from enthusiastic to sarcastic.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Books. They take you outside yourself into other worlds.
Which talent would you most like to have?To speak several languages fluently.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?I'd be a natural comedian.
What is your most treasured possession?My mind.
Where you you like to live?I've had ex-patriot fantacies for several years now, but it has to be somewhere they speak English.
What is your favorite occupation? Fascinating Conversation in Independently Owned coffee houses.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
Compassion.
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Wisdom.
How would you like to die?
Satisfied.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What is your greatest fear?That I'll die before I accomplish everything I hope to.
But then I just know I will die with more to do!
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Benjamin Franklin.
Which historical figure would you most like to interview? Mark Twain.
Which living person do you most admire? Mata Amritanandamayi - AKA Amma - the Hindu saint, who may be the reincarnation of the Blessed Mother. She was given the 2002 Gandhi-King Award for Non-violence: http://www.amma.org/amma/
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I hate to give up on someone I love who doesn't love me.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
I hate it when someone goes behind my back, even if they "mean well."
What is your greatest extravagance? The Time to Write, which is also essential.
What is your favorite journey? Point Lobos Seal Reserve near Carmel.http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=571
What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Faith.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"Great" Like in Chinese it has a dozen or more connotations depending on the tone, from enthusiastic to sarcastic.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Books. They take you outside yourself into other worlds.
Which talent would you most like to have?To speak several languages fluently.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?I'd be a natural comedian.
What is your most treasured possession?My mind.
Where you you like to live?I've had ex-patriot fantacies for several years now, but it has to be somewhere they speak English.
What is your favorite occupation? Fascinating Conversation in Independently Owned coffee houses.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
Compassion.
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Wisdom.
How would you like to die?
Satisfied.
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