Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Academia

When minds like mine are running overtime
overclocked with caffeine writing line after line
of masturbatory pseudo-intellectual prose
of classes and stories professor's lecterns bumping like Bose
the facts and glories of past social morays
entrenched in the dentures of the last post-bomb Maurys
exhibiting characteristics of mass faux-pas boring
with lectures and pictures and learning curve scoring
the vectors and strictures of yearning burn forming
new perspectives taking an elective on language
note the eclectic metric in my dialectic it's hectic
I'll perfect it and direct it at all things effected
by the quasi-investigative semi-repressed littering
in literary circles jerking working smirking
getting critical and new but staying old and clue-
less addressing the less-pressing themes in a dead culture
fixating on the politically correct tossing the direct in a sepulcher
a hole in the ground for what is deemed oppressive dogma
In order to counter-act it “No Bullshit” is our mantra.

P.C. sensitive
no we see hesitance
and D.C. politics
pervading and raiding
the once exploratory
unknown territory
surrounding the promontory of Academia
the present academic endemic is systemic
its breeds panic in writers who manically try to mechanically ply
a method of writing lots and saying little
of recycling tired plots and twisted metal
of examining themes but not the novels
fancying themselves brand-new Vaclav Havels.

Speak and offend 'em
Write and apprehend 'em
Bevel your devilish pen-sword
carve a referendum
in the living rock of communal intellect
your word-weapon chisel is bound to impact
some cross-cultural stasis
embrace it and face it
no use erasing it
leave your mark
in pen.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Star Words

Open minded
centrist soldier
Buddhist monk
lightsaber holder
bolder than banthas
badder than Boba
demonstrating the relationship
of power and order
for the win the righteous
embracing the fact
that reacting to anger and hate
is tantamount to creating ill-fate
and the disturbance that evil creates
affects all of the people who sate
their latent thirst for mental mastery
at the academy
all scholarly
wax on wax off
3 ft. green Myagi
Rat-tailed karate kids and limited lasers
interacting with the masters of the force in three phases
Padawan, Apprentice, and Master in sequence
delineating all those waiting into leveled obedience
giving credence to the council to decide their place and who'll
be doling baddass justice like the Master Mace Windu.
In lieu of straight B.A.M.F. works
Jedi sometimes function as interim peace clerks
engaging a hostile Trade Federation with a pacifist's hand
until negotiations go south then they take a stand.

Float like Jango
and sting like Wedge
hop on Slave II and walk the edge
of the light and dark sides
perforce its the force of course
of course
endorse Endor's as your forest moon of choice
enforce your voice in singing the song
of the life galactic
the spastic
free-form hum of the spheres
structure and chaos interacting as peers
weird though it may seem
midi-chlorians live in you
allowing you the power
to master all in your venue
all that you think
you can create
premeditate and then improvise
contemplate and conceptualize
reiterate and extemporize
levitate and eviscerate
the Gungan that cracks wise
deflect thousands of blaster bolts as a reflex
dismantle AT-ATs
using honor as pretext
demolish droidekas as they try to attack you
disable their shields
fuck Gunray and Haako.

If you've got a bad feeling
Kick-it like Wicket
Up in some tree
'til our senses deceive us
Making 'em wheeze like Grievous
leave us alone as we commune with the force
sensing disturbances
gaining pre-cognitions
premonitions of your soon-to-be
the life roads you'll stroll-down
the hard foes you'll throw down
the general low down on your future tense-
ity your propensity for the events we'll see
Drop this blasé ennui
and give the now a goodbye kiss.

Dagobah is where you free your mind
Yoda's piggy-back ride will help decide
your power penchant
your force protection
the direction you'll choose
be it light or dark
it'll spark your humble beginnings
mark each yarn the green one's spinning
winning the contest
for wisest most oblique alien mentor
helping generations of Jedi find their center
Enter the Rancor with Fists of Fury
Inter-galactic inter-planetary far-away Bruce lee
you'll see the hour
you'll feel the power
you'll pick a side and ride hard when lesser ones cower
we'll hear the stories
we'll know whether the score is
Jedi in the lead or Sith coming up owning
you'll grasp instant
you'll seize the moment
attack in a second with confidence and own it.

Do or do not there is no try
reach your mind into the swamp
and make that x-wing fly.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Hyggelig and Neshama


My dad's mother, my Farmor, asks me to try and say a few Danish test words
“gulerulod” carrott, and “Rødgrød med fløde” berries and cream.
I stumble over the glottal “ær”, but come pretty close.
She loves me, so she smiles, chuckles heartily, then kisses me on the forehead,
but her eyes are sad.

Grandma, my mother's mother, insists that I be bar mitvah'd,
“Your Grandpa would've wanted it”
she says in her thick, half-Slavic/half-yiddish-new yorker cadence.
Regardless, I stand firm,
“I don't think it'd be right”... “I never really went to schul and I'd feel like a poser”.
My grandmother turns to my mom and asks her, in Yidd-laden English, what a “poser” is.
“You're a Jew.” she states, turning back to me. Her face smiling,
but her eyes voicing the same sorrow as her Danish counterpart.



I am Erik Olsen – Dane: first Viking, then Sailor, then Soldier/Translator/Accountant.

I am Humlizer – Jew: first Wanderer, then Farmer, then Tailor/Cab-driver/Translator.

Now I am a Student.

Can I be all of these people? Can I honor these varied aspects of my ancestry without turning my family's culture into fast food?



The Hebrew word “Neshama” roughly translates to “Soul” but in another use of it, it is viewed as the goodness of a person, the quantity of goodness housed within everyone.
I don't speak Hebrew or Yiddish.

The Danish word, “hyggelig” doesn't translate to English, but it connotes a coziness, a good-times-with-friends-and-family sort of vibe. The picture that comes to my mind is the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings, singing songs and drinking together.
I don't speak Danish either.

I don't speak any of the languages of my ancestors. I don't know their culture.
But I do understand Hyggelig and Neshama.
My parents were raised in Danish and Yiddish.
They learned to sound like Americans from the other kids.
My parents raised me in English.
Taught me to speak my language,
but think in theirs.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Sound Therapy


Turn your neural volume up
hear drums on repeat,
internal music monologue
synaptic back-beat,
let it flow through you
manifest it
snap fingers, tap feet.
Embrace the state
wait anticipate
the weight
the rhyme's the bait
bate your fate and leave
the eternal white rabbit state
that makes you feel
ever late late late.
Drop the pocketwatch
toss the golden chain
regain your brain
and expunge the pain
of the tic tock time
the incessant chimes
that attempt to crush
your soul and mine.
Involve your mind
and evolve in kind
through rhythm, rhyme,
and three/four time.
Join in with me
chant rant with me
as we get a little
sound therapy.

Notes and Spaces



A logical musician
a musical logician
prestidigitating intervals like a counterpoint magician
An electrician
laying down the harmonic wiring
blowing your mind with dissonance and leaving your neurons firing
After every bell that I ring
note that I sing
In a booming bass/baritone resonating
in the halls that I walk through
the prosceniums I play
warbling everything from Vaughan Williams over to Doris Day
Que Sera Sera I intone with neshama
after popping out some Broadway singing along in a room of
musical theater geeks
belting Sondheim on a mission –
No worries, Steve, these children do listen.

I've been listening a lot
trying to hone my craft
of course I'm not perfect
sometimes my music's understaffed
but still I got goals – to infinity and beyond
hoping one day to join the music pantheon.
Trying to write about something bigger
not just the nuts and bolts
Encompassing solar systems with my music
Modulating more than Manilow – jumping keys
Adulating the romantics though – more Mahler please.
Embracing German Opera eins zwei drei
Take my cues from R. Wagner getting my Valkyries to fly.

A theoretical music illusionist
choosing this
cruising this
life of limitless listening
this paradigm of cognitive conditioning
practitioning
the division of my reality
into sets of eight
as I allocate, I debate, contemplate, and correlate
the sounds found around me both atonal and harmonic
and immerse my not-so-terse verse in this heady tonic
It's pranic
moving thus from cilia to soul
implementing the true control
music has over me as a whole
reminding that music made me
emphasizing that it still shapes me
proselytizing me to the side of me
that doesn't hesitate to create
doesn't falter in his mandate
to eliminate mass-produced pop
to obviate woman-denigrating hip-hop
to initiate not only great but inspired mystical disc jocks
to be the impetus of a key change in music
causing the exodus of the pre-paid amusement movement
moving from the vacuous vapid teenage idol expenses
to lucid lush pieces that engage the senses.

Cue the Balzary bass
face Edan's rhyme scheme
glean Larkin's chord voicings
Boy sing Puccini's glissando
keep Bach Dvorak and rock Rachmaninoff
allow Prokofiev to hit you on and off
accentuate the central sensuality of the Danse Bacchanale
immerse yourself in all arrangements chorale
and covet each trill of Brahms' sad piano.





****Credit for the first two lines goes to OLIVIA PRATO

Sunday, February 6, 2011

A Beckett Rendition...Existentialism? Maybe? Who Knows.

(Erik paces stage left the entire tirade, occasionally looking up to the right, pausing then shaking his head as if he had thought he heard something, then convinced himself he was hearing things)
ERIK:              Given reality as it is according to Hawking and Benedict of a giant explosion  vee a zoy vee a zoy vee a zoy vee a zoy with nebulas suddenly expanding or an impersonal Lord vee a zoy vee a zoy vee a zoy vee a zoy with benevolence overflowing separate from mankind elusive but not out of reach from the ever-present ignorance ever-present ignominy ever-present ignobleness but is the truth always half of the time not completely sure why eventually though  all suffer this faith and fact side by side not completely sure why eventually though they drown in agony drown through water water that swallows the land and if allowed to continue will make Manhattan the new Atlantis that is will cover Manhattan so grey so dull so dismal yet with a ray of hope a ray of light a ray of a corny over-used metaphor for redemption while largely fake is superior to nothing I digress in light of the ray the hope the metaphor made by accident as deemed worthy by the Assassasssassociation of  Disdississiscernation in essence the brainchild of Bullshartre and Pissé it is certain beyond all reason other than the reason for certainty which is a viable burden of proof because of the works of Bullshartre and Pissé it is truth I digress not completely sure why that because of the words and ideas of Hawking and Benedict it is certain beyond all reason with regard to the ideas of Dumpé and Birpe by accident not completely sure why of Bullshartre and Pissé  by accident it is certain that what many consider taboo in the committee of Bullshartre and Pissé that humankind more or less to put it bluntly regardless of its ascent of devouring and destroying grows fatter and fatter fatter and fatter and remotely minutely infinitesimally additionally not completely sure why regardless of its ascent of the internet age the practice of gaming techniques and nuances such as spawn camping fragging lagging and owning n00bs with your magic and your weapons your guns your RPGs and your M-16's on your FPSyour RPGs your MORPGs and your MMORPGs of all sorts networking in your face on your  facebook myspace twitter socialvibe texting from last night and F my life sites of all kinds crying living blogging complaining of all kinds nighttime daytime morning evening twilight the first book in a line of teen girl mormon-porn of all kinds of every sort winning your MMORPGs pwning mad n00bs in th PvP zone 24/7 365 involving all sorts winning eighteen to one losing 21 to 4 still keeping at it as it is not completely sure why games of all sorts as it is not completely sure why in Rockem and Sockem
(emulates a pugilist)
the young inherit the wind the meek the week inherit the world they inherit the violence the drive-bys the shootings the bomb-threats Columbine Virginia Tech only weirdos do that the weirdos sitting next to you the weirdos that make up the world Populus seemingly a needle in a haystack a dime a dozen a fruit by the foot
(ceases pugilism)
              the fruits theyre fine now to some Benedick doesnt agree with them
(wags finger
              Hawking cant quite figure them out
(shrug)
              I digress not completely sure why as it is not completely sure why regardless what guards less considering the considerable work of Stein and Cathol it is very serious that in the light of the light the hope the corny metaphor made by accident by Stein and Cathol suffering faith and faith that in the cities by the rivers flowing H2O water droplets bouncing flung singing airs praise with a bright Ding in his/her own key til evaporation its grave stone cold gone their individuality true not blogged bought mimicked painted on worn I digress not completely sure why eventually though by accident  most conform unique different just like everyone else a fad its phat not fat like us the weight the weight the weight regardless of its ascent and the gaming and the drive-bys fat excess to much too much more than him her them you the world is burning eat its drowning drink its ending have sex hope for the best not completely sure why eventually though things wont work out pessimism optimism lazy the next generation their problem save the world unborn babies they were lazy were all lazy you cant be youll die fuck fuck were drowning I digress once again fuck fuck the heat the water the weight the water regardless of the gaming the weight podcast your feelings fuck fuck the heat regardless of the ascent put on sunglasses and head to the great arctic lakes sinking sinking fuck fuck vee a zoy vee a zoy vee a zoy vee a zoy black-bagged by the ignorance ignominy and ignobleness trio not completely sure why fuck fuck eventually though sinking sinking I digress sinking fuck once again suffer faith and fact fuck fuck fuck it is certain beyond all reason... peek.... grow... peak
touch fingers of hands together to form a peak then cease)
              .... sink... drown... not completely sure why.
(Looks up sadly then at the ground)