publicity//\\poems

I haven't been posting as regularly.

Let me see where we can start.

The year is starting up again, and as the publicist for my college's Poet's Society, I promote our organization cautiously. How does one publicize poetry? Isn't PR and poetry a laughable combination?

The best thing I could think of – to avoid boisterously advertising a sometimes quiet but chronically inspired group – was to present images in the backgrounds of our voices.

And I'll end this post with a favorite poem of mine:

Youth

Through all of youth I was looking for you

without knowing what I was looking for

or what to call you I think I did not

even know I was looking how would I 

have known you when I saw you as I did

time after time when you appeared to me

as you did naked offering yourself

entirely at that moment and you let

me breathe you touch you taste you knowing

no more than I did and only when I 

began to think of losing you did I 

recognize you when you were already 

part memory part distance remaining 

mine in the ways that I learn to miss you

from what we cannot hold the stars are made

P.S. This poem tends to be under the name of W.S. Merwin, but I first came across it under the name of Osip Mandelstam. Through all the midday afternoons this poem has followed me, through the nights I have followed it, I no longer wish to know the author. 

fear//make.french.toast

It is finals week here in college world! What an in to a discussion of FEAR.

I've been thinking about FEAR because I feel it, I'd say, 95% of the time, at least a little bit. A sense of FEAR seems to be perpetually looming. Both its presence and its absence come in waves. The FEAR waves just permeate less suddenly, and for longer.

hello i am either FEAR or no FEAR!!!!!!!!!

In the past two days, FEAR has turned from a feeling to an explicit thought. FEAR has ceased soaking the background of my consciousness and is now dripping in a puddle of its own pee downstage. FEAR is wet; like liquid, it pours. And recently, FEAR has been soaking up the spotlight–and is able to be seen through, for now. 

Flows of FEAR are usually followed by an ebb; now they are consciously monitored, analyzed, deliberated. Part of this temporary change, I think, was inspired by Liz Garbus' documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? I had heard about the flick for a while, and decided to see for myself what all the speculation was about. I am not going to make the space here for the discussion that her life and legacy deserve, but I recommend that you watch the doc. 

FEAR is also centerstage, downstage to Garbus' investigation into the musician's life and career. It is often humbling to remember that FEAR affects most people, even those who seem to have no reason to fear anything at all.

Maybe that's the relationship! I thought. Maybe it's as direct as that:

freedom = no FEAR. 

The absence of FEAR leads to freedom; freedom is only experienced in the absence of FEAR.

In appreciation of the human ability to THINK about THOUGHTS, I wrote a little thing:

what I could do if I had no fear!

how would i do it?:

extract the amygdala there are two and they are almonds but especially on the right

side 

rip it out 

with the fear of anaphylaxis from the one allergic

to tree nuts.

FEAR ancestors who were fearful lived by skirting

situations and saying 'that does not seem safe' while hiding

in caves.

but we are safe! we are safe in piles of laundry

still with this fear of having

nothing to put it into nothing

to promise a ripping out of.

it comes to malaise

I BECOME the cave.

think about my strange position!:

I am not the one seeking shelter;

I am not the predator;

I am the cave!

just standing and people

may visit. looking

for something.

i may see threat growing 

from the outside!

but i am standing

and i do not know how big I am.

I'm hoping to turn this stream of consciousness into a poem, but I believe that streams of consciousness are poems, too. 

This blog helps me face fear. By writing, I challenge fear with words. Every time I sit down to write a post, my syntax is shaking; I'm afraid that my points can't be articulated due to some inherent incapacity to communicate. 

But this is communicating.

I would like to think that the feeling will go away, that this will all get easier. Maybe for things to 'get easier', I will need to look straight through FEAR; maybe FEAR will go away when I look straight through it; maybe staring through what I don't want to even THINK about leads to freedom. 

If that 5% of the time that I don't feel FEAR is freedom, I could quantify its existence by assessing if, somehow, the FEAR waves begin to ebb 6%, 10%, 50% of the time.

If I could have that, half of my life, no fear.

If you are soaking in fear, try soaking bread instead. Ready for french toast, love?

VEGAN FRENCH TOAST RECIPE. 

IN CAPITALIZED COURIER TYPEFACE.

LET ME TELL YOU,IT ALL BEGINS WITH A BANANA IN SOYMILK AND FEAR.

this recipe does, anyway.

VEGAN FRENCH TOAST ON A SUNDAY.

INGREDIENTS: 

-2 slices of hard, stale bread that you were about to throw away before you saw this. (I used wimpy bread. I should have used hard, stale bread. There's where the name comes from, after all: pain perdu, or "lost bread".)

-1 nanner (banana yeh)

-1 cup soymilk or whatevermilk.

-cinnamon, vanilla extract, and nutmeg to taste.

PROCEDURE: 

1.) Pour whatever walk of milk you have in a blender or food processor. I used a nutribullet and am lucky to have one.

2.) Tear your nanner in 3 or 4 pieces and drop them in that lovely pool of whatevermilk. I feel like "tear" is not apt for describing what I advise you do to the banana.

3.) Sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg in there, too.

4.) Blend all that up in your handy machine.

hah! get it? handy?

5.) Pour that mixture into a bowl and dip your (not wimpy) bread into it.

 

+

wimpy bread from Wegmans.

=

6.) Pour oil or butter in a pan. Remember to keep it vegan if you want to keep this recipe vegan. Vegetable oil, canola oil, and butter are good alternatives to animal products.

have no fear! the wimpy bread soaked it up already!

shaking negativity//sequence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmDAk4j3RDA

Document art?

Document groove

Document shaking

negativity

~in sequence~

simoeyes//music video

I like to agglomerate expressions into media. But I find issue with media agglomerations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDlMR8XJl0E

all you need is not love.

It was just Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, and I felt barraged by promotions of love:

even Dr. King looks afflicted in this one.

There's a problem with this. Love cannot solve everything.

Think about it. If you loved everyone, who would you have to blame? How would you get anything done?

While the above statements are worth consideration, my argument against love is not predicated on a need to blame. But the expectation of love to solve everything–differences, tensions, hard feelings–can lead to serious disappointment. You can't love everyone because the connoted intensity of the feeling would blind you to understanding what those differences, tensions, and feelings are made of.

FOR EXAMPLE, you are in an argument with someone, pitting your beliefs against his or hers. The topic could concern politics, religion, lifestyle. How would love benefit you there? 

I don't agree with you, but I love you, so let's stop arguing.

If someone said this to me, I would think they're using love as an excuse, as a way out of trying to understand what I'm talking about, what I'm thinking about, and maybe why I'm thinking in that way.

Now, here's the first showing of my answer to the dilemma, my remedy for disagreements, personal issues, and social problems: not love, but a will to understand. 

Consider the following statement, which I've come to hear and see frequently enough to register a maxim, taken from the New Testament of the Bible:

Love thy neighbor as thyself.

Sigmund Freud called the expectation veiled by the easiness of saying–and superficially believing in– the exhortation unrealistic. "Love thy neighbor as thyself," misconstrues human nature, and disregards the individual right to choose who to love, and how.

Freud. 

A lot of social exchanges on the psychoanalyst ultimately denigrate him. Most conversations I've heard about Freud default to his psychosexual theories, depend on terms like "phallic stage" and "penis envy," "Oedipus conflict" and a quick reference to cocaine to discredit his work and, finally, to verbally confirm their lack of sexual interest in their mothers.

But I think that if you think you have to love thy neighbor as thyself, or love a stranger or someone you don't enjoy being around, you will end up hating yourself, doubting your worth as a human, and be bothered by a perceived inability to love.

An interaction will leave you feeling angry. You will become angrier if you deny yourself the right not to love.

"All you need is love" says John Lennon.

Nope.

Message from religion: "Love thy neighbor as thyself"

I hear Freud was pessimistic. In his writings, he does not communicate the sunniest perception of human nature. But he was a psychoanalyst. He tried to understand. YES there are ethical concerns about his practice, but he did not think that love was an answer to the woes of society, or the chasms between people. LOVE is not an guaranteed, pliable answer to every situation. I do not want to love everyone, for that would be EXHAUSTING.

If understanding is step towards love, then, maybe I can try to start.

i told you this was a food blog//egg in an avo\\cado

Adapted from Why You Should Bake Your Eggs Inside an Avocado

I like when recipes have authoritative titles: You should make this. At first I'm perturbed by the casual disrespect of my individuality, my agency, my own ability to make decisions and determine what I "should" do. Then I say whatever, this is someone else's perception of what "should" be done anyway.

and I make my recipe vernacular a bit authoritative too. all-caps helps.

INGREDIENTS (serve 2; prep time 5 mins; cook time 10-12 mins)

ONE avocado

TWO eggs

SALT AND PEPPER

SOME hot sauce (if u want)

DIRECTIONS/INSTRUCTIONS (which one sounds more like it's chuckling from the ribs of a despot? That one.)

PREHEAT oven to 450 F.

CUT that avo in half (I like to follow the circumference of the ellipse with a sharp knife, cutting deep to the seed all along, put the knife down, and grab each half to wiggle them free)

REMOVE to seed (swymf trick: whack your sharp knife into the seed, move the handle back and forth, and, like you did with the avocado halves, wiggle the object of desire free)

***I've decided to use "swymf" to references the title of this blog. 

i love the acronym's absurdity.

here is a demonstrative video if my DIRECTIONS/INSTRUCTIONS don't suffice: 

How to Cut an Avocado

***tip: pour hot sauce in the avo hole before you plop in the egg. The original recipe calls this a "Pro tip," which, after being directly told what one "should" do this whole time, is painfully indirect and all the more despotic...

...

this is the hot sauce I used.

Katy Perry calls it liquid gold.

Told you.

STARE into your avo holes. You may need to make the holes larger/deeper to accommodate the entire egg. 

CRACK egg in avo hole. Again, you have have needed to make the avo holes deeper. But, if the whites spill out, that's okay; they'll cook like canopies, hanging from the green.

because.

ADD salt, pepper, and spices, if you'd like.

that's my effort to avoid despotism. on my own blog. a place that is literally all mine.

but thats why i share it with you <33333333334#

so excited at this point as to channel it to the hand holding the phone.

BAKE for 10-12 minutes at 450 F.

this was in the beginning.

***dedicated to Kate Dowd, who brought the sauce and told me Katy Perry liked it.

10% are using android//study music//this is still a food blog

FROM LE STATS:

"Sarah Simon, 10% of people who visit your blog are using their Android."

It's almost the end of the semester. More visibility is given to people studying than any other time in the year. Everyone seems on that quest for FOCUS--a front lobe-dopamine wave.

Need study music? Here's a mix, recorded at your local library:

https://soundcloud.com/ssimon8/sets/enlim

P.S. "Enlim" is an intentional, SUNY-Geneseo-centric name.

P.P.S. a mix from the QUIET SECTION coming soon...

this is still a food blog.

one-liners//this is a food blog again

I've been dipping into old notes I wrote on my phone...some of them seem pretty insightful and o.k. i think of how "young" I was at a time stamp of two years ago. but if i didnt know anything about who wrote these notes, I wouldn't feel a temporal connection:

(I am pairing these with pictures of food because I want this to become a food blog again.
More culinary efforts to come.)

why do i feel the need to peruse your daily
hourly
minutely posts when I
have Maya Angelou right next to me

Mediocre fried chicken and decaf Americano.

at night, she blocks the time box~

reverberating through a light wooden headboard

To John Belushi,

this library is like a stuffy nose.

a pound is 454 grams

lemons

cleaver//

this is the definition i get when i inquire into the meaning of "cleaver" on the Apple Dictionary app:

people in Russia are visiting this page. And 1 person in Costa Rica. hey.

Aggression cues.

Studies show that arousal fuels emotions–whatever they may be. This plays into the two-factor theory of emotion (Schachter & Singer, 1962) which puts words to a human tendency; we sometimes misattribute physical excitement to mushy emotion. 

When I say "misattribute," I do not mean that this tendency is inherently wrong or flawed; it just happens–and can actually lead to serious pleasure. Take this example, for instance:

A study by Dutton and Arthur Aron (1974) arranged for a young woman to approach
a number of young men as they crossed a narrow, wobbly, 450-foot-long suspension walkway hanging 230 feet above British Columbia’s rocky Capilano River.

sup.

During each approach, the woman asked that the participants help her fill out a class questionnaire. After they complied, she offered her name and number, and suggested that each guy call–if he wanted to hear more about the project (mm-hmm, right). Of those who accepted the phone number (most), half called.

so where's the statistical significance? she was probably hot.

So, half the guys called back. This isn't surprising–maybe they found the digit-sharing inquisitor attractive. 

i love you, stock.

But here's the big find: men who were instead approached by the same woman on a low, solid, and therefore SAFER bridge, rarely called. 

This is where the participants' physical arousal on the dangerous bridge may have been attributed to attraction.

From our own experiences, we know that emotion can, and always does, have some sort of physiological effect. The two-factor theory of emotion can help us to see why accompanying sweethearts during arousing activities can really pick up the romance. 

The theory writes kissing-in-the-corner of cinemas as more than a social script, amusement parks more than a trite date idea; scary movies and rollercoasters can bring expectation to fruition, a fear-laden pump of blood, suddenly, the anticipated tryst.

talk about paranormal activity.

just kidding, all i want is this tangerine-colored liquid.

I haven't thought of tangerines in a while. Did you know they got their name from their source of export? Me neither.

While I just gave you (or reinforced) an idea for a sultry evening, let's get back to aggression. I don't mean the hot and bothered kind.

If physical arousal can fuel sexual desire, can it fuel other emotions? Yes. The principal seems to be that "a given state of bodily arousal feeds one emotion or another, depending on how the person interprets and labels the arousal" (Myers, 2013, pp. 368).

Have you ever gotten really into a song at the gym, feeling as if it's carrying you through an episode of squats and you freakin LOVE TOM PETTY? Have you ever sat dwelling in a few moments of silent, otherwise benign frustration, and suddenly felt enraged at an unexpected and LOUD telephone ring? Have you received bad news after running home, and volcanoed? Are you angry right now?

cool it, it's only a rupture in the Earth's crust.

Studies by Leonard Berkowitz and colleagues (1968, 1961, 1995) zeroed in on the power of aggression cues. They found that children who had just played with toy guns became more willing to 

knock down another child’s blocks.

Another study showed college men giving more electric shocks to a person who had just angered them when a rifle and a revolver (supposedly left over from a previous experiment) were nearby than when badminton rackets had been left behind.

Let's go back to the idea of a cleaver. The above one was possibly used to dice garlic, or diced garlic was used to consummate the action connoted by the image. I think this is one of ShoutWithYourMouthFull's most photo-loaded posts. What are you thinking of when you look at this photo?

hah. i just linked myself.

I'm learning that it's important to consider the impact of environment on the individual psyche. And when I say I'm learning, I mean I try to step outside of my impulse, let its anger or sadness flow through me as i experience it, fascinated. I am fascinated by how I can connect my sadness to the idea of suicide when I see a knife drying on the dish rack.

To be sure, I am not considering killing myself. But it's important to talk, to think about, to observe.

The power a suggestion has over you is up to you.

“IF YOU DON’T GO TO 

SOMEBODY’S FUNERAL, 

THEY WON’T COME TO 

YOURS.”

—YOGI BERRA

WORKS CITED GODDAMMIT THEY'RE DRILLED INTO ME

Myers, David (2013-01-01). Social Psychology, 11th edition (Page 368). McGraw-Hill Higher Education -A. Kindle Edition. 

^^^i am not going to indent the second line. <3