fuck pizza

Well, no, dont do that. Pizza is typically hot and that would hurt a lot. And not that I’m going to fuck the pizza touching stuff, its just that, I am going to use this blog as a blog of nothing specific. Right now, I want to post some mini essays. The firs tone, I’m going to revise a bit right now, and then post it. Sweet.

Not looking so good

Alright, so here’s how its been. Every day last week I went home. Well, not on thursday. But monday I went home after classes for a few minutes before work started. My pizza wasn’t there. Tuesday, I go after classes, not there. Wednesday, still not there. When I bought the damn thing, it said two to five business days. Let’s review. I bought it the day before Thanks giving, Wednesday. Thursday wouldn’t be a business day. Friday would be. So, now I would say it should be 1-5 business days? Monday would be the next business day. That’s two down. Tuesday is three. Wednesday is 4. Thursday I get a call from my mom. She wants to save me gas money. Its not there. That should be the 5th business day. Friday, still not there. I go home for something on Friday to get something and my mom decides to call the company. They say that everything is delayed because they are converting all their software to something newer. Probably a lie. They said it would be shipped tomorrow(not a business day) and it should be at the house on Tuesday or Wednesday. If it doesn’t get here soon. I’m going to kill some fake pizza dough makers.

Disappointment

Alright, so I ordered the Throw Dough on wednesday. Right before Thanksgiving. 2 to 5 business days and I should have it. Friday being the first business day, monday, today. I didnt stretch on Friday, and the few times that I did stretch yesterday I was very out of practice. I’ve been practicing with a wet hand towel, and its not the same at all to real dough. I need to stop doing that and only use throw dough and real dough. What ever though. I just cant wait for it to get here!

New concept for blog

Alright, so, this is my poetry blog. But its going to become something new. Instead a blog about poetry, it’s going to be a blog about my quest to become the best pizza dough tosser in america. 

 

Here’s the story. I work at a place called Flatbread Pizza Company. Flatbread is a pizza place that makes all organic pie. All the veggies are organic, and the meats are free range. We use a big ass brick oven to bake all the pizza’s and it’s awesome. I’m not into all that organic food, nitrate free food, and hippy stuff, but the pies are just amazing. I highly suggest you check it out. There are like 7 of them or something, I work for the one in Bedford.

I do a few different things there. I started off making salads and desserts. That sorta sucked for a while, but then I asked my managers ( I was really just complaining to a friend and fellow co-worker and a manager heard me and asked what’s up) and now I am doing a bunch of stuff. Some days I bake, which is awesome, except that its in front of an oven that is like 600-1000 degrees, and I sweat a lot. Some days I assemble. A pizza dough comes to me, I put the sauce on, and the veggies and meats and then I hand it off to the baker. Most days though, I stretch. Stretching is just taking the round pizza dough, and making it flat and rounder so a pizza can be born. I love it. I throw the dough up into the air and I can spin it and all that cool stuff.

Well, some cool stuff. Right now I can really only stretch it. I can’t do much more than that. There are a lot of tricks that I can learn, which brings me to the next topic:

 

THROW DOUGH! Throw Dough is a fake pizza dough. See, the problem with real pizza dough is after a certain time, its big enough. You can only spin it for so long before it’s ready to be made into a pizza, or before it rips. But with this fake pizza dough, it doesn’t rip. You can spin and spin and spin for ever. I mean, it is possible to rip it, but it’s not like real pizza dough. 

I’ve ordered some. I ordered it the day before Thanksgiving, and it should be here within 2-5 business days. AKA, sometime this week. Once I get it, I need to start practicing. What am I practicing for?

 

Every year there is some pizza spinning contest. I forget the name right now. I’ll probably post links sometime later. This year its being held in New York. From the first till third of march. That gives me 89 days to get it, learn some sweet tricks, and then go and compete. 

 

 

I think it will be awesome.

 

 

Not that anybody is really going to read this, but I will keep you posted. Also, I might post some stuff about poetry too. I just got “The Sonnets” by Billy Shakespeare and I like them a lot.

I nominate Poetry in a can As the best blog of this semester.

 

I believe this person put a lot of time and effort into making their blog look good. They also had a wide range of poets and put thought into what they said about the poems. Also posted things other than poetry. 

 

Honorable mentions are:

 

Bluediamond19

mastersloth

nightwriter

Always Rambling

Blog to pass the time

Live and Learn4

m1ssyou

 

These people all had every or nearly every post they were suppose to do, had many comments, and a wide range of poets to discuss.

William “Master” Wordsworth… I just like his last name, he’s never been called “master”

Yeah, that’s not a real nickname. It’s just that he’s a poet, and his last name is made up of the two words, Words and Worth. I think its ironic and stuff but that’s besides the point.

 

 

So anyways. The poem! The poem I’ve chosen for this week is a sonnet by William Wordsworth. I have this book that my sister gave me called, “The 100 Best Poems of All Time” and before every poem there is a small paragraph usually about the author or about the poem. For this one it said that Wordsworth is usually considered the third greatest sonneteer of all time. He is only behind Shakespeare and John Milton. Actually, I’m not sure if it is John Milton. I’m pretty sure he is the guy who wrote those Paradise Lost books and stuff. Nevertheless, “Milton” is considered better. 

 

The World Is Too Much With Us

 

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. -Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

 

-William Wordsworth

 

The reason why I chose this poem is because it’s not the typical sonnet. While most sonneteers wrote about girls who had white skin and blonde hair, and red lips and soft breasts and all those other things, some wrote about girls who didn’t have “classical beauty”. People like Shakespeare wrote about the Dark Lady and about some guy who he thought was really good looking. And then there was Spenser who wrote about a girl, but unlike most poets, he actually went on to marry that girl he was talking about, you know, instead of just having an affair. But Wordsworth wrote a sonnet that had nothing to do with girls. He wrote something about nature.

 

What really struck me about this poem is that it’s a sonnet that isn’t about love, but with people destroying the earth. With all this stuff about oil and waste and going green and green house gasses and pollution that’s happening today, somebody was writing about this stuff before it really started to happen. I was reading some more of Wordsworth and he has some really great poetry. Some of it being sort of long, but it’s not all about the typical stuff. I highly suggest it.

Billy Shakespeare; Just chillin’

130

 

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; 

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts be dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damaskedº, red and white,                  variegated

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath than from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;º                                       walk

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

    And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rareº                 extraordinary

    As any she beliedº with false compare.                         misrepresented

 

 

-William Shakespeare

 

 

 

 

This is the 130th sonnet in Shakespeare’s cycle. It’s about his mistress, the “dark lady”.  Again, I am learning about Sonnets in one of my other classes, History of English Lit. When the prof was talking about this one, she was saying that she no longer teaches this to her freshmen students. The reason being is that they always say that Shakespeare is making fun of his mistress. And he basically is. The entire poem he talks about how she is pretty, but truthfully there are things better than her. My favorite lines being, “And in some perfumes is there more delight/ Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.” He doesn’t say that her breath is bad, just there are better smelling things out there. 

But with a true sonnet, the couplet at the end reverses it all. He says that his love is unlike any other, and that if you reverse all the comparisons you get what the actual description of his mistress. 

 

Now, originally when we were learning about sonnets in class and how sometimes Shakespeare didn’t use iambic pentameter, I thought it was a load of crap. There was this talk about how did didn’t always us I.P. because he wanted to make that one word more meaningful, or he was making fun of other poets who use I.P. religiously and can’t experiment with form at all.  I just thought Shakespeare was just lazy and didn’t care if his sonnets weren’t one hundred percent perfect. I was imagining a conversation between Shakespeare and a friend would go like this:

 

Billy: You wanna read this sonnet I just wrote? Its whicked good.

Friend: Yeah, sure, pass it over… (reading)… 

Billy: It’s good huh?

Friend: … It’s good. I mean, the imagery is really good and the rhyming is awesome, but like, this line right here, (show’s Shakespeare, pointing) line 5, thats not iambic pentameter. Whats up with that? That sorta takes away from the poem, you know?

Billy: Dude…seriously? I don’t care at all. I’m Will Effing Shakespeare. I can write complete sh*t and in 500 hundred years everybody will be like, “Oh my god! He’s so clever! I can’t believe how he does this! It’s soooo amazing!”

Friend: Sorry Bill, I’m just saying! I know you are really good, but this could be better. I think you can write a perfect sonnet, and by definition, this sonnet is not perfect.

Billy: Ok, that’s it. I’m not going to write about how good looking I think you are anymore. You’re cut off. I’m ganna start writing sonnets about my mistress. She’s been on my tail about this for a while anyways.

 

 

I know it wouldn’t be like that, with them not having American accents and using that type of slang, but the idea is there. But thats basically what I thought of Shakespeare, he was more lazy than clever. But now when I read this poem, I think he is a little bit more clever than I originally gave him credit for.

English Sonnets

 

I Find No Peace

 

I find no peace, and all my war is done,

I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice,

I flay above the wind, yet can I not arise,

And naught I have and all the world I seize on.

That* looseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison,               *that which

And holdeth me not, yet can I ’scape nowise;

Nor letteth me life nor die at my devise*,                           *will

And yet of death it giveth me occasion.

Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain*;              *Complain

I desire to perish, and yet I ask health;

I love another, and thus I hate myself;

I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain.

Likewise displeaseth me both death and life,

And my delight is causer of this strife.

 

-Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder

 

A Modern Prose Translation by Robert K. Durling

 

Peace I do not find and I have no wish to make war; and I fear and

hope, and burn and am of ice; and I fly above the heavens and lie

on the ground; and I grasp nothing and embrace all the world.

 

One has me in prison who neither opens nor locks, neither keeps

me for his own nor unties the bonds;  and Love does not kill and

does not unchain me, he neither wishes me alive nor frees me from

the tangle.

 

I see without eyes, and and I have no tongue and yet cry out, and I wish

to perish and I ask for help; and I hate myself and love another.

 

I feed on pain, weeping I laugh; equally displeasing to me are death

and life. In this state am I, Lady, on account of you.

 

 

 

 

 

I found this Sonnet in my History of English Lit. book. We have just begun the section on English Sonnets and I was doing the homework and this poem just struck me. It’s by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, who is credited with bringing the sonnet from Italy to England and thus making “The English Sonnet”. 

 

 

This poem reminds me of that poet Pablo Neruda. That guy takes his poetry to the extreme. He shows so much emotion over something (from what I’ve see, it’s mostly girls he’s in love with) that most people wouldn’t. Not to say that people don’t feel that way sometimes, but most people don’t express it the way he does.

 

But with Wyatt, the emotion first seems very strong, but the more I read it, the more I think that it is neutral. He doesn’t say that his life is horrible, or that he is in pain. He doesn’t want to live, but he also doesn’t want to die. I think of this as being worse; these neutral feelings. I remember in sophomore year of high school my teacher asked what the opposite of love is. Most people said that it was hate. She told us that the ancient greeks said that the opposite of Love is Neutrality or Indifference. Love is the greatest emotion a person can have for another person. But hate is also a very extreme emotion. To have no emotion seems so much worse. And to be in that state because of a woman, its hard to imagine something worse than what Wyatt was going through at that time. 

 

I really wish that all poems had Modern Prose Translations. It just makes them that much easier to understand

Red Sox at the Bat

Casey at the Bat

by Ernest Thayer

 

The Outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that -
We’d put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-
“That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted someone on the stand;
And its likely they’d a-killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.”

“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck out.

 

Alright, this is a pretty simple poem to understand. It’s about a semi pro baseball player who if he can just hit a nice homerun, he will win the game. But to everyone’s surprise, he strikes out. But a walk off homerun, it’s one of those things that every fan hopes for. It’s one of the best things about the game. It’s the ultimate come from behind victory.  

I’ve read this poem before. I think it was in elementary school and then thought process of the teacher was, “boys like sports… this is a great sports poem… maybe they will like poetry after this???” It doesn’t work like that. Not for me at least, I was never into sports until about three years ago. Honestly, my girlfriend is a huge sports fan and watching games with her is how I go into the Red Sox and the Pats. But I’m still just a casual fan. I like to go to a Sox game at least once a year, and going to UMass Lowell, the Spinners are awesome to go see, and all the other farm league teams that the Sox have. 

Listening to this game is horrible. It seems like the Red Sox are going to be Casey. I so hope that the Rays are, but it just doesn’t seem like it will be. But I need to get back to watching this game!

 

Even though I’m just a “casual sports fan” my heart is racing right now. The Sox are on. Game 7 against the Rays. I was reading Casey at the Bat while watching this game, and shivers were going up my spine in almost every single stanza. 

Boston News Papers?

The Boston Evening Transcript

 

The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript

Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.

 

When evening quickens faintly in the street,

Wakening the appetites of life is some

And to others bringing the Boston Evening

       Transcript,

I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning

Wearily, as one would turn to nod goodbye to 

       La Rochefoucauld,

If the street were time and he t the end of the 

       street,

And I say, ‘Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston

       Evening Transcript.’

 

 

-T.S. Elliot

 

 

 

So, I’m not quite sure about this poem. It’s by T.S. Elliot who wrote that long poem The Waste Land. I’ve never read that but I hear its hard to follow. This poem, I don’t believe it has any specific accent or stressed unstressed pattern, it’s more of just free verse. Apparently the Boston Evening Transcript is an old Boston news paper that started in 1830 and closed its doors in 1941. The Records of the newspaper are good for historians because the paper ran an column about three times a week on genealogy. 

 

The other part of the poem that I have no idea about is La Rochefoucauld. I looked him up too and apparently he is a french author. 

 

From what I gather, he is saying that at night time, there are some people who come to life, and others who just read newspapers. It’s odd, because if that’s what it means, there is almost a role reversal now. Newspapers are having a hard time staying open because nobody is reading them but it seems to me like the people who still do read newspapers are an older crowd that are more intelligent. This poem may be an insult to his Cousin Harriet, who he gives the newspaper to, instead of letting her live that night.