leah - ProfilesArchive

About Me

A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him. --Kierkegaard

The first steps toward wisdom are the most strenuous, because our weak and stubborn souls dread exertion (without absolute guarantee of reward) and the unfamiliar. As you progress in your efforts, your resolve is fortified and self-improvement progressively comes easier. By and by it actually becomes difficult to work counter to your own best interest. By the steady but patient commitment to removing unsound beliefs from our souls, we become increasingly adept at seeing through our flimsy fears, our bewilderment in love, and our lack of self control. --Epictetus, The Art of Living (trans. Sharon Lebell)

My Interests

kerouac, the beats, surrealism, poetry, theatre, 1960s off-off-broadway, reading, creating, visiting museums, writing with fountain pens, chicago cubs baseball

I'd like to meet:

those who are capable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty... and anyone who was involved in the beat movement...

Music:

elliott smith, jazz, bop, chopin, bach, debussy, beethoven, rufus wainwright, damien youth, smashing pumpkins, radiohead, elvis costello, tom waits, coldplay, earlimart, tammany hall nyc, our lady peace, phish, rasputina, the dresden dolls, jason webley, the occasional horribly daft musical...

Movies:

pull my daisy, flesh and the devil, scotland pa, rent, streetcar named desire (brando version), moulin rouge, elf, fight club, trainspotting, adaptation, mulholland drive, gone with the wind, whatever happened to baby jane, clue, the shape of things, jean cocteau films (the orphic trilogy), girl interrupted, amelie, kissing jessica stein, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, cecil b demented, donnie darko, coolsville, what's up doc, the phantom of the opera, silent films

Television:

Books:

jack kerouac, andre breton, gregory corso, carolyn cassady, neal cassady, allen ginsberg, lawrence ferlinghetti, gary snyder, diane di prima, philip lamantia, michael mcclure, sam shepard, anne sexton, rainer maria rilke, robert creeley, e.e. cummings, gabriel gudding, jk rowling, agatha christie, anton chekhov, thornton wilder, ken kesey, tennessee williams, neil labute, soren kierkegaard, michel foucault, robert lowell, gertrude stein, walt whitman, arthur rimbaud, theodore roethke, comte de lautreamont, christopher smart, baruch spinoza, small press poetry, countless others...

My Blog

Smokey the Bear Sutra

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago,the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the InfiniteVoid gave a Discourse to all the assembled elementsand energies: to the standing beings, the walking...
Posted by leah on Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:54:00 PST

The Moon

The MoonThe moon her magic be, big sad faceOf infinity. An illuminated clay ballManifesting many gentlemanly remarksShe kicks a star, clouds foregatherIn Scimitar shape, to round herCradle out, upside...
Posted by leah on Fri, 05 Jan 2007 01:45:00 PST

Letter to the American Poet Gregory Corso

Letter to the American Poet Gregory Corso by Sándor Csoóri I'd like to roam the world with you, Corso,derailer of time,twentieth-century rowdy.Your striped t-shirt reminds me of prison clothes,runaway...
Posted by leah on Wed, 06 Dec 2006 07:57:00 PST

on the road, part one, chapter one

"On the Road" by Jack KerouacPart One-Chapter 1I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had so...
Posted by leah on Sat, 25 Nov 2006 11:53:00 PST