Go Gagarin

Dear all,

Forever sentimental, I'm celebrating Gagarin's universal (not strictly Soviet) venture into space. Of course the poor man was a propaganda pawn, of course the ubiquitous 'microregions' of Turkmenistan and everywhere else I managed to spy into during the early-mid 90's named in honor of this man were wrapped up in the larger-than-life zeitgeist of the moment-beyond-the-passing-days of the 1960's. In fact, I never once thought of that precursory decade while I walked around dilapidated Turkmenistan. Gagarin was probably just a dude who wanted to leave a personal legacy; I wonder what he really though of the subtle sabotage that followed.

We're in it for less demagogic gain. I love what Jon has done and want to leave things temporarily at that. I'm still having some log-in struggles on these lines: blogspot.com always converts to a Czech line of instructions I usually understand, but they get cross-wired when they pose ultimata like, 'Do you want to change your log-in from [my school-issued gmail] to another gmail account?' [I don't even administrate my gmail account!!] or less clear questions whether I am signing in to an existing account, new account, create-an-account, etc (all in Czech). In other words, I'm still rather stupid/stupefied by the labyrinth we may be in.

But--positive forces unite!--the spirit is working where the web as we know it is weak! I thought I had tapped into Jon's 30 Birds but I guess I was at his Walled Garden site--still couldn't 'post a comment' there, despite trying to sign in (as a 'Follower'? I'm in over my head). Read that whole site--you can link into it if you type Jon's "About Me"--and see specifically the poems I most wanted to comment on, "Mathematics", "The Elephant" (which Jon shared after I wrote "Mid-Term Memory", attached) and "Earthworm Theology". I'm rather into slimy creatures, for whatever reason!

Go further to the Calendrums site--I was, by coincidence, thinking of penning a Palm Sunday poem this year, and "March" is a wonderful impetus. I think I like lower-case "gray" as a better poem, however. Another eBlogger (the other name for blogspot.com) site Jon has created is March to December, a wonderful double entendre. Read the Beckett/Pirandello-inspired "Story" or the more plot-apparent "Disappearance of Walter Herring"--again, I wanted to 'comment' to these entries but couldn't figure out the cyber-keys.

Finally, alas, the Thirty Birds that I took to heart poem-by-poem when they were written in the summer of 2008 (yes?). I hope these poems on this site will have their companions from renowned poets, doubling the 30 to 60 with names like Ted Hughes, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, et al. My favorites in that collection are "At the Bus Stop", "Social Creatures" and "Hawk Diode".

Anyway, this is everything I would have hoped by now and more. A la Greg Loftness, I was hoping we'd have a repository, a family legacy, an internship for whomever interested. As a 19th-century man, compelled to teach Web 2.0-sort-of-things, I don't much care about the confines of cyberspace. But I do love the spirit that both complements and prevails over the ether. In that sense, go Gagarin--not for jingoistic glory but for the metaphor that space cannot confine the aesthetic endeavor to touch the stars and return to earth unharmed. What's deeper in our pursuit, we have Matthew 4: 5-11.

love,
Dan