Puppy: A personal sonnet

For I used to be an only child

The lone wolf puppy was how I was seen

Then one day he came, so spry so wild.

Two years in mutt, but in human fourteen.

Like the sun that sits alone in the sky

Some unique days the moon joins him in light

For I can see in my boyish mind’s eye

Their friendship has grown forever airtight

Rare are canines that have moustache and beard

Brindle all over, pure white on his chest

The rest of the fam'ly thinks he looks weird

But I can tell he is nothing but best.

For my home was just me, Dad and Mother,

Puppy came in and gave me a Brother.

3 January 2012 poems

Picasso Poem:                                     

There is always someone there

Someone hiding within

My lesser self

My lesser half

There is always something missing

One thing that got away

The thing I never had

The thing I’ll never say

Resting in my armchair

Just trying to forget

Always feeling broken

My needs are rarely met

On the surface I am one

Another lies just under

Just under is what you can’t see

Just under is the real me

Deformed, misshapen

I am so incomplete

Finding you inside myself

Always makes me weep.

What happens to the cherry blossoms?

What happens to the Cherry Blossoms bloom?

The pink leaves up high,

gracing the city streets.

So quickly turning brown,

meeting doom.

The white snow melts

as jackets are lost.

Warm winds hint in the air

Goodbye my frost.

Pink is the new grey

For what seems like

Only one day

It all goes green

In a flash.

What is Poetry?                  

            

Reading a poem is

admiring art.

Scanning the page

Like the halls of a museum.

Choosing your favorite

Words, passages, pieces.

Which one moves you

 colors, textures, materials.

Loosing yourself,

Endlessly

Finding yourself.

Poetry, like the library

Of songs

Floating around my head

Makes me feel.

Picasso Reflection

When given the chance to research an iconic artist I chose Pablo Picasso. Being the son of José Ruiz black sale and Maria Picasso Lopez wife was difficult. At the age of 10 little Pablo had to mourn the loss of his youngest sister. Picasso lived in one of the best outlets for what he did best paint. Beautiful cathedrals and architecture made Spain an inspirational place for an artist to live. Picasso a had good painter’s pedigree, his Dad was an accomplished painter and an art teacher and from a very young age, Pablo showed real talent for art. Picasso lived a tortured life perhaps events like his girlfriend committing suicide is what lead him to his sexual and twisted paintings. Picasso’s paintings show what seems to be hatred towards women. Although his paintings are often viewed as violent we can all agree that he was a thought provoking an inspiring painter.

Picasso is one of the founders of the Cubist Movement but he worked in many different mediums and his work is grouped together by periods. Picasso was innovative and challenged conventional art but his training was very traditional. At the age of 13 he admitted into the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona and soon after that he went to study at the Royal Academy of San Fernando, the most prestigious art school in Madrid. In 1901, Picasso’s Blue period began followed by the Rose period in 1905 and the African Influenced Period in 1908 and finally Cubism in 1909. Each of theses periods had their own unique characteristics and back stories. The Blue period is full of shades of blues and greens and has subjects that are often blind and under fed. The Rose period had more color and life; its subjects are often circus people, acrobats and harlequins. Cubism is a form of picking apart objects and analyzing their shapes, this period is characterized by his use of browns and neutral tones.

In 1929, Picasso painted the Large Nude in a Red Arm Chair. This is clearly a painting that gives you a feeling of unrest. A woman, sitting in an arm chair is melting out of herself. Her face looks tortured and pained, her mouth opened wide in horror. She has deformed, elongated limbs and her womanly body parts are misshapen and distorted. The part of her that is melting out seems incomplete, she feels like just half a woman with only one breast. A window is at the top of the painting, could this be a possible way out, an escape that she may one day take? Or is that a blank painting, showing the nothingness of her life?

The nude in a Red Armchair

(my Picasso poem about the painting I observed)

There is always someone there

Someone hiding within

My lesser self

My lesser half

There is always something missing

One thing that got away

The thing I never had

The thing I’ll never say

Resting in my armchair

Just trying to forget

Always feeling broken

My needs are rarely met

On the surface I am one

Another lies just under

Just under is what you can’t see

Just under is the real me

Deformed, misshapen

I am so incomplete

Finding you inside myself

Always makes me weep.

Sports in a new way

            I never thought that baseball was a game of math and science. Being a pitcher myself, and knowing nothing about “mechanics”, I thought baseball was a finesse game-a game of understanding how to do something within yourself. I had to work on my swing individually and perfect my motion alone, on the mound. A lack of coaching, maybe, but it could have also been a lack of research. Now that I found a book lying around my house, I’ve seen the game in a completely new way.

            The Physics of Baseball by Robert K. Adair has been the book I’ve been reading recently. It’s sophisticated and contains difficult terms to comprehend, but as an athlete, it helps. This book talks about trajectories, angle measures for optimal pitching, throwing, hitting, etc., and even variables which affect the game even more than you may think. Just some wind could mess up a pitcher’s game. I thought it was annoying, but I didn’t know that it messed with the flight pattern of each pitch. The ball is too heavy right? Wrong. The book even talks about how bat speed affects the distance of which the ball is hit. For example, you can’t hit a ball over 450 feet if you don’t have the bat speed of 77 mph.

            This book has taught me tons about the sport of baseball. I can conclude that the game takes a mix of both in order to succeed, but you can get by with only having one. If you don’t know about the optimal bat angle to hit a ball far, but your swing works for you, that’s fine. As for the math whizzes who aren’t the jocks, but wish to play on a team, I highly suggest this book-you can take it word for word and do very well too. Lastly, I strongly suggest people who take their game as seriously as I try to, to take a look at this book. I will never look at the game of baseball the same way again.

Too smart for school?

            I recently picked up the December issue of the Rolling Stone magazine. Having the interest of reading who this magazine touted as being the 100 greatest guitarists of all time (which I didn’t completely agree with) on the cover, I didn’t know what I was in for. The real headline that caught my eye was “What happens to a kid who’s too smart for school?” The person’s name is Santiago Gonzalez. Santiago’s IQ scores are off the charts. He’s so intellectually gifted that one test told him he’s on the level of a student who’s going into their third year of graduate school. Did I mention, he’s 11.

            I have mixed feelings about this situation. If you can excel in college at 13 years old, I say go for it. This kid, in fact, feels the need to be challenged and to learn. Only a college education could get the job done. This may be great, but there are some downsides to it also. As a child, you should do well in school, but you should also have a life, and have friends. Maybe even play some games, play in the park, play a sport. Santiago doesn’t have any of this. All he has is his superb mind. In a way, he’s wasting his childhood. Being in college at such a young age means he isn’t interacting with people his own age at all. I feel bad for him, it must be a lonely place, but that’s what happens when you’re a prodigy-your mind isn’t thinking like other people your age. He even has to sensor what he says around kids his own age, and even some adults because he knows how it puts them off. This is just sad to think of the level to which he doesn’t fit in. Is this what it’s like to be a prodigy? Because if it is, I’m happy that I’m not one. It would be cool to be so elite at something, not even having it be your environment, but if I’d have to deal with all the other baggage it comes with, I’d give it up in a heartbeat.

Reading Response-Baseball's Great Moments

                        On October 4^th, 1955 the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series, finally. They had met 5 times before in the World Series, the Yankees had won all five. This year things would be different and “mothers holding babies would be dancing in the streets of Brooklyn” (pg 60 of Baseball’s Great Moments by Joseph Reichler and Jack Clary). Game seven of this series had twists and turns and in the end it all comes down to a combination of luck and skill that I think defines baseball and life; to be good at something you have to practice endlessly and when you’ve reached your peak, you had better hope you are on the right side of luck in the big moment.

            Dodger’s pitcher, Johnny Podres, was a young 23 yr old lefty who during the regular season was a mediocre 9-10. He had not shown himself to be an all star and gave no signs that he would be the hero of the World Series. It seems that sometimes the most unlikely person is the one who comes through when you need it most; on the field and in real life. He won game 3 and game 7, shutting out the favored Yankees 2-0. This game was won on his arm but so many things have to go right for you to win a baseball game, just like in life, there are a lot of moving parts. Every player on that field is skillful and successful, but to be a winner, luck has to be on your side. A player moves a few feet out of position and makes a diving catch he never could make before he moved. Runners get overly aggressive, it IS game 7, and find themselves out on the base path, a perfect relay from the outfield. Star players going hitless. So many variables on the field, so many variables in life.

Water For Elephants 4

            From 1920-1933, transporting and drinking alcohol in the United States of America was against the law, this is referred to as prohibition. Prohibition was national law and was actually part of our constitution, the 18 amendment. It is hard to believe that something so ordinary and person al was regulated by the government to such an extent. We live in a world today where bars are on every street and restaurants make the most money from the sale of alcohol. To think of a time where this was illegal, is difficult. Water for Elephants takes place during this period in American history where people brewed their own liquor and everyday citizens became criminals just because they had a beer.

            Life on the circus train was full of adventure, hardship and colorful characters with nowhere else to go. The Benzini Brothers train car was, not surprisingly, full of illegal alcohol. At any time, performers, workers and owners could be seen drinking alcohol from cheap homemade moonshine to expensive brandy or champagne. Jacob was confused about how so much alcohol made it onto the train. “We always head through Canada in the beginning of the season…their laws are much more civilized” pg 92.  When the train went through Canada, the staff would smuggle huge amounts of alcohol in the animal cars, the ones border patrols were less likely to search on there way back into the U.S. Prohibition didn’t seem to work at all, The Benzini Bros. staff was drunk all the time, like the rest of the country they had little regard for this law.

            Illegal drinking took place all the time in Prohibition America, it made ordinary people into criminals. I think it was a very ineffective policy because 13 yrs after the 18^th amendment was passed into law, it was overturned by the 21^st amendment and alcohol was legal once again. As we see all the time, alcohol can be the undoing of many people but I’m not sure that I agree with the government telling you can’t make your own decisions about it. At least when it is legal it is regulated and safe to drink. Illegally made liquor was not always safe to drink as Camel, Jacobs working man friend would find out the hard way. He drank some illegal Extract and ended up becoming paralyzed and disabled. There was a compound added to the extract to get around certain laws, this compound caused paralysis. Tragedies like this would not have occurred if liquor was legal at the time.