Friday, May 18, 2018

The Office

These days I'm watching The Office Season 8 and Silicon Valley Season 5.

Previously did all seasons 1-4 of Silicon Valley and recently got around to Seasons 1 and 2 of The Office
(which introduced me to Dwight Shrute/Shroot and for God's sake isn't it crazy how we have these self-appointed police characters in offices, and what is WRONG with them loool?)
but now with Season 8 I'm thinking more that this is silly - sillier, funny, nicely done, with what a cute romance in there with Pam and Jim, ohmyGod and maybe I should get more episodes.

According to IMDb, this series ran from 2005-2013 with 9 Seasons, 188 episodes.  I do remember parts of the show from around 2007 - Steve Carell's 'candid interviews' would pop up on TV - but I never really watched then.  I'm enjoying the adventure now.  I'm also enjoying Silicon Valley, as always.   



And maybe all of this counts as research for my next collection of poems because last year I'd looked at a draft of this year's collection and thought it really sucked - at least that it was not fabulous yet - and so more or less everything this year has been research;
and even though I haven't looked at it since maybe November, I'm reworking the title at least and now seeing how all this nonsense I'm watching forms prep work for the rework of the poems.

Also muse-ing for the next collection are the people I've known and the places we've been - so thank you.
Thank you. 
Previous titles for this book - Red Light / redlight, Big Town, maybe even A.I., but now I'm considering H.R., so you know what it's going to be about - something about urban life and work life and these buzzy busy marketplaces that we travel through and that poets usually dislike and so I will dislike them too but also I will be a bit of a journalist withholding judgement in the exposition/observation of our cities and our habits and hopefully I'll be a bit of a sage too with some actual prescription or something.
I still don't have the right title, right?

But usually I won't work until I have the workspace and - I don't know how to explain, but my Plan B or C is to move to a cheap-ass semi-rural hotel/motel/potel for a month or two.  I never tell my Plan A ;)

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2 comments:

t said...

I have a title, since maybe two weeks ago. Yippeee. Now to take a look at it. Well, first to move or something, and then take a look at the manuscript and write/rewrite/redo and all that.

t said...

June, July, and almost all of August, the title was (...excited yet???)
Alpha

Alpha. Usually with the second a twisted into a lowercase Greek letter 'alpha'

Meanwhile, maybe I read the poems never, or once, then about a month ago printed the draft, still not reading it. Then maybe two days ago, sorted the printed pages and figured out that my plan for naming chapters traffic light colours would actually work. Then I started to think the poems don't add up to Alpha, they are 'City.'
City is (was) good because it sums up the content well, also because it contrasts with Caveman, the last collection before this one. The cover I'd planned would have to change - Alpha was going to be similar to Lovebirds, but instead of yellow a crimson cloud, and instead of the tiny couple logo, one of the Monster faces from my cover for Monsters, basically the same logo here. But I see it's not an individual-focused work, but just observations about their environment, sooo different cover - inspired by the Caveman cover, a digitally modified photo would do it.
The biggest problem with the title 'City' was the sound...the syllable stresses are wrong, it 'falls'in English, falls even more woefully in American ... too depressing, the word is too short also, four letters, I want a title that LOOKS sexy and powerful on the cover. I can't have a wrong title. I can tolerate a wrong line inside a poem maybe but I want le bon mot juste, parfait, for my title.
Go-go.
It goes. It has the right energy to imply a city and even the alpha drives of the city. I checked its meanings in a dictionary- they're fine. It's a non-word word, which is playful and which playfulness I need as a reminder not to be so wedded to the literal. I don't know how to spell it. It is too short. Oh. Gogo. Gogo. Is that right? Yes. I think, maybe.