Mountains and Sky
A little something courtesy of Grey's boredom on the ride from SeaTown to da Paul.

November and its winter

We saw two guys rip a couple of nice tags on the cement structures down at the beach last week.

Why do we love BC? Oh yea

I guess snow in late November is the new thing.

Nice view of campus from Gage South 10 A.

Japanese garden.

A little scary at the cliffs, but well worth it.

We Real Cool - Gwendolyn Brooks

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Excerpts from an interview with Gwendolyn Brooks:

Q. How about the seven pool players in the poem "We Real Cool"?

A. They have no pretensions to any glamor. They are supposedly dropouts, or at least they're in the poolroom when they should possibly be in school, since they're probably young enough, or at least those I saw were when I looked in a poolroom, and they. . . . First of all, let me tell you how that's supposed to be said, because there's a reason why I set it out as I did. These are people who are essentially saying, "Kilroy is here. We are." But they're a little uncertain of the strength of their identity.

The "We"—you're supposed to stop after the "We" and think about their validity, and of course there's no way for you to tell whether it should be said softly or not, I suppose, but I say it rather softly because I want to represent their basic uncertainty, which they don't bother to question every day, of course.

Q. Are you saying that the form of this poem, then, was determined by the colloquial rhythm you were trying to catch?

A. No, determined by my feeling about these boys, these young men.

Q. These short lines, then, are your own invention at this point? You don't have any literary model in mind; you're not thinking of Eliot or Pound or anybody in particular . . . ?

A. My gosh, no! I don't even admire Pound, but I do like, for instance, Eliot's "Prufrock" and The Waste Land, "Portrait of a Lady," and some others of those earlier poems. But nothing of the sort ever entered my mind. When I start writing a poem, I don't think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.

"An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks" in Contemporary Literature 11:1 (Winter 1970)

More on Brooks: http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=843

University ain't so bad

Seymour Trip


So what do you do when ya wake up at 7 am to go camping and the Whis Mobile won't start?
Take a bus as far up Mt. Semour as possible and make the best of it!

Run off next to the trail,
at points this was the trail.

Turned out we were hiking on a pretty wild downhill mountain bike trail (full suspension, helmet, shin/elbow pads, GPS, decked out to the max). So we stopped near a stream and set camp.

Not quite the shot I was looking for, but its still a sweet tent!

Our lean-to/preparation area for gourmet meals.

Every camper dreams of their first meal back in civilization, I envisioned a 5 egg omelet with a full broiled sockeye salmon fillet.....hmmm

Who ever said a carnivore can't enjoy a salad has never met me.
More sockeye salmon, cukes, spinach, broccoli, roast beef, tomatoes, Jarlsberg cheese, carrots, sweet pea pods and tossed spring leaves.

Hey University ain't so bad!




Once we have the knowledge of self as a people then we could be free
and no devil could ever enter the boundaries
I stand in the center around all these sounds I see
Blessin' Allah that I found the key
That's how we be

We are by no means ashamed of our cultural background
Not a tad bit 'fraid of change
Look around, it's the same ol' same ol' thang
(Hey, what's goin' on man? How you doin', man?)
Ahh, you know, I can't call it
Try to maintain, overlooking these boundaries

I gotta be righteous, I gotta be me
I gotta be conscious, I gotta be free
I gotta be able, I gotta attack
I gotta be stable, I gotta be black

Who is that surrounding me?
Enemy enemy you crossed the wrong boundary, poof!
Wicked witness wizardry
Disappear from here and end up in a tree
Crossed the wrong boundary

-Inner City Boundaries-
Freestyle Fellowship
Innercity Griots (1993)

The Jungles of UBC

The jungle, literally across the street from our dorms

Tyler engulfed in the jungle

Monkey man inches from death
Radu - Hand of God

Montana Man Clay soaking it in
Hand of God

Dirty but huge
Van seagull

Art in progress
Tyler

Now what happens is that when a lot of folks get ready to write poetry
that’s what they decide they gon be,
they decide they gonna be poetic,
people feel as tho like the way to be poetic is to make sure there is certain little parts that can’t nobody understand,
why would you need a poet to make things more complex,
if communication is what its all about.

Ab Rude
P.A.I.N.T. Intro

Grizz, Kell
Vantage, Wash.

The Crew
Nat, Katt, Grey, Tyler, Kell
UPS gathering in Vantage, Wash.

Reno Nevada

Me
Great overlook of Reno

Smokey Reno

Reno burbs w/ smokey mountains and downtown

Very smokey Emerlad Bay, Lake Tahoe
You can faintly see the distant horizon, but should see entire lake clearly

Some Top Stumble Images

Paul Nicklen Photography
Leopard Seals hunting Penguins

Photography of the Unexpected and Neglected Architecture
Ruins of Detriot

Arbour Ad
Mike Basich

Bengal Tigers Feeding Underwater

The Totem Pole
Tasmania

Special thanks to Stumble