John Parker Oughton's Blog
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Oct.03.2009
Because, of course, its name comes from the Latin for eight, which also gave us octopus and -plex, octagon, octuplets. In fact, our months include an odd little series that begins with September (seventh in the Roman calendar) and ends with December, the tenth. I won't bore you with the...
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Sep.27.2009
ARTIST 'S STATEMENT: JOHN OUGHTON
ZERO APERTURE, PHOTOGRAPHER
After reading Yeats, the Tarot and the Golden Dawn by Kathleen
Raine, and The Negative by Ansel Adams
The number Zero is a Fool
an empty O under glass
who seeks more in a scene
but what is, is
the Fool is bottomed in...
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Sep.21.2009
We have a place in a village within an island county that has recently suffered trendiness. I knew the place had gone sadly uphill when I rounded a corner on a country road and coming at me was not a pick-up truck or ageing beater, but a shiny Maserati.
Another encounter proved even more...
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Sep.10.2009
FIVE PENANCES
I have sinned. I don't really believe in the concept of sin, but I do recognize doing wrong, and I have done wrong. Hearing my own confession, I sentence me to research words related to repentance.
PENANCE 1:
under the quasi-religious veneer of the current meaning of “repentance”...
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Sep.03.2009
Attending the mass orientation for new graduate students, I look around with some trepidation. Will I fit in, or make any friends? Will there be others like me to find common cause with? Will I be able to handle the workload on top of my other duties? What will be my niche in this huge...
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Aug.31.2009
A few weeks ago, I completed the purchase of yet another used motorcycle... at the age of 60. Yes, I am now the proud owner of an almost all-black, lovingly-tended geriatic sports bike, a Yamaha Seca 900 from 1983. In other words, my bike is older than some readers here.
The first question...
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Aug.26.2009
Watching one's Dashboard is somewhat addictive, like following the profit-and-loss cycles of a major corporation.
I've now, in somewhat under a year on Red Room, achieved a minor milestone -- over 2000 unique views of my various offerings on here. Given that I am hardly famous (despite my...
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Aug.21.2009
It's been said that "name is destiny." It's also been said that "anagrams never lie."
What exactly is an anagram? It is a recombination of the letters in a word, name or phrase to spell a new one. The kind of folks who do the New York Times Crossword in ink with no external...
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Aug.18.2009
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I had planned to spend much of my summer vacation alternately working on my suspense novel, and lounging on the beach. Instead, I passed most of it Waiting for Mr. Goodroof.
You see, I co-own a hundred-year-old house in the Ontario countryside. It has wood siding and a shingled roof. We got half...
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Aug.16.2009
Those of you who still read and admire the Beat writers and their heirs might be entertained by a brief account of my two summers attending the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. I was there in the late 1970's and, since I had already published a...
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Aug.12.2009
In an interview, someone asked who my heroes are, and I had to confess I don't have any. "There are certainly people I admire for their accomplishments, which I consider heroic -- but they're not really personal heroes of mine," I said. In my early years, I fervently admired people as...
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Aug.09.2009
Recently, I went to see the just-released movie Flame and Citron, about heroes in the WWII Danish Resistance. It's a fine and troubling movie, which you should see. But this blog is about another aspect of going out to see an actual film in an actual theatre: the pre-show commercials. I know I...
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Aug.06.2009
It's generally accepted, even by writers, that they are obsessive types. Flaubert once recorded a day in which he spent the morning putting a comma in, and the afternoon taking it out. As well as with the process of writing, writers obsess over subjects, characters, themes. I spent years...
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Aug.02.2009
1. When you have a writing project to do, a thousand distractions suggest themselves.
Now you must write the story of the thousand distractions.
2. Weeds are flowers that grow too easily.
3. The reason most people abhor silence is that it forces them to listen to themselves.
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Jul.16.2009
I co-own a 100-year-old house in a village in Ontario. I can't live there all the time, since my job is 2 /12 hours to the west, but I spend most summers and holidays here.
Recently, I've come to realize that the nature of " home ownership" is misunderstood. You don't own the house;...
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About John
Born in Guelph, Ontario. Educated at York University (BA, MA in English) and later at Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, where I worked with Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, William Burroughs, and Robert Duncan. A traveller, I have...
Connections
Causes John Oughton Supports
PEN International, Amnesty International, League of Canadian Poets, POR AMOR, Greenpeace
John’s Favorite Books
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
The Club Dumas.
The Name of the Rose.
Collected Poems of WB Yeats.
Ulysses by James Joyce
Lord of the Rings.
Gravity...