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Location: Greensboro, North Carolina, United States

Monday, January 30, 2006

Storypeople

Poetry can come in all shapes and sizes and while today's post may not look quite the same as some of the poems I've posted so far but I think they remain poetic all the same. How many of y'all have heard of the Storypeople? They are a group of artist/writers that manage this website (www.storypeople.com) containing hundreds of little sayings and observations. The words can be happy or sad, inspiring or just hilarious. Many have artwork to accompany them but the words remain just as powerful without. I've been compiling a list of some of my favorites. They are in pretty random order, but that's sort of the point...

the Storypeople

Ever since I found out I was schizophrenic, he said, I've been making up songs
that are easy to harmonize with. I really like a good sing-a-long.

This is an invitation to an amazing future & I can guarantee it because most futures
are & even if they aren't there are better things to do than blaming me about it

I'm feeling overdressed, she said & he held her close & said as far as he was concerned
she was always that way & her eyes glowed softly in the light of his desire

You're the strangest person I ever met, she said & I said you too &
we decided we'd know each other a long time.

Why do they treat us like children?
they said & I said why do you treat them like adults?
& their eyes opened wide & they began to laugh
& talk all at once & suddenly everything looked possible again.

I think I'm having a heart attack, she said, but it's dragging on for hours.
I told her not to worry. That's how most people who work a full day feel, I said.

Tries not to anthropomorphize everything he runs into but it all seems
friendlier when he knows the world on a first name basis.

My aunt had a poodle she dressed in little red sweaters with little dangly
ball things & I don't think it was any wonder that dog was so vicious.

I don't think of it as working for world peace, he said.
I think of it as just trying to get along in a really big strange family.

The clock is a conspiracy & a crime against humanity
& I would not own one except I miss appointments without it.

I'm not sure if the world's all that serious, she said,
or if it just has a really dark way of having a good time.

possibly my favorite:
He loved her for almost everything she was & she decided that was enough to let him stay for a very long time.

Friday, January 27, 2006

On the precipice

This weekend I stand poised on the brink. The next two weeks are going to be just nuts! On Sunday we begin rehearsals for the Fibonacci Chamber Orchestra, a small group put together by a good friend. The concert is the following Sunday. Immediately after that I begin week of nightly rehearsals in Winston for the Symphony concerts the weekend after that. And of course, somewhere in there I actually have to learn all of that music... yikes. But tonight I am taking time to catch my breath and prepare, meaning rather than sitting in a practice room right now, I'm updating my blog. Tomorrow will be soon enough to take life seriously again; for now I'm content being lazy and a bit silly. On that note, I have a rather silly but beautifully put together poem for you...

Any prince to any princess

Adrian Henri

August is coming
and the goose, I'm afraid,
is getting fat.
There have been
no golden eggs for some months now.
Straw has fallen well below market price
despite my frantic spinning
and the sedge is,
as you rightly point out,
withered.

I can't imagine how the pea
got under your mattress. I apologize
humbly. The chambermaid has, of course,
been sacked. As has the frog footman.
I understand that, during my recent fact-finding tour of the
Golden River,
despite your nightly unavailing efforts,
he remained obstinately
froggish.

I hope that the Three Wishes granted by the General
Assembly
will go some way towards redressing
this unfortunate recent sequence of events.
The fall in output from the shoe-factory, for example:
no one could have foreseen the work-to-rule
by the National Union of Elves. Not to mention the fact
that the court has been fast asleep
for the last six and a half years.

The matter of the poisoned apple has been taken up
by the Board of Trade: I think I can assure you
the incident will not be
repeated.

I can quite understand, in the circumstances,
your reluctance to let down
your golden tresses. However
I feel I must point out
that the weather isn't getting any better
and I already have a nasty chill
from waiting at the base
of the White Tower. You must see the absurdity of the
situation.
Some of the courtiers are beginning to talk,
not to mention the humble villagers.
It's been three weeks now, and not even
a word.

Princess,
a cold, black wind
howls through our empty palace.
Dead leaves litter the bedchamber;
the mirror on the wall hasn't said a thing
since you left. I can only ask,
bearing all this in mind,
that you think again,

let down your hair,

reconsider.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Go Deacs!

I experienced my first ACC basketball game in person last night, and even though Wake lost I had a blast. Cat managed to sneak me into the student "Screamin' Deamons" section with her. I went incognito dressed in the gold and black tie-dye and spent the entire game on my feet screaming at the (idiot) refs and booing FSU. I am a bit hoarse this morning but it was all worthwhile. After the game, we met a friend of Cat's for coffee. It was a lot of fun to tread through her former Wake days. I felt honored to be invited along.

I didn't have too much time to come up with a poem to match last night's experience. If anyone has a favorite that comes to mind send it to me and I'll post it tomorrow. In the meantime, I ran into this one by a poet I'd never heard of before. If you aren't reading this in a library or something, try reading it aloud. All the alliteration is tantalizing for the tongue.

White on White
Hailey Leithauser

Rug dropped sugar,
fresh, wet iris on marble dresser,
the chopping of combers under cold sun,
rain-faded boards of proud, paint-
poor churches, great

dumb snows hiding
inside clouds hidden inside sky. Bring
two together and we see the old lot
of language to ledger tint
from tone, hint from

whisper (not quite
sauterne, closer to crisper champagne);
to cite complement, how as a snail stains
a cement path, the pearled trace
kindles in light.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Whitman

My friend and fellow blogger Darth Larry mentioned watching "Dead Poets Society" recently, which got me thinking about Walt Whitman (prominently featured in the above film...). I ended up digging up this poem and re-reading it. This one is a bit longer than the others I've posted, but I promise it is worth the time. Whitman's writing has such excitement in it. You can almost see him getting worked up just trying to write the poem. I'm also a big fan of the sentiment of the poem: that the body itself is just as divine as the soul, and so much of life can be wasted seeking what cannot be seen in lieu of the innumerable beauties all around us. Given that, it is not too surprising that this poem was extremely controversial when it was first written (in 1900), kind of an interesting thing to consider given the writing.


I Sing the Body Electric
- Walt Whitman

1

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body
were not the soul, what is the soul?

2

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

The sprawl and fullness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
horse-man in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open
dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or
cow-yard,
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown
after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd
neck and the counting;
Such-like I love--I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's
breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

3

I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.

This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and
beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were
massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal
love,
He drank water only, the blood show'd like scarlet through the
clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat himself, he
had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of
the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

4

I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round
his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I
swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them,
and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

5

This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
love, white-blow and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.

This the nucleus--after the child is born of woman, man is born
of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as
daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

6

The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
utmost become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to
the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)

The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred--is it the meanest one in the
laborers' gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.

(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)

Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?

7

A man's body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd.

In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized
arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings,
aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in
parlors and lecture-rooms?)

This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers
in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
back through the centuries?)

8

A woman's body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and
times all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful
than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

9

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the
soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
that they are my poems,
Man's, woman's, child, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's,
father's, young man's, young woman's poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the
jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body
or of any one's body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and
tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of
the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!

Monday, January 23, 2006

Bukowski

Alright, This blog's been up nearly two weeks and I haven't posted any Bukowski yet. Something is wrong. This guy has got to be my favorite new poet (well not really new... but new to me). I love his down-to-earth, tell-it-like-it-is style. Plus he has such great imagery. This poem is a great example, and while it doesn't accurately depict my mood at the moment at ALL, it remains awesome and will be posted appropriately:


the way it is now


I'll tell you
I've lived with some gorgeous women
and I was so bewitched by those
beautiful creatures that
my eyebrows twitched.

but I'd rather drive to New York
backwards
than to live with any of them
again.

the next classic stupidity
will be the history
of those fellows
who inherit my female
legacies.

in their case
as in mine
they will find
that madness
is caused by not
being often enough
alone.

("I'd rather drive to New York backwards"... How great a picture is that, and I know you've all felt that way at some point in your life. Admit it.)

Friday, January 20, 2006

Anonymous

This is for all you skeptics out there. Real poetry does exist in the real world. It's all around you. It's inside you. All you have to do is let it out, and here's the proof:


Excerpt from an email dated 1/19/06:

just wanted to say
thank you, again, just for being you
and for not backing down at the first signs of my
insecurities
and for knowing when words are too much,
when silence is the best medicine,
and for letting me take my sweet time,
bitter as it may seem on the other side.
you make me laugh
you make me cry
you make me dream
you make me forget
so i guess, in a way, everything i want in life
is already here.
don't give up on me yet, i'm still almost blind
but you're holding the brightest light i see.
and in case i forgot to make my point,
thank you, again, just for being you.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Poetry Daily

I just found a website with a daily poem. This was today's. The first line nearly made me laugh out loud.

Fourteener 279
(Please help me get this pig, dear Lord, into my truck)
Douglas Woody Woodsum


Please help me get this pig, dear Lord, into my truck.
Like Jesus, he senses the coming end; unlike Him,
The pig's exhausted us both with flailing. My hands bleed
From the scrap-wood ramp and sides of the truck bed.
The rope leash burns my flesh. My plan, God, was food
For family and fold, the head and feet for the poor. But Satan,
It seems, is breathing hot stink at me. The pig braces,
Digs four hooves in, and stares. I'd gotten him half wayup,
Tied him, then put my shoulder to him. He kicked my tooth
Loose, Lord. My eyes watered. Blasphemy had its way
With me. Now, covered with muck, almost broken, I pray:
Help those who suffer most first. I'll wait, catch my breath.
Then, please forgive me, and grant one small miracle
Father: Get this pig in my truck to take to slaughter.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

I don't have anything new to report since yesterday, but here's a good poem anyway. The first time I read this one I was amazed. Usually, a poem speaks to me because it mirrors something in my life or values. This one really doesn't relate significantly to anything I've experienced, but the writing was so beautiful I was immediately drawn in. Hope you like it.

Calling him back from layoff
Bob Hicok


I called a man today. After he said
hello and I said hello came a pause
during which it would have been

confusing to say hello again so I said
how are you doing and guess what, he said
fine and wondered aloud how I was

and it turns out I'm OK. He
was on the couch watching cars
painted with ads for Budweiser follow cars

painted with ads for Tide around an oval
that's a metaphor for life because
most of us run out of gas and settle

for getting drunk in the stands
and shouting at someone in a t-shirt
we want kraut on our dog. I said

he could have his job back and during
the pause that followed his whiskers
scrubbed the mouthpiece clean

and his breath passed in and out
in the tidal fashion popular
with mammals until he broke through

with the words how soon thank you
ohmyGod
which crossed his lips and drove
through the wires on the backs of ions

as one long word as one hard prayer
of relief meant to be heard
by the sky. When he began to cry I tried

with the shape of my silence to say
I understood but each confession
of fear and poverty was more awkward

than what you learn in the shower.
After he hung up I went outside and sat
with one hand in the bower of the other

and thought if I turn my head to the left
it changes the song of the oriole
and if I give a job to one stomach other
forks are naked and if tonight a steak
sizzles in his kitchen do the seven
other people staring at their phones

hear?

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Happy Martin Luther King Day to me!

So yesterday was one of those exciting days where everything seems to work out. There were two big events in my day. First, I took Cat out golfing for the first time. She had a blast (hooked another one)! We were grinning and laughing through the entire round. To top it off, I threw an ace! Being only the second time this has happened to me, it's needless to say that I was pretty excited. Definitely a memorable trip to the golf course.

Then, just to round out the day, I bought a car!

I'll give that a moment to sink in. Yes indeed, late last night I purchased a 2003 Mini Cooper. It's midnight blue with a white top and yes, it is awesome. The car is so much fun to drive. I get a giddy feeling in my gut just thinking about it. For those of you with access to facebook, I'll be posting pictures of it up there soon so be on the lookout. I'm also taking suggestions for a name so put your thinking caps on.

In honor of my exciting day yesterday, I chose a poem with an automotive theme. Enjoy!

she being Brand
ee cummings


-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

(it

was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on

the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.

stand-
;Still)

Friday, January 13, 2006

Poem #1

I started my other blog for the purpose of bitching about my life. Of course, shortly after I started documenting the bitching, I stopped having reasons to bitch... As such, I decided to begin another blog. This will still be a place for me to post random musings about my life, but with a slightly higher purpose added: I plan to regularly post some of the good poetry I run across. Just what you always wanted right? A single convenient location to keep tabs on your favorite NC violist, and fill that little void in your life that only good poetry can truly fill. Enjoy!

Mending Wall
Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

(personal note: The World would be a better place if there weren't so many walls everywhere, whether physical, emotional, or political. By maintaining the artificial boundaries in out lives all we do is fuel misunderstanding an hatred. To quote Pink Floyd, "Tear Down The Wall!")