Thing 1 (Iggy)

Thing 2 (Hopper)

Thunder Out of Akron

I missed seeing this issue when it came out this summer but recently found it on the discard shelf of library. Love the cover by Christoph Niemann. There is a framed print available from New Yorker Store site for anyone short of gift ideas for the upcoming holidays. A bargain at $350. Gift wrapping is not necessary. The current issue of the magazine has a review of new book about Hart Crane. One of my favorite poems of his which I have probably already posted here previously:

At Melville's Tomb

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death's bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

Hart Crane

The Streets of New York

Outside the Selwyn Theater on New York's 42nd Street, 1955.

Listening to a story about photography on the radio is not that exciting. On the way to work this morning NPR aired a piece about an exhibit at the National Gallery featuring a description of the above shot by William Klein. Although it aroused my curiosity and the woman's impressions and descriptions were evocative, I still needed to 'see' the photo they were talking about. I think I am due for a trip to D.C. and the museums sometime soon. This exhibit is through January 15th.

Calexico

What a weekend. ESPN is in town for the Ohio State game and I think the game related traffic congestion has already started on N. Dodge, aided by the interminable road improvment projects. Tonight we are going to see Calexico at The Englert Theatre in downtown Iowa City which should be awash in drunks by the end of the show. I am expecting a good concert although I do think the audience is diminished a bit when everyone is seated like they were at a performance of "Idomeneo". I rememeber seeing a Bob Mould show at Berklee School of Music in Boston with similar seating arrangements and it felt a bit odd. Needed a least a mosh pit near stage to mill around holding onto a pint.

Since Calexico does have a horn section maybe the Beer Band will join in for one of the encores to root on the Hawkeyes in their game against the formidable Ohio State tomorrow night. I think out of town would be the safest place to be before, during , and after the game but we may venture down to friend's RV for a little tailgating. Have a good weekend and enjoy the video for "Cruel" off the most recent Calexico album Garden Ruin. Or do yourself a big favor and pick up a copy of their 2003 release Feast of Wire. Not Even Stevie Nicks could resist. More mp3s here. And here. Complete live shows here from Archive.org.

New Book

"Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries."

Dennis Lehane on Cormac McCarthy's latest from Amazon.com.

I left off the rest to avoid any potential 'spoilers'. I am picking this up today from library and will probably spend the weekend reading it as I know it will be difficult to put down. It is tempting to go and get it now and skip out on work and spend the rest of the day under a tree somewhere savoring McCarthy's prose. Work always gets in the way.

E.E. Cummings

Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza, Chicago, IL. Photo by J. Crocker on 07-Sep-2004.

Picasso
you give us Things
which
bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind

you make us shrill
presents always
shut in the sumptuous screech of
simplicity

(out of the
black unbunged
Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes
or

between squeals of
Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness
solid screams whisper.)
Lumberman of The Distinct

your brain's
axe only chops hugest inherent
Trees of Ego,from
whose living and biggest

bodies lopped
of every
prettiness

you hew form truly

E.E. Cummings

Another writer I left off Scruffy's list that came to mind later. I remember the first time I saw the sculpture was in 2000 and we stumbled across it by accident. I had never even heard about it before and this was only my second visit to Chicago. Quite the pleasant surprise. The sculpture is also nearly as old as I am.

After Picasso's death in 1973 Mayor Daley and the city council announced a resolution... Pablo Picasso became a permanent part of Chicago, forever tied to the city he admired but never saw, in a country he never visited, on August 15, 1967. It was on that day that the Picasso sculpture in the Civic Center Plaza was unveiled; it has become a part of Chicago, and so has its creator Picasso...

Anyway, just keeping up with my string of postings about artists that people either love or hate.

We Miss Ondine

This one goes out to Ondine (nee Ragna) who pointed the site out to us first. It should not be missed. I don't know if it is my math illiteracy that loves it so or what. It's just that feckin' clever. Beyond clever. Brilliant. Click on the 3 x 5. Have a great weekend. Agenda: Figge, Joe Price, Kohls...

Andy Warhol.
Campbell's Soup Cans. 1962

Missed the second part of documentary thanks to a newly installed cable system and season premieres of The Office and C.S.I. In the first part they covered the first exhibition of Warhol's soup cans which were eventually bought by the gallery owner in L.A for $1,000. He paid Andy $100 a month until paid off with a promise that he would never break up the collection of 32. Later sold to the MOMA for over $60 million. Not a bad investment.

Sketches of Frank Gehry

Every great architect is -- necessarily -- a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age -Frank Llyod Wright

We watched the Sydney Pollack documentary about architect Frank Gehry the other night and I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting it was. Opinions on his work are not ambivalent, critics either love it or hate it. Pollack is a friend and a fan of Gehry and it is a compelling non-chalant format. Pictured above, for non locals who may not recognize it, are different phases of Gehry's Advanced Technologies Labratory on the U of Iowa campus because this was one of his creations that did not make the film. I guess if you had to choose from his many buildings like the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Experience Music Project in Seattle, or science building in Iowa City the choice would be easier. We missed this when it came to the Bijou recently but am grateful for Netflix's catalogue as a backup.

Caught the first part of the PBS documentary on Warhol last night, part II is tonight on PBS. So far it has been very well done. More later.

The Poet for J.K.

His genius is sired of misery or magic;
he dwells between disaster & the dream.
He might have been sedate; but only tragic
ecstasy is musical to him.
In every chaos he will wish a cure;
in life, a higher mystery of sorrow;
in death, the last existence that is pure.
Curoisity betrays him to tomorrow.
Necromantic passion, final terror
is his bequest: The wound was all he had
to multiply. Balancing the rope of error,
he shall fall to doom. He shall be mad,
sadly, deceived, he shall live, and he shall die
a master of all mummery.

-Allen Ginsberg


Sept 4th issue of The New Yorker had this and another Ginsberg poem to Jack K. from a forthcoming book of Allen's earlier works. There is also a collected edition (1947-1997) due out in Oct. I just started training a group of scorers for a new project so not too sure when I will be able to post. Enjoy this for now.

The New Yorker has a David Sedaris piece on the 'advantages' of speaking French. This American Life also just recently re-ran an interview with him by Ira Glass for their Americans in Paris episode.

I just ordered tickets to see Sedaris in Cedar Rapids next month and am looking forward to it especially since I have missed all of the other chances to see him here in town.

Recent Readings

FROM A&L Daily: Martin Amis on the rise of Islamic fanaticism, and Christopher Hitchens on what next from WSJ.

From McSweeney's, a reprint of John Hodgman's remarks shortly after the events of five years ago.

The Second Coming
by W. B. Yeats


Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

On Books or Be Careful What You Ask For

The former Defense Language Institute in San Francisco where I started reading in earnest.

“It’s not what you’re like, it’s who you like”

I need to do this High Fidelity style because I know that as soon as I hit the publish button I will remember sixteen other things that I liked better. It is like the scene in the book when Rob is making a Top 10 all time favorite song list for his interview with the rock critic and he keeps calling her back to change his mind and freaking out after he hangs up. The theme is for JuChe Child.

“Ain't Talkin” - A book that changed my life

The toughest question right off the bat. As Chou En-lai said when asked about the historical effect of the French Revolution, "Too soon to tell." I’ll come back to this one later.

“Highway 61 Revisited”- A book I've read more than once

The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley

In my teens I read perhaps too much science fiction and fantasy at the expense of missing some of the classics. I read Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber (five novels in two volumes) so many times because I wanted to be a Prince of Amber. Alas, t’was not to be. I was a bit more into science fiction than fantasy and I read more of Robert Heinlein than anyone else. I enjoyed his Future History stories about Lazarus Long but it was the novels I returned to the most. I loved the power in the succinctness of Double Star and the revolutionary setting of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I slowly weaned my self off of most SF and past pulps in favor of noir. This led me, eventually, to James Crumley and the tales of C.W. Shugrue and Milo Milodragovitch. El Duderino summed up Last Good Kiss nicely but forgot to mention it has one of the best opening lines ever.


“Shelter from the Storm” - A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island

Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

In order to stave off insanity while attempting to survive as a one book Prospero I would like to bring along Shakespeare’s Complete Works. So instead of striking up a conversation with a volleyball I could build a replica of the Globe out of driftwood and palm fronds and eventually memorize all the roles from the plays and stage productions for myself and the local fauna. I guess that really might not keep from me from madness. On second thought a one volume collection seemed clichéd so I eventually jettisoned it in favor of another obligatory desert island book, Remembrance of Things Past (or In Search of Lost Time for the purists). I have started Swann’s Way at least half a dozen times never advancing too many pages past the madeleine scene. Ideally, if that word can be used for a desert island scenario, it would be in the Pléiade edition with a French dictionary and grammar text thrown in.

“It Takes a Lot to Laugh…” - A book that made me laugh -

Slouching Towards Kalamazoo by Peter DeVries

First impulse was to throw in Wodehouse, any of the Jeeves and Wooster tales. I also thought about Bill Bryson as he can be laugh out loud funny. Love Me by Garrison Keillor is my favorite of his and is delightfully non-Wobegone. But in the end I thought DeVries had more to offer, is often overlooked, and most of his farces are set in suburban Connecticut, so he’s got that going for him. The New Yorker did a piece on him sometime in the last couple of years that is a good introduction. Slouching is a coming of age tale about a precocious underachiever with a bent for the literary growing up in a small town. Hilarity ensues.

“…It Takes a Train to Cry” - A book that made me cry -

Bridge To Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

As a sentimental Irish drunk it doesn’t take much to choke me up, the last ten minutes of Rudy or the La Marseillaise scene from Casablanca will do it, but as for actual sobbing if not a train, a couple of dogs and a ‘bridge’ could do the trick. The first book that crushed me was Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.This is the book that would wake me up in the middle of the night fearful of my previously unthought-of mortality. The protagonist was named Billy too. The most recent book that choked me up was The Teammates by David Halberstam, about the twilight days of Ted Williams and his three closest friends. Terabithia caught me by surprise and I hated her for a while but eventually understood it. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry was another moving experience for me but I was prepared for it thanks to Paterson.

“When I Paint My Masterpiece” - A book I wish I had written -

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux

I wanted this to be a travel book a travel writer would be my dream job. Bruce Chatwin is a close runner up but a little too flaky and too unreliable a narrator to know where he actually went. Redmond O’ Hanlon takes too many chances. The tough choice was narrowing down which Theroux to choose; I took his first an account of traveling across Europe and Asia by train but easily could have chosen another. I guess what I am really saying is not that I want to have written this book as much am I am saying I wanted to be Paul Theroux.

“Too Much of Nothing “- A book I wish had never been written -

Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard

Another tough category as I don’t hold too many grudges againste books that I have been defeated by and I can’t recall any hideous books from school although Two Years Before the Mast caused some tension between my father and I when he made it required reading one summer for reasons I forget. I avoided that book for years as a result and found out years later he was right. I enjoyed Hubbard as a writer of science fiction and Battlefield Earth is one the best pure SF romps ever (haven’t seen the film but I can imagine what Travolta did to it). While I am not apt to dis on others choice of religion, the absence of Dianetics in the very least would have saved us from the antics of Tom Cruise. Maybe. Anyway, it was a toss up between this or Atlas Shrugged but I thought that was at least a good story even if politically abhorrent. Teenagers need things like Ayn Rand, Bukowski, and The Bell Jar so they can be under the impression, at least temporarily, that they have discovered something profound. I hope this doesn’t put me on some Scientologist enemies list and I guess now I will never be invited into the secret Cruise compound in Telluride.

“I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)” - A book I've been meaning to read -

Middlemarch by George Eliot

I could write a few pages here on stuff I want to read or just keep it simple. I have wanted to read A.S. Byatt’s Possession for years but feel I have to read the Eliot first to have the proper background…. Runner Up: Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. This always makes a lot of lists for funniest or best campus novel and I keep meaning to pick it up but…


“Tangled Up in Blue “- I'm currently reading –

Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon

Fewer than seventy pages to go and I can’t recommend this book enough and look forward to rereading it closely again to pick up the details I glossed over the first time around. Wish there was a reader’s guide like the one for Ulysses that I inherited from a former Trustifarian roommate. I wonder where that went. Next up, Fathers & Sons by Ivan Turgenev, and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 25 Stories by Haruki Murakami.

“Tell Me” - My favorite reading -

Thom Jones

Throw in Tim O’Brien and P.J. O’Rourke to round out the top three. This is a very tough call again and I am leaving off a Nobel Laureate and some notable others to avoid name dropping. Too late, you say? Bah.

“Things Have Changed”- A book that changed my life

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

It didn’t really make it easier answering this one last but it bought me some time. The Boy Scout Manual changed my life but the plot sucks. Recently I would say it is Murakami who has allowed me to get excited again about contemporary fiction but I could not pin it down to one novel or point out the changes it has wrought. Something to do with karma and self-improvement. But it was Lolita that blew me away with language (picnic, lightning). I am not 100% convinced this is my final answer but it will suffice for now. Thanks to Scruffy for giving me something to chew on that was not work related. Have a good weekend!

"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"

Another snapshot from Tom back in CT. Below are just some quick hits while I ponder on Scruffy's query from yesterday.

This article is why I consider Bill Simmons one of the best pop culuture writers today who just happens to make his living as a sportswriter. Props for the David Foster Wallace reference. Simmons recent road trip to Wisconsin with his buddies provided some good material.

Are you ready for some...? Since the odds on the Red Sox making the playoffs get longer each night I think I am ready to declare that football season is here. This must be what Kansas City fans feel like in June.

I will be watching the Steelers start their title defense tonight. To prepare I recommend a few seasonal forecasts ...here are Simmons' predictions. For a different take check out the Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ). Here is his outlook for the 2006 NFL season in haiku form. (Be warned he does tend to insert photos of cheerleaders and shirtless hunks if you are surfing from work and his shorthand takes getting used to i.e. Jersey A and Jersey B (New York Giants/New York Jets or Flying Elvii=Patriots).

Bill Bryson has a new book coming out next month about growing up in Des Moines in the 1950's. The Guardian has a series of excerpts from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid this week. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Now back to some U.S. History essays and that pesky list.

Qui transtulit sustinet

While this is a shot of the Connecticut shore, it is not from my trip there last week. For the second straight year my visit back to the ancestral home (since 1976) was plagued by very wet weather. This snapshot was forwarded to me by former coworker who had a better day of it than I on his trip to the beach. I didn't even bother trying to go to any of the beaches (or more importantly a lobster shack as planned) due to the mess outside and I was having enough trouble trying to cram as much as possible into a short period of time.

I left Albany after attending a conference for work bookended by a trip to Cooperstown and a night on the town with a coworker with an astounding breadth of knowledge about and thirst for single-malt Scotch. Many of Albany's bars are open very late (4 am) but I am not really sure who would want to stay out until the wee smalls in Albany? It would be like staying out until 2 am in Des Moines but with the added thrill of possibly being mugged. That said we did not get back to the hotel until around 3:00 am for various reasons having to do not only with the Scotch but because we wanted to see as much as possible in one evening, the added time spent chasing down cabs to leapfrog certain neighborhoods, and the fried chicken stop from previous post. I managed to make it out unscathed.

It was strange to realize how much the distances in New England have shrunk after spending considerable time here in the Midwest. I used to think the Berkshires were far away from where I lived in CT but it was only a two and half hour drive as I went past nearly forgotten yet familiar terrain. I enjoyed each river crossing that brought me closer to my destination (Hudson, Housatonic, Connecticut). I stopped off at a friends house for a rendevous with the UConn crowd. The remaining time before driving back to Albany was spent in the company of friends and family near my mother's house and it was good to catch up with all, however briefly or at times somewhat fuzzy.

After dropping off rental car, I was trapped, in turn, in two airports for many hours due to the continued inclement weather which was annoying but did allow me to almost finish Mason & Dixon. I am savoring the last few chapters. I have some other things lined up but will save for a separate post.

Last Friday Night in Albany

(Circa 8 pm) One good thing...

...leads to another. (Circa 1 am)

Saw this in a local scenester newspaper in CT and loved the Lieberman aside. Also made me realize I do miss the old local rag Icon (or was it Ikon? No, that is a copy machine.)

I did get the latest reading schedule in mail from Writer's Workshop and the Fall lineup is loaded. Roughly in chronological order just hitting the highlights it looks like this: Marilynne Robinson, Zadie Smith, T.C. Boyle, Denis Johnson, Michael Chabon, Heidi Julavits, Jane Hamilton, Barry Lopez, Frank McCourt. I am sure some more will be on the Live fromPrairie Lights Fall schedule (Mark Danielewski for one) that aren't covered here although there is some overlap of the above.

My nephew was a little apprehensive about meeting his uncle. He calmed down after a bit but was still somewhat leaky when took this snap shot. The family will send me some clearer pics soon. Also a niece is on the way as my sister is due in two weeks. My other nephew will be back in high school this year. The same one my sister and I attended, um...well lets just say several years ago.

I left CT around 10 in the morning yesterday to drive up to Albany to catch flight but due to delays and storms it was well over 1:30 am CST before I made it home. Really beat but will try and reconstruct a narrative about the week back East.

Shades of Fame Exhibit

Cool Papa Bell

This year's Hall of Fame class was largely comprised of former Negro League players who were finally enshrined. The art on display was impressive.

One can only imagine how enjoyable it was for me to watch the Red Sox re-enact the Boston Massacre of '78 in a pub in Cooperstown while on an excursion to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Damn Yankees.

Spending the week in Albany for work. More on the visit to Cooperstown to follow later if I can weasel some internet access.

Save the Date

I was already excited about the new Pynchon coming out in December. I am now ecstatic about a chance to read a new Cormac McCarthy, The Road, due out next month (9/26). I am surprised it follows relatively quickly on the heels of No Country for Old Men. Not that I am complaining. Nice start to the fall publishing season.

New Music

Picked this up the other day and it sounds great. The fake names are gone this time around but the solid sound remains.

What is your Golden Smog name?
(Golden Smog's aliases were derived through the following formula: First Name = Middle Name, Last Name = Name of the street they grew up on). For example mine could be either Dexter Country Club or Dexter American Canyon (kind of lame actually). There are more here from an old contest when the previous album came out.

Some of the songs can be heard at their myspace page.

Older stuff still around here .

Recent Perusings - Edward Sorel's Literary Lives

Found this on the new book shelf of library. Series of anecdotes about writer's lives. Mostly their dirty laundry. In addition to Tolstoy, Sorel also skewers Sartre, Rand, Mailer, Brecht and more. This quote is apt from a book review... The scathing effect of this quick read is best described in an introduction from E.L. Doctorow: 'never have authors of such magnitude been so casually eviscerated.' I also enjoyed Sorel's First Encounters series about famous folks meeting up which like some of these literary lives appeared in The Atlantic. An old exhibit of his portraits are located at the National Portrait Gallery site. Couple of panels from the book are below but I could not find any of the more personally damaging panels. There is a nice one of Jung in a review here but Brecht seems to take the cake for being quite the scoundrel.

Moon Over Parador

Picture if you will a beautifully orange tinted moon, nearly full, hovering over and reflecting upon the gently flowing Cedar River on a cool, breezy, summer night. That is what I attempted to capture. The results, as you can see, are somewhat less than described. I need to get a real camera.

My ex-neighbors invited us down to their cabin near Atalissa and it was relaxing chilling out by a fire near the water. They grilled some steaks, intially there were five, but due to a deft and hungry Great Pyrenees, only three made it to the grill. The dog had wolfed down the first two and was starting on a third when he knocked over the plate and alerted us to the theft in progess. Good times.

Last night we saw David Zollo at the Tuscan Moon in Kalona. The food was a little dissapointing, more for the price and selection but it was good. Not sure of I would be in a hurry to try it again though.

"Can't you see you're not making Christianity better, you're just making rock and roll worse?" - Hank Hill

The quote is apropos of nothing. I just thought it was funny when I heard it on a King of the Hill rerun. Yesterday when I went home for lunch a package was waiting. Nothing like a letter or a surprise package of music to interrupt the steady flow of bills.

In the spring of 2004 I was working in Tucson for about a month and when not working or disrupting Juche Child's quiet family life in Chandler I managed to meet some cool people workin at our site. R (and his wife M.) dropped a whole bunch of live shows on me, introduced me to the music of Calexico, and took me along to see Ramblin' Jack Elliott at the Congress Hotel. (Dillinger was arrested after a fire broke out in hotel or something strange like that.) Thankfully, no photos of that evening exist. The only evidence, a scratched up cell phone that broke my fall. Details are fuzzy but I think mojitos were involved.

We have sporadically attempted to trade more shows but I am lazy and disorganized and it can be a time consuming process especially when one is lazy and disorganized. Anyway, I did finally manage to send some live shows to them several months after I downloaded them.

It was still a pleasant surprise to open the box and find a live Neko Case disc from the All Songs Considered show in D.C. (still available here to listen but not broken into tracks so if anyone is interested I can burn it but see above for how long that may take.) Also included in the care package was The Raconteurs (lovely throw back looking website reminds of me of my old Compaq) Jack White's other band, also someone I had not heard of Marianne Dissard (Tucson based chansonnier a la Edith Piaf accompanied by one of the Calexico boys), and the pièce de résistance (to keep up the tortured French motif), a Grateful Dead set from the U of Iowa Field House circa 1982. R. also tipped me off in advance about the upcoming Calexico show at the Englert and I was able to snag good seats.

I will work on list of shows I have and put it up here in case anyone is interested in some live stuff. Keep an eye out around the new year at the current pace. I am currently scheduled to return to Tucson for an extended stay Oct-Nov, just in time to spoil JuChe's Thanksgiving or least his Halloween. Enjoy the weekend. I am off to take the kittens to their first vet appointment. Oh, Joy!

Readings

Girl Interrupted at Her Music

I have been trying to wrap up some books so I can focus on a Really Big Book. I had some recent finds on the library discard shelf. Earlier in the week I picked up George Saunders' Pastoralia (his new collection In Persuasian Nation is available). I can't recommend him enough as a short story writer as good as or even better than Gabe Hudson, Thom Jones, Alice Munro, or Chris Offut he could approach Carver status. He is definitely one of authors I look for when doing a quick triage on The New Yorker's table of contents to see if it's worth saving.

The next day on discard shelf there was a copy of Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. I had no idea it was an actual memoir. I had been under the impression it was a simply a film in which Hillary Swank Angelina Jolie had earned an Oscar (or a nomination) by garnering the sympathies of the Academy voters for being forced to do a movie with Winona Ryder. It was a difficult book to put down. I fell asleep reading it and then finished it shortly after waking. Years earlier I had schlepped a copy of her novel Asa as I Knew Him around since Army days and I may have even read it. I know I started it. It was one of those Vintage paperbacks from the '80s that showed up in droves on remainder tables like Bright Lights, Big City. Never made the connection to her writing this memoir.

Like the narrator of the book I had been to the Frick, which at the time (1994) I was not familiar with, but I was in NYC visiting and so on a recommendation I went go see the Vermeers. I don't recall the one pictured above that provoked Ms. Kraysen so much. I did end up buying a print of the Officer and Laughing Girl which I liked for the detail of the map in the background as much as I did the subjects. It languished in my closet for several years until a former roommate had it framed for my birthday and now adorns bedroom wall. (I would also have to recommend the movie Girl with Pearl Earring if only for the cinematography. I can't recall a lusher looking film since All the Mornings of the World.) Anyway, I am glad I took a chance on the book.

To maintain the theme of insanity a coworker passed on a copy of Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors. A disturbingly hilarious coming of age story that I had heard of but never got around to. Again, I could not put the book down until I finished it late last night. The film version is due out this fall and it looks like a great cast. I hope they can pull it off without it turning into a farce. I will check out his next two recollections Dry and Possible Side Effects but not until I take a break.

After all these books and watching Born into Brothels, I needed to return to something a little less heavy and so I am concentrating on finishing one more library book, Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart. If you liked Everything is Illuminated then this is a book for you. Excerpt of first chapter is here to check out. Then I take a break from library and try to read the Really Big Book that has been on my shelf for over a decade. (Don't want to say the name yet in case I jinx myself.)

The Hold Steady

I am still not sick of this song...

One can only imagine the other available "rides"...

Army considering proposal for military theme park

(AP) A Florida developer is pitching the Disney-like amusement park to go alongside a $300 million Army museum, which is expected to open near Fort Belvoir in 2013. The Washington Post reports the park would allow people to "command" the latest M-One tank or feel the rush of a paratrooper freefall.

The Army wants to move the museum to a piece of federal land that it says has space for the museum's hotel and entertainment complex. Although they have no authority over the federal project, local officials say roads in the area wouldn't be able to handle the resulting traffic.

I know the tune is horrible but I could not resist...

Apologies to those who already been subjected to this and thanks to Juche Child aka The Pho King for passing on a slightly different version.

FYI: The Pho King family reunion is on the beaches of San Diego this year. Get your temporary adoption paper work in early. Details to follow.

Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth

My classmates and I shortly before graduation from DLI on the Presidio of San Francisco, May 1987. The Army must have been truly desperate at the time. Anyway I felt bad about leaving on such a downer note with yesterdays obit so I dug out the photo albums and was playing with a copier/scanner. Shortly after this photo was taken most of us went to West Texas for the summer.

Sometime in Summer or Fall of 1987 after a brief field exercise at Goodfellow AFB. (There is a slight chance this scene is from later in the same year at Ft Devens, MA but I don't think so. I wish I had clearly labeled my photos.) We were doing some military language instruction here for a couple months after DLI. It was quite a change of pace after a year of civilian instructors in San Francisco back to drill sergeants in San Angelo, TX.

It seems that brief periods of my life are photographed in detail while there are also complete years that go undocumented. Skip ahead to the Spring of 1993 and the annual Oozeball Tournament at UConn. Around 200 teams signed up to play volleyball in about six inches of mud. As I recall we did pretty well making it to the sweet sixteen or so before being eliminated in sudden death. With so many teams there was a lot of lag time between games where we could do a rough clean up and down some beers. Good times. (The identities of those pictured will be kept secret unless they step forward on their own.) Note the saranwrapped library in the background to prevent students from being hit by falling bricks from the recently completed construction. El Duderino has mentioned this building previously.

Arthur Lee (1945-2006)

I was sorry to read that the oft troubled Arthur Lee, former front man to the band Love, lost his battle with leukemia and died yesterday in Memphis . One of my favorite pop albums of all time is Forever Changes. While never a big commerical success (refusing to tour didn't help) it seems that there has been a resurgance of his songs perhaps due in part to Wes Anderson's film soundtracks especially Bottle Rocket. My favorite cover of the frequently covered song Alone Again Or is the live version by Calexico.

There is a detailed obituary from Rolling Stone and I am sure more will follow soon. I will be purchasing a remastered version to replace my missing copy of Forever Changes from Rhino.

"Oops,went to the Bahamas there, just for a second"

Actually to beat the heat this weekend I went for a stroll with Chuck Palahniuk by sitting on sofa in the AC and reading Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk Around Portland, Oregon. It is part of Crown Journeys, a series of short books wherein authors wax eloquently about areas close to them. Coincidentally S. had just finished reading his book Haunted and was kind enough to share some of the more disturbing elements... an autoeroticism accident involving a swimming pool drain for example.
The Portland book is compelling with non-touristy suggestions for destinations and insider tips. It also contains brief intercalary Postcards from Palahniuks's life in the area over the past twenty years including being beaten up, participating in a Santa Rampage, and his first acid trip which can be read here. I was dissapointed not have made it to Portland while out in Seattle this spring but am glad to have read this book before my eventual first visit. I look forward to checking out other books in this series including Kinky Friedman about Austin, Roy Blount, Jr. in New Orleans (although that might need an updated version), or Iowa's own workshop mentor, the late Frank Conroy on Nantucket. (Another reading at Prairie Lights I missed.)

It would be interesting to have historical authors in modern cities such as Poe in the Fell's Point area of Baltimore battling tourists for a bar stool, Rimbaud in Paris trying to find a decent domestic absinthe, or Dickens sampling the fusion cuisine of modern London . Who else? Van Gogh in the hash bars of Amersterdam? Actually those were probably already there.

Drive By Snapshot

Taken somewhere in California while driving between Tucson to Newport Beach, May 2004.

Was wrestling with blogger about posting pics and it took a while for this one to go through. So I am using it as a test scenario. I will attempt to get some more commentary type things up about recent reads and films such New World by Terrence Malick which I felt was tediously ponderous and the best comment I read so far was that the film is like Disney's Pochantas but without the songs or the comic relief of the animal characters. Colin Farrell is as wooden in New World as he is in Miami Vice, another recent dissapointment.

JITTERY

Nancy takes me to a coffee shop called "Jitters"
which is, I'm thinking, like naming a bar "Drunk":
what you get when you get too much of what it is

they've got to give you - though that's just me
of course, going off. I'm feeling kind of drunk
on talk and too much coffee and Nancy's laughing

easy like she maybe thinks: *okay*. Me, I mean,
though I'm reading into things of course -
talk, laughter - speed-reading into things

what with all the coffee and little sleep
I'm running on of late. Things, their course,
have not been great though I'm feeling not

unhappy to be alive and not asleep and here
with Nancy blabbing out my life like some black
and white Karl Malden movie tough guy grateful

to finally confess and yes I'll obsess on
splitting that infinitive since Nancy knows
syntax ("*syn*-, together + *tassein*, to arrange");

Nancy knows yoga, Neruda, dogs, and yes
to the body's thoughtless crush on the world and
her smile flies open like a sun-flushed dove

and right, I know I talk too much and think
too much about what I'm thinking and not
enough about what I say, and simmer too long

in the crock of myself, which is right where I
get when I get this way and want to say
shut up, Simmerman, just shut up. . . .

Nancy takes me to a coffee shop.


Jim Simmerman


For some reason today I want to mete and dole laws unto a savage race. Maybe I should just cut back on the vending machine coffee. It tastes like it could have been made in Berlin in 1945 before the Allies arrived with actual coffee and they could stop using bark.

I almost forgot. Iowa City gets a mention as one of the featured destinations of the month(with Portland, OR and Atlantic City) in the current issue of the uber-perky Rachel Ray's magazine. There is a map to all the places to eat etc... Alas can not be accessed online.
You may now commence to slag me for my choice of reading material but all I can say is that anyone that can knock the Tony Danza show from his time slot deserves a chance. I also did not intend to sound so morose on the last post. Perhaps it was watching The Woodsman.

The Locust Song

. . . the wise and wry observation which the young William Butler Yeats offered one evening in The Cheshire Cheese to his fellow young poets in the Rhymers Club:"None of us can say who will succeed, or even who has or has not talent. The only thing certain about us is that we are too many.
— Paul Carroll



The tyranny of poets: "Like." O we were like
the infinite regression of roe, in the sex crease
of a sturgeon. We were like — what? like, as numerous
as the stars, the grains of sand, the uses of "like" itself.
Too many of us. Too flakes of snow, too fish
in the deep, too waterbugs of Florida. In the thick air

of the evening Cheese, a muss-haired Willie Yeats stares out
across a bobbing sea of schnockered literary faces
and he sees, as if implied in these, the overmany faces
of the shantytowns, and the Chinese steppes,
and the grim Malthusian banks of the Ganges river
on a holy day . . . too many of us. Those birds

slouched on the wire have served as a bar of music now
in how many poems? as a squadhouse lineup
in how many poems? as heavy portents over
the words in the wire itself, how many times?
Too many many-of-us. That zero now, the "black hole"
of the astronomers . . . by now it's the rose

and the willow and the rainbow and the nightingale
of two generations of us; string theory is easily the sunrise
over the Mediterranean Sea of us. "I think of . . ." then
a historical reference, Mendel, Bruegel, Mata Hari,
how many times? The prize and the prize and the prize.
A swarm of prizes. I think of William Butler Yeats,

a sloshy evening spent in fellowship with his kind. Some
have a scribbled paper with them. Some, a published pamphlet.
All of them have dreams to share. "Inside of every fat man
there's a skinny man waiting to be let out." And inside every
too many of us is a me. Right now, a hundred me
are lifting up their pints and toasting Yeats's observation.


Albert Goldbarth
Poetry
The Humor Issue
Volume CLXXXVI, Number 4
July/August 2005



I have not had the urge to blog and is more of a general malaise then an avoidance posting but this poem seemed also to capture a feeling about online journalists too. I have been reading a lot of late and wanted to share some of it. In short if you liked Freakanomics then The Tipping Point is also well worth reading about trends and impacts. I hope to get around to posting more soon. Sorry for the cobwebs.

A poem and two photos

SYBARITES


The coin of our pleasure,
Its obverse face
Minted in high relief --

And its reverse?
The same type incuse, stamped
By the punch of taboo.


Robert Wells


S. had some good shots of Millenium Park on her camera. I finally picked up the film today.

Interesting feature on one of the matched 50' towers of Crown Fountain. Apparently the artist gathered a collection of a 1000 faces from a cross section of Chicago residents that are used in rotation as a modern version of the classic gargoyle.

Poem is one being retired from Poetry Daily archive this week...

"Remember When You Were Young?"

Musician Syd Barrett Dies at Age 60
by Felix Contreras
From All Things Considered

Npr had decent obit with nice musical beds. Shine on indeed...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5549695

Introducing, for the first time here...

Iggy and Hopper

We recently adopted a couple of Kalona farm cats. I promise that I will not turn this into a series of cloying shots of kittens hanging off of branches, swinging from the chandelier, or mauling each other. I was attempting to photoshop them into one of Robert Rainey style portraits below but that turned out to be difficult so I quit.

It has been years since I have had a kitten. When dogs play it's as if they are preparing for a sporting event, albeit one with lots of fetching and drooling. I suppose it could a football training camp. Kittens on the other hand while amusing to watch still manage to maintain an air of menace to their play. It's like they are in an unregimented ninja training school and will eventually graduate and become assassins. Like Le Femme Nikita but without the instructors or etiquette coach.

Do you remember, remember D. Boon?
Part of what he was is a part of me now
And if you think back, where would he be
Where would I be if time had allowed?

from Uncle Tupelo's D.Boon from album Still Feel Gone



I swear I just walked into the Record Collector to see if they were selling Dave Alvin tickets since they had the poster for the upcoming Mill show in the window. Alas, they were not but on the counter was the dvd pictured. I watched most of it last Saturday morning before hitting the road. It is a true tragedy of a band hitting its peak and losing an integral member to sheer chance. I remember first listening to them on an SST compilation tape that I picked up because it had the Husker Du covers 8 Miles High and Love is All Around so it was after D.Boon died that I heard them. Solid documentary with a whole extra disc of songs and live footage.

Coincidently the Gram Parsons documentary Fallen Angel was waiting for us via Netflix when we returned. Another tragedy but one that evokes much less sympathy. Gram was amazingly talented as well but seemed more inclined to throw it away. Born rich, beautiful, and gifted he proceeded to take several steps backward for every step forward. I love his songs but ended up leaving this film not feeling that sorry for him and feeling more for his family especially after the whole post-mortem farce that must be heard to be believed. Again by chance, I happened to be reading the liner notes to the Dwight Yoakam box set from Rhino Records and ran across this quote from Chris Hillman, exasperated frien and band member, who had to twice fire Gram for various reasons chief of which was that he would rather just hang out with Keith Richards

“Of all the people out there, I…look at (Dwight) Yoakam as being the Gram Parsons that worked – the operating model.”

Following the same string of chance, Dwight is playing a free show at casino in Des Moines which is where I am headed this afternoon.


On a dramatic note we watched Woody Allen’s Match Point that is not as much written as assembled. I am curious as to why it received many rave reviews. It only stands up well compared to some of his later films. It seems to be a hodge-podge of an overt Crime and Punishment rehash (main character is reading Doestovesky at the start of film) with a bit of Thedore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (filmed with Montgomery Clift/Liz Taylor as A Place in the Sun) thrown in, and capped off with a subplot from Woody’s own Crimes and Misdemeanors. The cast was decent but even Scarlett Johanseen seemd a little off but perhaps it was just some of the dialogue. Not a bad film just a bit overhyped I guess.

We fared better with the film version of Everything is Illuminated. It captures the essence of the Safran-Foer novel with just a few major gaps. I recommend checking out the deleted scenes features. It’s worth watching but I keep excepting Elijah Wood to revert to his Sin City character and start bouncing around and eating people. But that’s just me.

Robert Rainey's Two Way

Examples from another exhibition we saw at the CCC. Each portrait was mounted in a mirror like light box which refelected your image when light was off and illuminated the photo when light was on. Not sure if it worked that well but overall I enjoyed the concept.

Weekend in Review

Took a trip up to Sioux City on Saturday. The Sgt. Floyd Monument we drove by is in memory of the only member of the Lewis & Clark party who died on the trip, apparently of an appendicitis. It also is the furthest west I have been in the state of Iowa since moving here almost seven years ago this summer. I have wanted to follow the route of the explorers since reading Blue Highways by William Least-Heat Moon. In it he refers to the the DeVoto edition of the travel diaries which led me to pick that up. I always like travelogues that include the books that the authors bring along. In the Ireland book by McCarthy which I am finishing up he has a copy of Thackeray's travels through the Emerald Isle along to read and compare. Paul Theroux also does this. It leads to more of what Least-Heat Moon would call a 'deep map' of your trip. We also adopted a couple of as yet unnamed kittens on Monday. Not sure which is fraught with more potential peril, the cats or a night on the town in Sioux City.

Middle Western Exposure

(Photo from Spudart's site http://www.spudart.org/)

Another exhibit from CCC were artist John Kearney's metal sculptures. My picture of the Cadillac Venus is too blurry and there was a smaller version of the moose above too. It also gave the Michigan Avenue address of the moose. What you can't see is the anatomically correct metal pizzle of the noble beast. As we passed by a father was attempting to herd his three young daughters into a photo op with the moose. The youngest one about 4 years old then proceeded to hang on to the penis and inquire loudly enough for several dozen passerbys to hear "Daddy, What is this?"

I just hope this is the harried father's only witnessing of his youngest holding onto a metal dong with both hands.

Chicago Cultural Center

Nick Cave's Sound Suits

Last Saturday rising at the crack of 10 due to time spent in after hours bars drinking $6 dollar vodkas (Not bad actually considering the $5 beers at show which were a bargain as it appears that all draft beers in Chicago are a half-sawbuck) we checked out of the hostel and got our key deposit back (2 beers).

The plans called for some cheap activities to make up for the excesses of the evening. So we stowed bags in car and hoofed it to the nearest CTA stop and headed downtown to investigate Millennium Park. (A nice pdf map of park here.)

After touring the park, hot and envious of children playing in the Crown Fountain, and watching S. take some photos (still need to finish that roll so they can be posted) we grabbed some, at least in my case, atrociously sweetened tart unidentifiable red fruit lemonade and walked by and then, noticing it was free admission, into the Chicago Cultural Center. I recommend it as the building is grand and cool and the exhibits we saw were worth checking out. Did I mention it was free?

The above photo is a series of shamanistic suits made of mostly found materials by artist Nick Cave (not the murder balladeer who hangs out with the Bad Seeds as I first thought). They reminded me of a favorite book in a series I devoured in my youth. The book was The Mystery of the Dancing Devil and was part of the Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators series. In fact I need to start looking for them again in case I missed some near the end. I liked them better than the ageless Hardy Boys because of the continuity between novels, the California setting with secret hidden headquarters in a junkyard and of course the ultimate meeting with Hitch to wrap up the case and fill out the loose ends.

As promised the snapshot of our cell room at the hostel.

I have been fortunate in books of late. The English, August novel was excellent. I just finished the historical novel Arthur & George by Julian Barnes coincidentally also with ties to India and the titular Arthur's last name is Conan Doyle. Great read. On the discard shelf I picked up a copy of The Gourmet Gardner by E. Annie Proulx and Kraft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, which makes for hours of entertaining reading particularly the case studies included. Apparently masturbation is the root of all evils.

The publican of the Dublin Undergound loaned me a copy of a book he read on plane ride back from a recent trip to Ireland, McCarthy's Bar by Pete McCarthy. Born in England to English dad and Irish mom he recounts his childhood trips to visit relatives near Cork with present trek around same area (circa 2000). I am only a few chapters in but I have nearly snorted coffee through my nose on three occasions while reading it. It would have have happened again but I ran out of coffee and I had to go to work. The prologue sets the tone where it begins to enumerate some of the Immutable Rules of Travel, No.8 Never pass a bar that has your name on it. Others include Never eat at a place with laminated menus and Never attempt to score weed off Hasidic Jews in Central Park under the impression that they are Rastafarians. More rules come out his travels across Ireland proceed. I was saddened to learn that the author died of cancer in 2004 at the age of 51.

Sport's Guy's You Tube Hall of Fame

ESPN columnist Bill Simmons on the You Tube phenom... and arguably the high water mark of the rock video....

from his article yesterday here...