"Up On Cripple Creek..."

Road trip back to Northeastern Iowa for second time this month....



Some fellow local reprobates and myself did a last minute kayaking trip in Bluffton

A nice pose down the next morning after we had recovered with a good nights sleep.

"It was a pleasure to burn..."

I enjoyed watching this film. It holds up well and I had no idea it existed. Nice touches by Truffaut and there is a making of documentary on the DVD worth viewing. This was Truffaut's first color film as well as his first in English. Good stuff. Also on the DVD is an interview with Ray Bradbury from 2002.

I also enjoyed the recent King Arthur with Clive Owen in the title role. A different take on the Arthur legends. This led me to my shelf to read about the Roman emperor Hadrian whose wall in northern Britain the main battle scenes of the movie take place near. Turns out he was one of the more stable emperors of that period following the fall of the republic. Granted this is in comparison to Augustus, Caligula, Nero, etc... Seems like a good film could be made just about Hadrian. It would not take much to better Oliver Stone's Alexander the Great crapfest of a few years back.

The Lower Chesapeake Bay

Whatever happened to the cross-chest carry,
the head carry, the hair carry,

the tired-swimmer-put-your-hands-on-my-shoulders-
and-look-in-my-eyes retrieval, and what

became of the stride jump when you leap
from impossible heights and land with your head

above water so that you never lose sight
of your drowning person, or if he is close enough

where is the lifesaver ring attached to a rope
you can hurl at your quarry then haul

him to safety, or as a last resort
where is the dock onto which you tug

the unconscious soul, place him face down,
clear his mouth, straddle his legs, and press

with your hands on both sides of his rib cage
to the rhythm of out goes the bad air in

comes the good air and pray he will breathe,
hallowed methods we practiced over and over

the summer I turned eighteen to win
my Water Safety Instructor's badge,

and where is the boy from Ephrata, Pa.,
I made out with night after night in the lee

of the rotting boathouse at a small dank camp
on the lower Chesapeake Bay?

Maxine Kumin

The Southern Review
Summer 2007

This poem is from is from the Daily Poetry archives. Have not been on the internet much this week but will make an effort to keep this up.

"Pink Rose, Green Bug"

Getting a little dusty around the old blog. I have been enjoying the Canadian television series "Slings and Arrows". I suppose its a drama but with more fun bits than serious and it does feature one of the former cast members from "The Kids in the Hall". It appears most of the episodes are on YouTube; here is the first clip. I was was fortunate that our local public library has all three seasons.

Off to the dentist this afternoon and am not looking forward to it as it has been slightly longer than the recommended six months between visits. Closer to a 108.

Living in America (not the James Brown version)

This is a pottery sculpture from a local artist I picked up a few years back from a silent charity auction. I added the feather duster headdress yesterday.

'Living in America,'
the intelligent people at Harvard say,
'is the price you pay for living in New England.'

Californians think
living in America is a reward
for managing not to live anywhere else.

The rest of the country?
Could it be sagging between two poles,
tastelessly decorated, dangerously overweight?

No. Look closely.
Under cover of light and noise
both shores are hurrying towards each other.

San Francisco
is already half way to Omaha.
Boston is nervously losing its way in Detroit.

Desperately the inhabitants
hope to be saved in the middle.
Pray to the mountains and deserts to keep them apart.

Anne Stevenson
Selected Poems
winner of the Neglected Masters Award

I meant to put this up a while back and it will have to stand as a belated 4th of July poem. The book is from the American Poets Project which I have mentioned previously here. I highly recommend the series.

High Tide in Tucson

Calexico on iLike - Get Sidebar

On a slightly more positive note, Calexico has released a trailer for the upcoming album. Did I mention they were playing for free in Chicago in September at a World Music Festival? I am sure I did.

Thomas Disch 1940-2008

How to Behave when Dead

A notorious tease, he may pretend
not to be aware of you.
Just wait.
He must speak first. Then
you may begin to praise him.

Remember:
sincerity and naturalness
count for more than wit.
His jokes may strike you as
abstruse.
Only laugh if he does.

Gifts?
They say he's mad for art,
but whether in the melting
elegiac mode of, say, this
Vase of Poppies
or, turning the mirror
to his own face, a bronze skull
gorging on a snake --
that is a matter of taste.
In any case, the expense
is what he notices.

What to wear.
Some authorities
still insist on black.
But really, in this modern age,
your best is all that is required.

-- Tom Disch


Thomas Disch, novelist, poet, critic, playwright, and children's book author, is dead. He took his own life after a series of tragedies. NY Times obit here.

For me, discovering Disch was world altering. He expanded my horizons and expectations. From the not just for kids book, The Brave Little Toaster to his book on poetry The Castle of Indolence, one of the few books of criticism I have read and enjoyed for pleasure, I have enjoyed his writing for years. He taught me more about how to read with a critical ear than anyone else. His book on science fiction, The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World is a must read for all, even those who disdain the genre.

He will be missed. His blog is here.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. . . .” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process.
-- Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

More Summer Reading

Paul, our local expert from Prairie Lights bookstore, has turned me on to many books over the last several years and now he has gone global via the 'Tube. Enjoy and have a safe and pleasant holiday celebrating the birth of our country. Where is my Lee Greenwood record?

Cafe Tacuba

I went home for lunch and caught the end of these guys playing on Austin City Limits. Mexican Pop/Ska/Rock...I like it and they remind of Skatalites, Bosstones, etc...

"History ... is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake."

Thanks to Paper Cuts blog for pointing out the cover of the latest Poets & Writers magazine and the classic Marilyn photo. One of my goals for this summer's reading is to get through Richard Ellman's biography of James Joyce. I recently found a hard cover copy in excellent condition at Goodwill. I love the dark blue cover embossed Joyce's name and the Brancusi's symbol for Joyce on the fronts piece. I just need to find a good beach or a 'disappointed bridge' to sit and read on. And to somehow get paid for it.

"I got more records than the KGB"

"What the hell is that fat bastard writing about us this time?. I wish we could read."

This song is, in the parlance of the day, "so last year" but I can not stop playing it. It's an Adrock remix so a little different. The original version caught my ear because it's laid over top of one of my favorite Joe Strummer tunes, "Straight to Hell". That and the gunfire chorus.

M.I.A- Paper Planes (Remix for the Children by Adrock)

All the hipsters nod your heads and tap your feet. And at the end laugh cynically like college radio DJ's at UConn in the 90's mocking the non Fugazi fans. You get the picture.

Let's Dance to Joy Division-The Wombats

I love cover songs. This one goes out to The Dude. He abides.

"Friends of P"-Tokyo Police Club

"Let us read then, you and I..."

The unlikely mashup of T.S. Eliot and Portishead from The Elegant Variation.

To go along with the clip, Oprah's Magazine has a list of 5 Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once:

1) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

2) Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

3) The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century translated by Thomas Merton

4) Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

5) Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

I would include Lolita for my Top 5 but the rest are fairly arbitrary which I suppose is the nature of lists. I might swap out Eliot with Whitman. Have to think about it some more. It depends on the list requirements and or qualifications too. Does there have to be a play? A poet? Non-fiction? Too many variables. Discuss amongst yourselves. Suggestions welcome. As our subject nouns.

The Wedding

Rainbow over Bushwood aka Fox Run C.C. in West Branch after the hail and thunderstorm.



The groom and his merry men.



Some of the ladies.



The usual suspects...



The sister and sister-in-law of the groom. (I was forced to retake this shot as they felt there was not enough cleavage in the first take.)



The Master making time.



The jacket is older than Ted. The women are decidedly not.

The rest of the pictures are online below.

Wedding

The Birth of Cool

Check this out from the library recently. Review here. And here.
New stamps this week celebrating two of the main influences in the above book.


I just got the most recent issue of Paste. My next new song of is from the cd sampler from a couple of issues back that I thought fits this mid century modern theme.

The Republic Tigers - Building & Mountains

The Boys of Summer

Peter Gammons "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". Check out his label and charity, Hot Stove Cool Music. Also see Fenway Recordings compilations of Boston locals.

If it wasn't for the Boston Red Sox winning a couple of World Series in the past 4 years I would never have been able to read Bradley's book featured at right. If not for the two championships reading this book would be like slowing peeling off a scab had healed and been covered with larger injuries (I still don't think I could read anything about the Sox's 1986 loss to the Mets). That said the book is an excellent history of the season and history and how the teams ended up in a one game playoff after the end of regular season in 1978.

I was 11 years old and had been living in Connecticut for around a year and half. There were only two baseball teams. People rooted for the hated Yankees or the Red Sox and in our part of New England it was the Red Sox. Yankee fans were transplants or band wagoners from the 1977 season. The Greatest Game evokes this era of baseball before skyrocketing salaries and players changing teams like underwear due to free agency. It brings back all of the minor role players in the days where kids like us knew them all because we had their baseball cards. This book is similar to the format of the wonderful recent biography of Sandy Koufax by Jane Leavy in which chapters alternate between description of the game and the background leading up to it. The first names say it it all: Reggie, Carlton, Billy, Catfish, Goose, Yaz, Thurman, etc...etc...etc...

Yesterday the music blog Aquarium Drunkard had a post about the recent release of the The Baseball Project from Yep Roc Records. Apparently this might be an extended project since its subtitled Volume One: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. I would never pass up an opportunity to listen at least once to a record that has the "Ted F*cking Williams" on it. That track and another are available at the end of the post I mentioned above. Anyway I am so ready to go see a major league game. Let's play two.

"The Door into Summer"

No Boat by Christoph Vandewiele

Wired has had several photo contests recently. This is one of their Top 10 summer photo ones as chosen by the editors (I assume it could be a group of monkeys for all I know). There was also a reader's poll version. They just started a new theme one about squares and are still taking submissions.

I had very good time at friend's wedding this weekend and I will upload some photos when I get a chance too. The title of this post is from a novel by Robert Heinlein in which the protagonist's cat makes his owner open up every door in the house during winter to try and find the door that leads into summer. For me the door into summer this year is this song:

Five Years Time-Noah and The Whale

Enjoy!

Purple Headed Womb Ferret

The last post was a bit of a downer so though I would go out having a laugh with a clip from the first episode of Extras with special guest star Kate Winslet.

High Water Mark Yet to Come

Flooding on the Iowa River at the Park Road bridge in Iowa City, Iowa, on June 12, 2008 (Press-citizen / Dan Williamson)

I just saw these numbers on the Press-Citizen's website.

Iowa River
• Current: 27.43 feet.
• Flood stage: 22 feet.
• Forecast: 33 feet by next week.

Have a safe weekend.

'You're nothing but a pack of cards!'

First viewed over at Hello Vegetables. The accompanying track for video was composed by 19-year-old South African artist Nick Bertke using sounds from the Disney film Alice In Wonderland.

The Iowa City wedding of the year is tomorrow as a close friend and favorite publican is finally getting married. Should be the social event of the season for those who are not flooded out of their homes or trapped behind closed bridges or washed out roads.

The Big Picture

South Korean protesters carrying candles are blocked by police buses during a rally against US beef imports in Seoul on June 1, 2008. (KIM JAE-HWAN/AFP/Getty Images)

This blog does not do the picture justice unless you click on it to blow it up. The Boston Globe has a fairly new site with some excellent news pictures. It's called The Big Picture.

I first heard of this over at Photojojo

"Of moving accidents by flood and field."

City Park, Iowa City. Photo from Iowa City Press Citizen.

This is the worst flood I have ever seen but I was not here in 1993 so I can't say how it compares to then. You can see the outdoor theater at the top of the picture surrounded by water which has forced a temporary relocation to City High for this summer's Shakespeare Festival. Thankfully our place is on higher ground.

UPDATE: Not to make light of other people's misfortune but it does remind me of the The Onion headline, "Johnny Cash Called in to Assess Flood." I could not find a link for that so how about this instead:

"...Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, Of cabbages and kings..."

My goal this weekend in addition to making a summer book reading post is to try and make this dish. That is only if I can find some decent cherry tomatoes at the Farmer's market although I fear it is too early in the season. I can always improvise. The Pesto Bread side is a must for soaking up the clam juices.

I know a ton of people have covered this song but I like the keyboards on this. Enjoy the weekend. My book post

Love Song- Death Cab for Cutie (Cure cover)

Shakedown Street

Are these worse than the Kurt Cobain Chucks? Perhaps not but it still feels like I threw up in my mouth a little bit. I have to admit I do own a couple of Jerry Garcia ties but at least the man was still alive and ostensibly designing them himself at the time. The new line of Converse reminds me of a line of sporting goods that were licensed in Ernest Hemingway's name including shotguns. Perhaps Remington can get in on this with a line of 20 gauges in Cobain's name.

Summer Reading Quick Hits

(Watch Hill, Rhode Island. One of my favorite places for summer reading.)

As I mentioned recently I was going to talk about summer books. Last Sunday the NY Times went ahead and put out there summer reading issues of its Book Review. This is just a brief attempt while I compose my masterpiece.

In an essay in this section Joe Queenan talks about reading the big ones in "Jumbo Lit" including one (Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities) that has haunted my shelf unread for several years and taunting me to conquer it.

David Sedaris has a new book of essays coming out this week. This has to jump to the top 10 of any summer reading list. I remember going camping with some friends and taking turns reading some of his pieces by the fire and attempting not to choke on a Smore or snort beer out your nose. There is an excerpt from his collection When You Are Engulfed in Flames at the publisher's website here.

UPDATES: Added some more links to Music and Words.

"It's funny because it's racist."

This seemed appropriate since I have been trapped at one of our satellite offices all week with limited computer access. So even less posting then normal for a while probably. I am working on a post about summer reading. And by working on I mean I just thought of the idea about five minutes ago. I have a list of what I want to read though. In my head. The new Rushdie book, The Enchantress of Florence sounds perfect for a summer read. Excerpt here. Rave review here.

I am enjoying this new book about John Quincy Adams currently focusing on his role as a congressman after his presidency, his role fighting slavery in the House of Representatives and the defense of the Amistad escaped slaves. Adams was as excellent a statesman as his father but more neglected by history. In part due to an ineffective term in the White House caused mostly by being saddled with an opposition controlled Congress and Adams' stubborn refusal to remove various Jackson sycophants from his own Cabinet.

This book shows our sixth President enjoying more success in getting another chance at establishing his proper legacy. Another cool thing is that most of diaries are available on the web at the Massachusetts Historical Society. It is a little bit of work to decipher his handwriting but it is fascinating stuff. (OK, maybe that's a bit strong. I did read a few pages and they are okay but fact that they exist online I think is cool). Enjoy the weekend.

"In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire"

Normandy (picture is from a woman named Rachel. I found it on her blog via google)

[An address delivered for Memorial Day, May 30, 1884, at Keene, NH, before John Sedgwick Post No. 4, Grand Army of the Republic.]

Not long ago I heard a young man ask why people still kept up Memorial Day, and it set me thinking of the answer. Not the answer that you and I should give to each other-not the expression of those feelings that, so long as you live, will make this day sacred to memories of love and grief and heroic youth--but an answer which should command the assent of those who do not share our memories, and in which we of the North and our brethren of the South could join in perfect accord.

So far as this last is concerned, to be sure, there is no trouble. The soldiers who were doing their best to kill one another felt less of personal hostility, I am very certain, than some who were not imperilled by their mutual endeavors. I have heard more than one of those who had been gallant and distinguished officers on the Confederate side say that they had had no such feeling. I know that I and those whom I knew best had not. We believed that it was most desirable that the North should win; we believed in the principle that the Union is indissoluable; we, or many of us at least, also believed that the conflict was inevitable, and that slavery had lasted long enough. But we equally believed that those who stood against us held just as sacred conviction that were the opposite of ours, and we respected them as every men with a heart must respect those who give all for their belief. The experience of battle soon taught its lesson even to those who came into the field more bitterly disposed. You could not stand up day after day in those indecisive contests where overwhelming victory was impossible because neither side would run as they ought when beaten, without getting at least something of the same brotherhood for the enemy that the north pole of a magnet has for the south--each working in an opposite sense to the other, but each unable to get along without the other. As it was then , it is now. The soldiers of the war need no explanations; they can join in commemorating a soldier's death with feelings not different in kind, whether he fell toward them or by their side.

But Memorial Day may and ought to have a meaning also for those who do not share our memories. When men have instinctively agreed to celebrate an anniversary, it will be found that there is some thought of feeling behind it which is too large to be dependent upon associations alone. The Fourth of July, for instance, has still its serious aspect, although we no longer should think of rejoicing like children that we have escaped from an outgrown control, although we have achieved not only our national but our moral independence and know it far too profoundly to make a talk about it, and although an Englishman can join in the celebration without a scruple. For, stripped of the temporary associations which gives rise to it, it is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Full speech is here. There is another one here too.

from Wiki:

During his senior year of college, at the outset of the American Civil War, Holmes enlisted in the fourth battalion, Massachusetts militia, and then received a commission as first lieutenant in the Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He saw much action, from the Peninsula Campaign to the Wilderness, suffering wounds at the Battle of Ball's Bluff, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. He is also said to have shouted at Lincoln during the Battle of Fort Stevens, saying "Get down, you fool!" when Lincoln stood, making him a susceptible target.[1] He was mustered out in 1864 as a brevet Lieutenant Colonel after his three-year enlistment ended. Holmes emerged from the war convinced that government and laws were founded on violence, a belief that he later developed into a positivist view of law and a rejection of romanticism and natural rights theory. After his death two uniforms were discovered in his closet with a note attached to them reading, "These uniforms were worn by me in the Civil War and the stains upon them are my blood."

Le Chat Gris

Iggy (aka Figge, as in he's as big as a museum)

In the interest of equal representation and so as not to play favorites I present Ig. His brother may actually be inside the Prairie Lights bag. They like bags.

On a movie kick lately, the other night I watched "The Darjeeling Limited" and enjoyed it more than was expected. I like Wes Anderson films even if Owen Wilson plays the same character in every movie he has ever done. The DVD also has the short prequel film, "Hotel Chevalier", a must see as as it introduces a full version of the song "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)" by Peter Sarstedt. The film soundtrack is excellent as usual with Wes Anderson, a lot of Kinks and the scores from several classic Indian films. Check out the clip that someone obviously put some effort into.

"Clever as cold coffee and whisky..."

(Hopper in the window)

Dialing While Intoxicated

Even this late I'm clever as cold coffee
and whisky. Scavenged that desperate pouch
of black shag I should've chucked ages ago,
ashes over-spilling the bread plate, butts
floating in backwash. Cup rings roam
the tabletop, the phone pad, half-stamp
my game of solo hangman. All of the E's
in "every ounce of everclear" busted
my bank long before tonight. But I dial on,
the kite and key of electric currency,
that flash of red, first frost in the maple trees:

in Amsterdam, look who's coming down the canal,
bicycle tires turning, up over the flock of bridges,
hump-backs bent and feeding, and round the crocus
and hemlock circle at Weteringschans. Who knows
which ex- is on the line? Then pub doors open
down Dorset Street, lights go off over Liffey murk,
the kitchen receiver sounds its dull double-bleat.
My sister, single now, searches for the phone.
And in Dunedin, the next day's already broken,
wobbled its way up summer twilight on sea legs,
half a year ahead. I could lick and tuck
one last roll-up, even call there collect.

John Hennessy


The poem is from the Poetry Daily archive due to be retired this week. Seemed like a good combination for a Monday. A pleasant weekend overall.

Last night I saw the surprise Oscar darling "Once". It was sublime and worth the hype. Check out his band The Frames doing the Pixies "Where is My Mind"....and this version of "Gigantic" with a kid's choir. He and his co-star of the film where on Jimmy Kimmel doing "Caribou" but I couldn't find it.

Nina!

This is Nina Simon''s “See-Line Woman” remixed. It was highlighted by one of the DJ's on KEXP's blog with a review of the album it came from, Verve Remixed, Volume 1.

Rauschenberg Dies at 82

Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning Drawing 1953

This would be my favorite concept of his. More from the Tate here.

UPDATE: More at Mark Hardin's Artchive in the Pop art section. Also there are some online linkls from Artcylopedia.

Mondays...

Image is from FFFFound. Today is too nice to be indoors. Push the button.

"Push It" - The Rosebuds (SaltnPepa cover)

(Flowers from side of the house.)

Summer Job

"The trouble with intellectuals," Manny, my boss,
once told me, "is that they don't know nothing
till they can explain it to themselves. A guy like that,"
he said, "he gets to middle age—and by the way,
he gets there late; he's trying to be a boy until
he's forty, forty-five, and then you give him five
more years until that craziness peters out, and now
he's almost fifty—a guy like that at last explains
to himself that life is made of time, that time
is what it's all about. Aha! he says. And then
he either blows his brains out, gets religion,
or settles down to some major-league depression.
Make yourself useful. Hand me that three-eights
torque wrench—no, you moron, the other one."

from American Life in Poetry

"Though at the time it may not occur to us to call it "mentoring," there's likely to be a good deal of that sort of thing going on, wanted or unwanted, whenever a young person works for someone older. Richard Hoffman of Massachusetts does a good job of portraying one of those teaching moments in this poem."

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

I thought I would finish up National Poetry Month as belatedly as I started to post about it. Kooser's column is another great source of poetry via E-mail. This seemed uncannily prescient.

Stupid University Job

Your loveliest of sway-backs;
of mine I was once ashamed,
and my uni-brow and crooked teeth,
and red hair my mother never let me wash
all winter,
afraid I'd catch a draft.
She wouldn't let me bathe, either,
which made gym class a horror.
I thought I had it bad
until I met that handsome Scottish man
whose parents tried to make him spontaneously combust
by feeding him haggis laced with gunpowder
and making him sleep in the stove.
Instead of an ear, he had a shiny, snail-shaped ridge.
I guess we all have our tragic flaw.
Mine is like that of the naked man
who holds up a sign that says "I'm naked"
and runs screaming through the park.
My handlers say I'm difficult,
but don't you believe it.
My soul still radiates a luminous intensity
despite this stupid university job.

by Sharon Mesmer
From The Virgin Formica

This comes about as close to describing my job as I can find in verse. Although it does beat the one I had after college where I was paid to watch people weld and make sure they didn't start any fires. At least I was mostly outdoors for that one. (The tiger picture is from the image blog FFFOUND!)

"I must down to the seas again..."

My sister has uploaded a few videos of my niece and nephew with my brother-in-law on the local beach near their house in Connecticut. I would have overdubbed it with some Pixies as a soundtrack but it is cute to hear them too. It makes me cringe to think of the hundreds of hours of film my Dad shot of our family and how easy it would be to torture all of us if he digitized them and uploaded them. My last apartment in CT was a leisurely ten minute stroll from the beach in the video. Good times.


I have been enjoying the PBS series "Carrier". The biggest achievement may be that the producers were allowed access by the Navy to film it in the first place. It's a little uneven so far still but very impressive especially with some of the high-definition shots.

David Sedaris has a piece in the New Yorker about smoking/not smoking.

Self Portrait

Self Portrait

I lived between my heart and my head,
like a married couple who can't get along.

I lived between my left arm, which is swift
and sinister, and my right, which is righteous.

I lived between a laugh and a scowl,
and voted against myself, a two-party system.

My left leg dawdled or danced along,
my right cleaved to the straight and narrow.

My left shoulder was like a stripper on vacation,
my right stood upright as a Roman soldier.

Let's just say that my left side was the organ
donor and leave my private parts alone,

but as for my eyes, which are two shades
of brown, well, Dionysus, meet Apollo.

Look at Eve raising her left eyebrow
while Adam puts his right foot down.

No one expected it to survive,
but divorce seemed out of the question.

I suppose my left hand and my right hand
will be clasped over my chest in the coffin

and I'll be reconciled at last,
I'll be whole again.

Edward Hirsch
Special Orders



This from a daily E-Mail put out by Knopf Poetry from Random House. You can sign up for it at their website and peruse the archive of previous selections. Mr. Hirsch will be reading from his latest collection tonight in Iowa City at Prairie Lights Bookstore. Below is a clip for the author reading the poem. The Van Gogh self-portrait is from Wikipedia.

Self Portrait- Edward Hirsch

UPDATE: NPR has an interview with Hirsch.

Kathleen Edwards - A Video Primer

"Juice Newton!?! Holy Shit, she's gorgeous."
Interview and some song snippets. Saw her recently on Austin City Limits show on PBS and was hooked. Darker humourous lyrics in her earlier songs. Below is a song off her latest record.

Kathleen Edwards-"The Cheapest Key"

"Art not asham’d to publish thy disease?"

Come, let me write. And to what end? To ease
A burth’ned heart. How can words ease, which are
The glasses of thy daily vexing care?
Oft cruel fights well pictured forth do please.
Art not asham’d to publish thy disease?
Nay, that may breed my fame, it is so rare.
But will not wise men think thy words fond ware?
Then be they close, and so none shall displease.
What idler thing then speak and not be hard?
What harder thing then smart and not to speak?
Peace, foolish wit! with wit my wit is marr’d.
Thus write I, while I doubt to write, and wreak
My harms on ink’s poor loss. Perhaps some find
Stellas great pow’rs, that so confuse my mind.


Sonnet 34 of "Astrophel and Stella"
by Philip Sidney (1554-1586)


To continue with my not-so-daily posting of poetry, this was taken from an E-mail sent each day by Poetry Daily during April celebrating National Poetry Month. A contemporary poet selects a poem and then waxes forth on why.

Margret Rabb chose the poem above and says this, "As a quick review of all the reasons not to write, I find sonnet 34 of Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella sequence nearly ideal. When Astrophel, the star lover, sets out to write – presumably of his love for Stella yet again – he begins instead to interrogate himself about the capacity of language to hold and convey his emotions – in effect, to question the whole enterprise. Ironically, as the doubts themselves are written and answered they become evidence of the power of words to create complex and double emotional states. Like love, then, language is shown to be mysteriously organic, its meaning not subject to strict control and lying outside the boundaries of one-to-one correspondences. This disease is published indeed."


She goes on. To get a poem complete with its' own exegesis in your email for the rest of April go here. There is also a daily prose feature.

"C'mon Everybody"

It's not poetry but it's fun. I found this on a music blog and then could not find my way back. I should always remember to leave a bread crumb trail while surfing the web.

"April is the cruelest month..."

Nostalgia

Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow."
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.

Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of
stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.

The 1790's will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.

Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.

As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

--Billy Collins

I think I first heard the lines for the title of this post from the T.S. Eliot poem either from one of my Korean teachers while in the Army, or from a book passed on by my more literary brothers (and sisters) in arms, or I ran across it in a Peter DeVries novel. All of these are possibilities I am just not sure which occurred first.

I know for certain that I was not exposed to Eliot in high school. In fact for most of my life I had managed to avoid modern and contemporary poetry and it was only in my thirties that I began to fill that void. There is much to be wary of, especially in this town, but I won't mention any names. I wanted to start doing this a week ago but as the man says "...time enough and the world...". I chose Billy Collins because he is one of my favorites and I wanted to share audio of this poem to make a case for the importance of hearing poetry, whether it is by listening to or reading it aloud. It is also cool to hear the poem in the author's voice. I will continue to share poems and links to the best of my ability for the remainder of the month.

"Nostalgia" - Billy Collins

Another lame effort to keep my blog updated

Tron
by freres-hueon

The Tron video came from a link on Wired. Things are little slow today. So I took a trip back to '80s.

Muxtape

More ways to waste time at work online are probably not needed but this is a cool site along the lines of Imeem. It is been much discussed on the music blogs. Even New Yorker columnists are doing it.

Largehearted Boy pointed out this (snarky) favorite.

Rock Art

So I was following my Google Reader divining rod around the web and came across a collection of music blogs at the L.A Times, Soundboard. One of the posts was about rock show poster art booths at SXSW aka Flatstock. This post linked to the American Poster Institute where I found the above Calexico poster. It reminded me of all the great posters that were done for the Fillmore in San Francisco for the Bill Graham shows and some of the great ones still being done such as the ones for the Drive-By Truckers. Below is Calexico covering Alejandro Escovedo from the album Por Vida. Alejandro will be here in Iowa City next week.

"Wave" - Calexico (Alejandro Escovedo cover)

Raconteurs

I first saw this on I Am Fuel music blog. Unlike Joe Biden I (almost) always cite my sources. The second album of Jack White's side project is on sale today.

Domo Arigato Manny-san!

"Manny being Manny" is already in mid-season RBI form. A clutch Manny Ramirez hit in extra innings with two men on gives the Red Sox a 6-5 win on Opening Day in Tokyo. Papelbon had a shaky save giving up a run in the bottom of the 10th but then shut the A's down with 2 men on. I did not get up at 5am to watch this game. I did get up in time to see them from 4th inning until the 9th but had to go to work. I was following the game on my computer until I was called away for a meeting. I only found out they won a few minutes prior to posting this.

"Say Hello to My Little Friends."

My friend Eric, with his son Samuel Charles, and his wife Sue's shoulder.

My friend Josh and his son, Samuel James...

"Happy Easter" is not a phrase that rolls off of the tongue without pause. Nevertheless it is a holiday usually spent with family so instead of contemplating the irony of that greeting I will move on to baby pictures. I have been meaning to post these birth photos from close friends who both had baby boys whom were named Samuel. Which is kind of cool because even if though they don't know each other yet they could spend the next 15 years in the same school system as best friends. Eric has a good post on his Myspace blog about their experience which is worth reading. Happy Easter!

UPDATE: I forgot to give a shout out for the Beach Drink Easter crew down in AZ. Wish I was with you guys again this year. It snowed here.

Cat Power

As the glacier retreats from Iowa City leaving a moraine of salt and many decimated roads I long for the frenzy of March Madness and the opening day of Major League Baseball (Red Sox on ESPN today at lunchtime hmmm) as the true first signs of Spring. In the meantime I jam out at my desk or read about Russian poets in San Diego.

Check out the amazing live recordings of Cat Power over at Aquarium Drunkard. It is another edition of The Black Session from French radio’s France Inter. Most of the songs are from her latest covers record, Jukebox, but I think my favorite is her original song "Song to Bobby". I initially thought it was a song by Bob Dylan instead of perhaps the tribute to him that it may be. Anyway these Black Sessions are cool. I have an older one of The Eels where I thought the mood was enhanced by the French DJ introducing the songs. I had no idea what he was saying but how chic it felt. The link below is to the original album version of the song. Compare it to the live one over at AD. There is a lot of energy in the live show.

"Song to Bobby" - Cat Power

UPDATE/Correction. - It was supposed to be Song "to" Bobby not "for" him. Excuse the prepositional lapse. Here is a song by written by Dylan she did cover.

"I Believe in You" - Cat Power

Band of Founding Brothers

Somehow this post did take first time around. I watched the first two parts of the HBO mini-series "John Adams" last night. This was after watching the HGTV Dream Home give away go to some extremely underwhelmed woman in Solon, Iowa.

This series is a sufficient enough reason not to cancel HBO as soon as "The Wire" ended its fifth and final season last week. There are some dramatic licenses taken naturally but it follows the McCullough biography fairly well so far. It makes use of the wonderful and voluminous correspondence between John and his wife Abigail, sometimes turning them into scenes of dialogue. I am looking forward to the next five parts of this series.

Doisneau: Underground Press

Robert Doisneau, Clandestine Press, Quartier Opera, Paris 1944.

Were I to fall in love all over again, it would be
with this low ceiling, with the calm faces
of the two men going about their craft,
and with her, now twisting towards them,
beautiful, defiant and free.

Because we forget how beauty was once itself
and nothing else, how it held its stellar
moment in attic and cellar.

Because that is what beauty is, this compact
with time and the silence of concentration
on one subversive operation,

that requires courage and sacrifice
and never comes without a price.

by George Szirtes
Poetry, February 2008


Szirtes' has several poems as response to certain scenes from World War II. There are several more at the Poetry Magazine website. This is my favorite of the bunch. Although the one called Latrine with the first line of the poem ("Four poilus in a wood austerely shitting." ) is a very close second.

UPDATE: I added a few more music links.

Chorizo Pig

Photo from Amy Stein'g blog (http://amysteinphoto.blogspot.com/)

Google Reader suggested this blog and I find my self drawn to it daily.

"...Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, fighting in the captain's tower ..."

From the Towers


Insanity is not a want of reason.
It is reason's overgrowth, a calculating kudzu.

Explaining why, in two-ton manifesti, thinkers sally forth
with testaments and pipe bombs. Heaven help us:

spare us all your meaningful designs. Shine down or
shower forth, but (for the earthling's sake) ignore
all prayers followed by against, or for. Teach us to bear

life's senselessness, our insignificance, and more;
let's call that sanity. The terrifying prospect isn't some
escapist with a novel, fond of comfort, munching sweets—

it is the busy hermeneut, so serious he's sour, intent on making
meaning of us all, and bursting from the towers to the streets

Heather McHugh

Poetry March 2008

Lucky Dube

I picked up the current car CD at the right from the library. I soon discovered that Lucky had been killed by carjackers in Johannesburg this last October. Africa's biggest reggae singer by far I think he could have been even more of a global phenomenon if not struck down in his prime.

There is a new Kerouac documentary about his novel Big Sur entitled One Fast Move or I'm Gone. I could not find a clip of the trailer that that was You Tubular but there is one of the website for the film.

Wilco will be in Des Moines on March 9th but before that NPR will be streaming a live show in Feb. 27th. Information here.

Poem of Disconnected Parts


At Robben Island the political prisoners studied.
They coined the motto Each one Teach one.

In Argentina the torturers demanded the prisoners
Address them always as “Profesor.”

Many of my friends are moved by guilt, but I
Am a creature of shame, I am ashamed to say.

Culture the lock, culture the key. Imagination
That calls boiled sheep heads “Smileys.”

The first year at Guantánamo, Abdul Rahim Dost
Incised his Pashto poems into styrofoam cups.

“The Sangomo says in our Zulu culture we do not
Worship our ancestors: we consult them.”

Becky is abandoned in 1902 and Rose dies giving
Birth in 1924 and Sylvia falls in 1951.

Still falling still dying still abandoned in 2005
Still nothing finished among the descendants.

I support the War, says the comic, it’s just the Troops
I’m against: can’t stand those Young People.

Proud of the fallen, proud of her son the bomber.
Ashamed of the government. Skeptical.

After the Klansman was found Not Guilty one juror
Said she just couldn’t vote to convict a pastor.

Who do you write for? I write for dead people:
For Emily Dickinson, for my grandfather.

“The Ancestors say the problem with your Knees
Began in your Feet. It could move up your Back.”

But later the Americans gave Dost not only paper
And pen but books. Hemingway, Dickens.

Old Aegyptius said Whoever has called this Assembly,
For whatever reason—it is a good in itself.

O thirsty shades who regard the offering, O stained earth.
There are many fake Sangomos. This one is real.

Coloured prisoners got different meals and could wear
Long pants and underwear, Blacks got only shorts.

No he says he cannot regret the three years in prison:
Otherwise he would not have written those poems.

I have a small-town mind. Like the Greeks and Trojans.
Shame. Pride. Importance of looking bad or good.

Did he see anything like the prisoner on a leash? Yes,
In Afghanistan. In Guantánamo he was isolated.

Our enemies “disassemble” says the President.
Not that anyone at all couldn’t mis-speak.

The profesores created nicknames for torture devices:
The Airplane. The Frog. Burping the Baby.

Not that those who behead the helpless in the name
Of God or tradition don’t also write poetry.

Guilts, metaphors, traditions. Hunger strikes.
Culture the penalty. Culture the escape.

What could your children boast about you? What
Will your father say, down among the shades?

The Sangomo told Marvin, “You are crushed by some
Weight. Only your own Ancestors can help you.”

Robert Pinsky


I managed to suvive my birthday celebration last Friday. It was made easier as we simply went home after a pleasant dinner with friends (friends were pleasant the wait staff not really) instead of attempting to close down The Dublin with the inevitable parade of shots.

Yesterday I started two mysteries by Ross Macdonald only to realize that I had already read them both. It took me about 40 pages into each of them before I remembered the plot and who done it. This was just after I had finished an unsatisying novel about Rome from a writer I generally admire. So I ended up reading a John D. MacDonald Travis McGee story in which I did not recall who killed whom and enjoyed it thoroughly

I am on quest for something good to read. I found the Pinksy on the new book shelf at library and thought it would be good to break things up before attempting another novel. The next one on the pile looks good and is about Tesla (the man not the band) so I have high hopes.

I meant to post this last Friday

Poem for My Twentieth Birthday

Passing the American graveyard, for my birthday
the crosses stuttering, white on tropical green,
the years’ quick focus of faces I do not remember . . .

The palm trees stalking like deliberate giants
for my birthday, and all the hot adolescent memories
seen through a screen of water . . .

For my birthday thrust into the adult and actual:
expected to perform the action, not to ponder
the reality beyond the fact,
the man standing upright in the dream.


Kenneth Koch, “Poem for My Twentieth Birthday” from Poetry 67 (November 1945)





I celebrated my 20th birthday in San Francisco. It was a good place to be in 1987. Clean and well lighted....not really. I was about nine months into my stay at the Defense Language Institute. We were one of the senior classes at this time. They started about ten classes a year. We were the seventh Korean class of 1986 hence our moniker : KP0786. I dont actually recall what I did that night. Probably spent it a homey little place that served us, The Black Fox on Geary St near 17th. Somewhere in between The Nag's Head and The 7/11. Much of our time was spent in that bar.

My 21st birthday I celebrated on a very cold hill in the northern part of South Korea. My team leader sent me down to a store at the bottom of the hill to buy some soju and Pepsi. It was a good birthday. I find it hard to believe twenty years have passed since then.

Happy St. Valentine's Day

The Kimono

When I returned from lovers' lane
My hair was white as snow.
Joy, incomprehension, pain
I'd seen like seasons come and go.
How I got home again
Frozen half dead, perhaps you know.

You hide a smile and quote a text:
Desires ungratified
Persist from one life to the next.
Hearths we strip ourselves beside
Long, long ago were x'd
On blueprints of "consuming pride."

Times out of mind, the bubble-gleam
To our charred level drew
April back. A sudden beam . . .
--Keep talking while I change into
The pattern of a stream
Bordered with rushes white on blue.

James Merrill

The photo and info below all are from Wilco winter update email. Win a weekeing in Chicago with the band and the Blackhawks... Deadline is today as winner will be notified tomorrow. Short notice but it would be a killer trip. There are still tickets available for their March 9th show in Des Moines. See you there.

Details below. Enter here.

Two winners will receive the following cool stuff:
2 tickets to see Wilco at the Riviera Theater on Saturday, February 16
2 tickets to see the Chicago Blackhawks vs. the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday afternoon, February 17
2 nights at the Hard Rock Hotel Chicago (Feb 16 & 17)
1 package of Blackhawks and Wilco merchandise

"Brighten the Corners"

A couple things to lighten the season after dumptruck loads of snow piled up all around town. The first is a photo of a bouqet before the cats started to eat them. The second is a concert of Bob Mould that was on NPR here. His new album "District Line" is out now and he will be tour with a full band. Bring earplugs. Don't say I did not warn you. This morning I woke up and started watching the documentary "American Hardcore". (Not to be confused with the George C. Scott film, "Hardcore"). Anyway, it's a good way to start your day. Now if I can just find my Bad Brains cassettes...

"Love Will Tear Us Apart"

This is to continue my streak of YouTube postings. I think the documentary of Joy Division will be released in May in the UK. (Scruffy is right, I did seem to post most more when I was at work.)