Somewhere between Phoenix and Tucson

I picked up a new toy today. I found a decent point and shoot camera at Circuit City for a very reasonable price and so far it seems to be almost idiot proof. Once I figure out the software etc.... I will post some pictures from a Day of the Dead ceremony we went to tonight downtown.

If only he could change the setting from Los Angeles back to San Francisco and replace Sean Young

I ran across the following while catching up on blogs and following links until I forgot where I started from. I was not aware that the voice over was added by the studio or that Scott was essentially fired. I hope the theatrical version ends up at the Bijou. I remember seeing this at a second-run movie house, possibly The Red Vic. Didn't we we have this San Fran movie theatre discussion already with Churlita and Red State Librarian? Will Ohio still be red next week? Why am I talking to myself? Inquiring minds want to know. Tune in next week for as the Congress turns.

From SCI FI Wire...

Warner Home Video will issue a new remastered director's cut of the classic SF movie Blade Runner in September (2006) now that it has cleared up rights issues, followed by a theatrical release of a version promised to be truly director Ridley Scott's final cut, Variety reported. Warner's rights to Blade Runner lapsed a year ago, but the studio has since negotiated a long-term license.

The movie has a troubled history. When Scott ran over budget, completion bond guarantors took control of it and made substantial changes before its 1982 theatrical release, adding a voice-over and a happy ending. That version was replaced by the much better-received director's cut in 1992, but Scott has long been unhappy with it, complaining that he was rushed and unable to give it proper attention.

Scott started working on the final cut version in 2000, but that project was shelved by Warner soon after, apparently because the studio couldn't come to terms with Jerry Perenchio over rights issues.

The restored "director's cut" will debut on home video in September and will remain on sale for only four months, after which time it will be placed on moratorium. Blade Runner: Final Cut will arrive in 2007 for a limited 25th-anniversary theatrical run, followed by a special-edition DVD with the three previous versions offered as alternate viewing. Besides the original theatrical version and director's cut, the expanded international theatrical cut will be included. The set will also contain additional bonus materials

Excerpt from the Sport's Guy

Packers (+3) over BILLS

Only because I'm excited for the whole "the Packers are 4-4, Favre is back" scenario that I spelled out last week.

Hey, speaking of aging icons who need to hang it up, how 'bout Bob Barker announcing his retirement this week?!?!?!?!? We lose Red Auerbach, Mr. Eko and Bob Barker in the same week? I can't wait for the week to be over. Anyway, I have three thoughts on this one ...

1. Replacing Bob Barker is going to be like replacing Dean Smith or Vince Lombardi ... why even try? They could replace him with Jerry Seinfeld and people wouldn't be happy. It's a disaster in the making. Just cancel the show. It's the only way.

2. Two years ago, my parents were visiting and we had dinner at a restaurant in Santa Monica ... and wouldn't you know it? Bob was eating about three tables away with three other people who looked to be a combined 350 years old. So when the check came, Bob handled the check, only he noticed something that seemed off, so he called the waiter over and the two of them spent about 30 seconds going over something in the bill. And the whole time, my family was restraining me from screaming stuff like, "Lower! Lower!" and "I'm telling you, the price is NOT right!" And you wonder why I still live in California.

3. My buddy Gus and I have had a running joke since forever -- any time someone dies, retires or gets traded who meant something to the other guy, we'll either call or e-mail just to ask, "How was the So-and-So Era for you?" And usually, that's followed by a response like, "It was great -- thoroughly enjoyed it" or "A little disappointing, I really thought he would be an All-Star." So here was Gus' response to my "How was the Bob Barker Era for you?" e-mail last week, which somehow summed everything up:

"It's in my top five all-time eras. I mean who gave me more enjoyment than that guy? I scheduled college classes around being able to watch the show. He could make the putt every time. He had the beauties and he showed men everywhere that going gray was not a big deal. He and Gene Rayburn made the long mic fashionable well after most hosts gave it up. He was funny and charming. Quite an era, indeed."

(Of course, I would have added, "And he even banged a couple of the Showcase models in his '70s!" ... but Gus is much classier than me.)


Yeah, I know I keep talking about Bill Simmons but I think a lot of people just tune out sports writing and treat it as a sub genre. He overdoes the same tropes occasionally but is still a solid and funny writer/analyst from a fan's perspective and he roots for Red Sox and Patriots. If he was a Yankee fan nobody would read him. Yankee fans have no sense of humor. The rest of his weekly NFL picks column including why he hates the Colts and the commercially ubiquitous Peyton Manning is here. This year he has a running competition with his wife (Sport's Gal) picking teams with the spread and she is currently in the lead. She also gets space to for a weekly rant/rave. Good stuff. Red Sox fans need to buy or at least read his book, Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN's Sports Guy Found Salvation, with a Little Help from Nomar, Pedro, Shawshank, and the 2004 Red Sox .

I am heading to Phoenix to visit some friends and to get the hell out of this hotel for a day or so.

Buddhist Barbie

In the 5th century B.C.
an Indian philosopher
Gautama teaches "All is emptiness"
and "There is no self."
In the 20th century A.D.
Barbie agrees, but wonders how a man
with such a belly could pose,
smiling, and without a shirt.

Denise Duhamel

I swear I was only in the book store to pick up one specific book. But it caught me eye. The Warhol image, the familiar series title -The Best of American Poetry, the guest editor -Billy Collins etc... I was sold. The poem above is not from this book although she does have one in it. I was not familiar with her work and so I looked for more. Which is another reason I ending up buying the book.

I am off to go check out Robyn Hitchcock, someone I listened to back when I joined the service, at the Club Congress, a venue I visited also while I was in the Army but near the end while I was on temporary assignment at Ft. Huachucha, easily the best two months of my enlistment that weren't spent in school or on leave. I need to learn how to use commas or just get rid of them. Fuck it. Must take it relatively easy tonight as work beckons again in the morning because we are already a week behind schedule. ad astra per aspera

For the discerning reader on your shopping list...

The Idiot : Designed by Ron Arad

Penguin is celebrating the 60th anniversary of Penguin Classics by commissioning limited editions of five classic novels by some modern designers. $200 bucks if you can find one. I would like The Idiot or Manolo Blahnik's Madame Bovary but I am not picky. The other special editions are Tender is the Night by Sam Taylor-Wood , Lady Chatterley's Lover by Paul Smith, and Crime & Punishment by Fuel. And when I say "by" I mean designed by which I know is probably obvious but it still looked weird so I had to say something. Anyway, Penguin is owned by same company I work for so maybe I can weasel an employee discount. The article about it is here.

The Guardian also had a story about a newly discovered sonnet, "Ennui", by Sylvia Plath which can be found online in the journal Blackbird and probably by now also on 8 million teenage girls myspace pages.

Damn, Band of Brothers already started. Gotta Go.

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;
His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line,
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.

I wonder why no one has used the line "...in the doubtful war..." as a title yet? I have decided to make the latest translation of The Aeneid, by Robert Fagles, my next book. It's a perfect book to try and read while I am stuck here at a Holiday Inn Express in Tucson. I think I will be more likely to stick with it without so many other distractions. I vaguely remember reading it previously but the details escape so it was probably while I was in the Army or in college. I have copies of Fagles' renditions of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey but have not read them in their entirety, just the occasional perusing or looking up an allusion. They are nice to have nearby on the shelf. One day I will read all the books I have acquired. There is also this bridge in Brooklyn I think I can pick up for a song.

"Where there is no imagination there is no Horror."

Photo of David Ortiz pumpkin from Ian Browne's blog, taken by him at McCoy Stadium.

I spent the evening watching "Poltergeist" with Dr. Zaius, well actually it was my host's brother in a really good costume. It was a relaxing night with friends and I was enjoying the scene of an increasingly tipsy ape passing out candy to the neighborhood kids. The question came up during the movie about what recent supposedly "scary" movies had been legitimately frightening. I was a lot a loss to think of any that had done little more than make me jump. It seems like the 70's and 80's must be the golden age of horror/scary movies with likes of Freddie, Jason, Michael Myers, Cher, etc

I remember "Poltergeist" as being one of the horror films that did get to me. We probably watched it for first time over at the one friend's house who had a TV in his room since he was twelve. He was the friend in the neighborhood that got cable first including HBO. You know that kid. There was probably three or four us on a late night in a darkened room drinking soda from a 2-liter glass bottle of Coke, fighting over a box of Entenmann's chocolate chip cookies, and watching movies until near dawn eventually collapsing into a sleep deprived sugar coma. Those were the days.

Arnold "Red" Auerbach, 1917-2006

I have never been a very big fan of the NBA but three things were clear growing up in New England: the Celtics were the greatest basketball franchise ever, Larry Bird was the basketball Jesus , and the man responsible for bringing all of this to Boston, Red Auerbach, was a living basketball demigod. This was the time of the great battles against Magic, Kareem, and the despised but loaded with talent Lakers. I remember my grandfather (a fan of most L.A. sports teams) and I engaging in a good natured rivalry over their epic Finals match ups. I realize now that he and Red were nearly the same age.

I was saddened but not overly surprised to hear of Red's passing on Saturday. Not too long ago a friend loaned me John Feinstein's book, "Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game" (co-authored by Auerbach.) Something I probably would not have sought out but was glad that it found me. It is not a conventional biography but a book about impressions made after spending time, mostly lunches at a Chinese restaurant in D.C, with Red and a varied cast of sports and public figures. The book at times was a tad bit too hagiographic but despite that it was clear that Auerbach was one of the good guys in life.

On ESPN.com, Bill Simmons has a poignant article about his experience as a lifelong fan and the time he got to meet the legend.

Happy 120th Birthday

THE UNITED STATES


If you asked what it is all about
I would say a field a green field
in the turning rows a killdeer
and after that barbed wire
the hedge with its cardinals
a blacktop then another field

Corn one of the main things
after water and before milk
for whiskey is in it and grits
gold for chickens pearls before swine
there is a factory in every plant
if we could be properly humble

it is the greatness of the nation
along with cartoon animation
automobiles and rock 'n roll
jazz and basketball evolved here
but not one other U.S. God
just the corn's imperial row

on row then Sylvester Stallone
and airbrushed Elvis thank you
very much ladies and gentlemen
Presley Dylan and the Supremes
no I would say a field a vast field
at the center top-hogs and cattle

then art the cites New York
Chicago Houston Seattle man
told me last week experts can
teach starlings to talk hell
televangelists may yet witness
in terza rima each stalk of corn

contributes it has been so
hybridized with its immense
ears it no longer resembles
maize it is what we have left
to barter for oil and microchips
tons of it siloed and elevated

to float us through droughts
and wars and speculations we ask
which will most cogently represent us
_Leaves of Grass_ or _The Simpsons_
there is the idea that every
living thing is a subset of human

control and the other notion
that though we may go on
a few hundred or thousand
years the poison has spilled
no more land will be made
the search for another arable

planet may prove moot as the
search for earthly sentience
meanwhile this taco here
crunches in the great scheme of
things we persist one people one
of the potential fates of corn


Rodney Jones
Shenandoah
The Washington and Lee University Review
Volume 55, Number 2
Fall 2005

from Poetry Daily Archives (retired)

My youngest nephew, Andrés. It seems he is very allergic to peanut butter and now has to get tested for other allergies.

I need to get out of the hotel as I am starting to feel like Capt. Willard waiting for a mission in Saigon. Work has been delayed. I trained my supervisors on Wednesday and then sent them home until Monday as we are waiting for work to be loaded. Situation normal...

I think I have finally gotten used to the time change as I am not waking up at 5am. HBO has provided me with two classics so far Sisterhood of Traveling Pants and In Good Company. neither one was that bad really. Maybe I do have cabin fever. At least there have been a slew of classic horror films on cable. I am almost out of reading material and need to go find a good used book store before I go nuts.

It's the same cactus in both shots.

Yesterday I went for a short hike at a park just north of Tucson. The Santa Catalina Mountains can be seen from my hotel room and they are impressive. Cell phone camera doesn't do it justice. These shots were taken in Catalina State Park which is located inside the Coronado National Forest. There are trails going all the way up to over 8000 ft which I may get to eventually. I took a simple loop trail of about two miles and it actually was more of a stroll than a hike but it was incredibly beautiful.

Perspective is not very good, the mountains are back quite a bit and very large.

There were some trails that went out of the park marked with signs that stated words to the effect that beyond this sign it is wilderness enter at own risk. This combined with the informational poster at the trail head noting that there are 34 species of rattlesnakes in Arizona convinced me to stay on the marked and well traversed trails. Plus I kept scaring up dove like ground birds which would explode from their cover and give me a near heart attack. I got used to it after dozen scares or so.

I also learned when looking into information about other parks and hiking trails that you should not run from a moutain lion as you may trigger its predatorial instincts to chase and attack prey. Good tip, thanks. I want to go back and check out some prehistoric Hohokam ruins that are in the park and hit the other trails. Have I mentioned that I need to get a real camera?

"...Pretty girl keep growin' up, playin' make-up, wearin' guitar..."

My sister has sent some new pics of the family. Here is my niece, Daniela. Please don't be alarmed, she does have feet.

I dug up an old paperback of short stories for the plane trip down here, The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories edited by Tobias Wolfe from 1994. Bland title aside, it is a collection that holds up well today. It includes some of my favorite authors (Raymond Carver, Tim O'Brien) and some I was not familiar with (Scott Bradfield, Carol Bly). There are also some stories I had never read from familiar authors that blew me away (Dorothy Allison's River of Names for one). As well as some stories that were a pleasure to reread (Emergency by Denis Johnson which is that knife in the eye scene from Jesus' Son). It was refreshing also to read so many stories in a row which had absolutely nothing to do with post 9/11.

We now interrupt our irregularly scheduled program to bring you this message...

He just likes helicopters I suppose.

I just made it back to Phoenix after thirty two hours and just over a thousand miles to San Diego/Newport Beach and back with my army buddy, Juche Child. Later I will reconstruct a map of our journey with details. We have both seen enough of the freeway between San Diego and L.A. to last several life times.

Dateline Phoenix

I can't take credit for the photo. It is from Wikipedia. My excuse is being lazy, tired, and adjusting to the time zone differential. I don't know how much access to internet I will have until I get to Tucson. I was running around doing errands this morning before the airport shuttle was scheduled to pick me up. I even voted early since I won't be back home until after the election. Pretty much went with the Democratic ticket, except when there were some people running unopposed, and then I just wrote in names of friends. I abstained from voting for retaining judges as well. Didn't know who to vote out so just left them all blank. I wonder if any judges are not retained? I would doubt it. It must be time for bed as I am starting to ramble.

Candle Hat

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of Sampson.

But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror
and is seen posed in the clutter of his studio
addressing a canvas tilted back on a tall easel.

He appears to be smiling out at us as if he knew
we would be amused by the extraordinary hat on his head
which is fitted around the brim with candle holders,
a device that allowed him to work into the night.

You can only wonder what it would be like
to be wearing such a chandelier on your head
as if you were a walking dining room or concert hall.

But once you see this hat there is no need to read
any biography of Goya or to memorize his dates.

To understand Goya you only have to imagine him
lighting the candles one by one, then placing
the hat on his head, ready for a night of work.

Imagine him surprising his wife with his new invention,
then laughing like a birthday cake when she saw the glow.

Imagine him flickering through the rooms of his house
with all the shadows flying across the walls.

Imagine a lost traveler knocking on his door
one dark night in the hill country of Spain.
"Come in, " he would say, "I was just painting myself,"
as he stood in the doorway holding up the wand of a brush,
illuminated in the blaze of his famous candle hat.

Billy Collins

Missed the Chabon reading last night. Too much to do and was beat. Enjoy the poem. Just picked up a live audio cd of a reading of his from the library and it was good to hear some old favorites. Which led me to this poem and the Goya even though I could not find the one he refers to above.

Goin Back to Cali

Caroline on her patio.

On this trip for work I hope to be able to get out to Newport Beach and visit with my grandmother pictured above. Two years ago I was in Arizona for work and I was able to drive out and spend a weekend and catch up with her as it had been a long time since I last visited her and my grandfather. In early 1996 he invited me out to see his beloved USC in the Rose Bowl against Northwestern. Lots of fun and as it turned out it would be the last opportunity I would have to spend time with him.

So I am looking forward to swapping stories about Opa with Caroline. Sadly, I think real estate prices are driving her out of Newport, as her condo is being turned into million dollar McMansions. Her immediate family is all close by and I hope she will find something half as nice as her current place in the same vicinity. I will have to dig up some photos of my late grandfather. He was a hoot. The most conservative Democrat I ever saw, except for Joe Lieberman.

Michael Chabon reading tonight, David Sedaris tomorrow and at some point I need to pack. Trying to finish up Heat before I leave. Taking Murakami's most recent short story collection on the plane as well as the latest John le Carré, The Mission Song which should get me through layovers etc...

Another random snapshot from my friend Tom back in Connecticut.

Work has me bogged down as I prepare for a project scheduled to start in a couple of weeks. I take off for Tucson on Friday. I was on cruise control until obstacles were thrown in my path by our customer which I can not discuss for many reasons including the desire of continued employment, confidentiality, and non-disclosure agreements. Anyway, I will not have a lot of time to post this week. I should be able to catch a breather when I arrive in Arizona and take a day or so off to visit some family and friends before project begins.

In the meantime I have been hooked on reading Bill Buford's Heat and I think the subtitle encapsulates it well: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. The former fiction editor of The New Yorker and author of a book about soccer hooligans (Among the Thugs) dives in as an apprentice to Mario Batali. This is a very funny book and hard to describe as it is part history, part biography (of Batali), part auto-biography etc... Take my word it is worth it. It even inspired me to attempt a recipe (pork chops) from one of Batali's cookbooks with a mixed degree of success. Anthony Bourdain sums up Buford's book better then I could here at Amazon. Read an excerpt here.

The Nearest Simile Is Respiration

To poetry

I was boozed I was doped I was maybe
a floozy before you knew me, loose
leafed like autumn and most of the books
of the Old Testament that fell out
of my father's Bible. I had a body.

I had a habit of hauling my telescope
into the outskirts, ransacking all
the toothsome blackness for what: a reason
not to do me in. Proof I was more
than the seasonal ragbag detritus
choking the rooftop gutters, more
than a piece of the cosmic dust
in some ruined philosophy.

I could not be consoled by the universal
Sisyphus in us all, the dung beetle
nuzzling its putrid globe.

I could not hitch my wagon. The stars
and stars abrade my notions of my Self;
tricuspid Eros chewed me raw; Jesus
Christ rubbed mud in my eyes, and I saw
not. I did not see.

But with you! my sweetheart hairshirt,
my syntactic gondolier, ruffian for hire, befoolable
irresolute Chanticleer: with you, I back-float
the massy and heretofore unnavigable childhood
algal blooms, where no fish swam. No fish
have swum that Mississippi.

With you, I forgive my father's notes
to NASA, the self-inflicted swastika tattoo,
my sister's coked-up juggernaut cannonball
into the afterlife.

I forgive the afterlife,
resurrect John Lennon and the jukebox
at the Quik 'N' Hot, infect myself
with a rare strain of tarantism. With you, I dance
the summum bonum. With you, I am greater
than or equal to the lack, and luck is weather
that permits my red begonias.


Ashley Capps
Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields
The University of Akron Press


This poem was ganked from Poetry Daily, where it was a featued poem a couple of weeks ago. Ms. Capps attended that school for scribblers here in town, The Foxhead , er ,The Writers' Workshop. According to her publisher's website she still lives in the area so maybe a Prairie Lights reading will be around the corner.

I was going planning on sharing what I have been reading since finishing Cormac McCarthy's The Road but once again exigencies at work prevented me. So enjoy the poem.

P.S.
(The verb gank and its usage was ganked from Mike Doughty's website.)

Baxter State Park, Take 2

My friend from high school, Mike , and his girlfriend make their way up the Abol Trail. I think this is shortly before we make our way past Thoreau Spring. A spot on the trail where H.D.T had stopped although I doubt there was much of trail then and definitely no German tourists. We lucked out for weather on this trip. If there had been rain or snow they likely would not have allowed us to summit. Nor would we have wanted to.

The summit of Mt. Katahdin in October of 1996. The peak in the background is part of Katahdin. We ran into a few people who were finishing their thru hike of the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. Ecstatic does not begin to describe their emotions when they reached the end and began popping champagne. It made me seriously consider thru hiking the trail. For about a week. This was before the Bill Bryson book came out. It's still on my to do list though.

Mugging for a photo op at the shore of our camp site in 1997. We had some pesky racoons at night but otherwise a perfectly isolated spot. It was here where we witnessed the Northern Lights, me for the first time.

Too cool for school. The summit of North Traveler. A pretty mellow hike compared to some of scrambling we did on the Abol Trail. One of the best hikes was in August of this year when my friend Dave and I did the North and South Brother loop. All the camp sites had been reserved so the park was full but we hiked for about six hours and only saw two other people on the trail.

South Branch Pond (Upper and Lower) as viewed from the North Traveler trail. We canoed to a trail head close to where the ponds are connected by a stream. Our camp site would be just off the right edge of the photo on the far shore. I really need to go back here.

Baxter State Park

Fall is the best season and New England is the best place to experience it. I know the Midwest is pretty good but it doesn't really compare when you consider the vistas of woods and mountains in the Northeast. I used to go up to Baxter State Park in Maine on Columbus Day weekend for a camping trip with friends. It was the usually the last weekend it was open for overnight camping for the season. We picked different places in the huge park each time. The first fall trip I went with high school buddy Mike and some of his coworkers and we hiked up the Abol Trail to Mt. Katahdin, which is one end of the Appalachian Trail.

Thoreau visited the place and wrote about it in his collection The Maine Woods. I first read his book on a previous visit to the park during a late summer trip. The next year for the fall trip only three of us returned and we stayed in the northern part of the park at a camp site that could only be reached by canoe. It was after dark when we arrived, surprising a young moose on the road, and then we ended up paddling out very carefully across the pond to our site. The fall colors were explosive shades of orange and red and at night we had our first experience with the greens and purples of the Aurora Borealis. Fall is the time I miss New England the most and especially this past weekend when a visit to Maine would have been perfect. And today would have likely been the day for the obligatory pilgrimmage to the L.L. Bean store in Freeport on the drive home. I will try and dig up some pictures from these trips.

Nobel Odds

The Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced sometime next week. The odds on favorite is Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (My Name is Red), followed closely by Syrian poet Adonis, and Polish writer/reporter Ryszard Kapuscinski. Americans Joyce Carol Oates (6-1) and Philip Roth (10-1) round out the top five.

The longshots are Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, and Umberto Eco (50-1). Longer shots include Julian Barnes, Margaret Atwood, and Paul Auster at 100-1. Other notables include Thomas Pynchon (20-1), Haruki Murakami (12-1), and John Updike (40-1).

Bob Dylan is even listed as 50-1 shot but that seems a little high. Should be closer to around a 1000-1 shot I would think. But you never know what dark horse could take it. Dario Fo?

This blog is endorsing Dave Loebsack for Congress. Mostly to defeat Leach but also because he is my friend Sarah's dad. Hopefully my support will not have a negative impact on the campaign and I think it will be safe to say that what is said here will be little noted nor long remembered. Now back to our regular programming

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 .