"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.