It's a Plath Christmas

I Want, I Want

Open-mouthed, the baby god
Immense, bald, though baby-headed,
Cried out for the mother's dug.
The dry volcanoes cracked and split,

Sand abraded the milkless lip.
Cried then for the father's blood
Who set wasp, wolf and shark to work,
Engineered the gannet's beak.

Dry-eyed, the inveterate patriarch
Raised his men of skin and bone,
Barbs on the crown of gilded wire,
Thorns on the bloody rose-stem.

--Sylvia Plath

Knock, knock. Come in, Old Man Winter.

The Snowman

One must have a mind of winter 
To regard the frost and the boughs 
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time 
To behold the junipers shagged with ice, 
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and think 
Of any misery in the sound of the wind, 
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land 
Full of the same wind 
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow, 
And, nothing himself, beholds 
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

--Wallace Stevens

Get a load of these jazz hands!

Sudden Death

No. This blog has not died. Here's the proof (as best we can provide it):

1. Miami Horror - "Sometimes" - [Caroline]
2. Tortoise - "High Class Slim Came Floatin' In" - [Thrill Jockey]
3. Fucked Up - "Police" - [Deranged]
4. Basement Jaxx - "My Turn" - [Ultra]
5. Panthers - "Panther Moderns" - [Vice]
6. Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor - [Drag City]
7. Wilco - "Solitaire" - [Nonesuch]
8. Mariachi El Bronx - "Cell Mates" - [Swami]
9. The Aggrolites - "Mister Misery" - [Hellcat]
10. Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks" - [Warp]

Italics denotes full album. All noise, surface or otherwise, is intentional.

[D | R]

The Other Side.

At the risk of losing street cred, I must admit that my next-door neighbor, whose name I do not know, frightens me. At least once a week, she turns on the hose at 6 AM, and sprays the sidewalk. Since my room faces the street, I am awakened by my neighbor and her seemingly unrelenting urge to hear water meeting pavement. She does this chore while singing songs by Kanye West, and while I don't mind hearing a genuine Kanye track from time to time (how does he see through those slitted shades?), there's no reason to be awakened by the sound of a human radio station (radio - there's an idea). I should mention that my neighbor is a woman in her mid-forties, who seemingly spends her days chain-smoking and sitting on her front porch.

Earlier this evening, as I was coming in with my laundry, I heard her say, to me I think, "They want to kill my mother." Like so many things I ignore about New York, I pretended not to hear a damn thing.

Do I Tell You All Your Ranger Business?

Everyone should go watch The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

It's funny.

In other news, I finally heard the last movement of Mahler's First Symphony.


{gc}

In Memoriam

Fucked Up! Mission of Burma! Oh my!

LM and I will be taking off on our world tour beginning tomorrow, which means that I will not be in town to catch Fucked Up play a free concert this weekend (July 12, 2009) in Brooklyn. So, if you're in New York, please, please, please go see Fucked Up tear the roof (or, because this will be an outdoor show, the stratosphere) off the mother, and because you'll have the added benefit of enjoying indie-rock royalty in the form of Mission of Burma. College-rock nerds, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

If you want to see what the live Fucked Up experience is like, visit here and here, or read about their touring exploits (Nippon! China!) on their blog, Looking for Gold.

Son the Father,
[D | R]

this is awesome.

D'oh! Nuts! Donuts.

What's better than a sweet ring of fried dough? A free sweet ring of fried dough. That's right, folks, step on up to your local donut shop counter today! It's National Doughnut Day! My fav donut shop is in Manhattan on 14th St and 7th or 8th Ave. - never know which Ave. 'cuz it's always a late, intoxicated night. But inebriated or not, I know a good doughnut when I sink my teeth into one. Here it is: The Donut Pub. Go there. Krispy Kreme is giving them away today, no catch! At Dunkin', you gotta buy their world-famous coffee (whatev - consistency or otherwise, cardboard is cardboard).  

This delicious holiday was officially established in 1938 by the Chicago Salvation army to raise funds during the Great Depression. During World War I, Salvation Army female volunteers known as "lassies" were on the front lines frying up doughnuts and other home-style treats for soldiers serving in France. Lt. Colonel Helen Purviance became the Salvation Army's "first doughnut girl" in 1917. So celebrate her today. Perhaps you'll be asked to donate to the Salvation Army or another needy cause. Perhaps you'll think about war and depression, and the sweet little things we do to overcome—as you down some warm dough. (Remember, the hole is not for show. It helps the doughnuts cook evenly.)

D'oh-nut facts:

Which country consumes the most doughnuts? Blame Canada. Our neighbors to the north boast more donut shops per capita than any other country. Americans consume only 10 billion of the fried rings annually.

In Italy, the donut is called fritole. In France, beignet. In Mexico, churro. Germany, krapfen. In Montenegro, ustipci. In Turkey, lokma. In India, balushai. In the Netherlands, oliebollen. In Hungary, langos.

In the U.S., all the cops in the donut shop say way oh way oh way oh way ohhhh...

oh, bear...

Poems of the Day

Psychoanalysis: An Elegy by Jack Spicer

"What Do Women Want?" by Kim Addonizio

Wedding Dress by Michael Waters

Spring Chickens

Poetry News & Notes

The Creative Writing Program at NYU will host a tribute to Jack Gilbert in celebration of the poet's most recent book, The Dance Most of All, at 7 PM on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, at the school's Cantor Film Center. Given Gilbert's advanced age, this may be one of the last readings that he'll give in New York City. Click on the title of this post for details and additional information.

Also due to read:
--Linda Gregg;
--Jim Finnegan;
--Mary Karr;
--Gerald Stern;
and others.

Words to Live By #5,748

Damn everything but the circus!
…damn everything that is grim, dull,
motionless, unrisking, inward turning,
damn everything that won’t get into the
circle, that won’t enjoy, that won’t throw
its heart into the tension, surprise, fear
and delight of the circus, the round
world, the full existence…

e. e. cummings

In other news, I just had a poem accepted in Paradigm.

{gc}

Poem for the People

The people need a poem today,

I think, because it fogs. Somewhere kids

with frog boots sop up puddles, parents inhale

under a stray light. Shadows, slow rolling, pass.

Watch the sheets immerse us, dipping in and out of

lanes and aisles, sipping and stoking, stroking the vane.

America is so far behind...

we've made things difficult for ourselves. 

Picture of the Day

Life Studies (Pink)

The House that Taxpayer Money Built

I'll never forget the first time that I entered the original Yankee Stadium, way back in the early 1990's. Having spent years watching Yankees telecasts, I was simply unprepared for the moment when I walked through the turnstiles and saw the Stadium's facade, the freshly cut grass of the outfield, and the finely manicured infield where my childhood hero, Don Mattingly, over at first base, ate up baseballs like a vacuum. The feeling was overwhelming, because the "House that Ruth Built" seemed so much larger than anything I could have ever forseen; words cannot convey the awe, absolute in its scope, that filled my teenage body and on which I still look back on fondly. The majesty of that building remains a formidable memory, one that I am not likely to forget soon. Such is baseball, and such are the bonds, emotional and otherwise, that are formed through this game.

Earlier today, after many years of attending games up in the Bronx, my brother and I went to the latest incarnation of Yankee Stadium, an edifice created at the cost of $1.5 billion (that's billion with a "b") dollars. The new home of the Yankees, make no mistake, is beautiful, and pays homage to the team's rich, unrivaled legacy, but was raised at great expense to those who live year-round in the South Bronx, one of the country's poorest and most economically depressed areas. The Stadium, built atop what was once public parkland, and which was secured by financial incentives, makes little sense in today's world, a world in which people suffer to pay off their mortgages in light of so much uncertainty. Truth be told, there was nothing wrong with the old Yankee Stadium, a building that lacked comfort and amenities, but which had plenty of gritty, rough-hewn charm and a fabled history courtesy of some of baseball's all-time greatest players.

Did I mention that the new Yankee Stadium cost a total of $1.5 billion to build? The figure is worth repeating, because with all of the shops and restaurants, the place simply begs for you to open up your wallet and spend money. Incredible. Here's a total of how much money I spent on food, drinks, etc.:

1 game-day program/magazine: $10.00
4 hot dogs + two beers: $42.00
1 salmon sushi roll + 1 soft drink: $14.25
1 noodle bowl: $8.50
TOTAL: $74.75

I write those numbers not to brag, but to show just how expensive it is to attend a major-league baseball game in New York City. Can you imagine taking a family of four to see Derek Jeter perform his signature leaping throws? An evening at the ballpark will surely cost fans hundreds, and shows just how out of touch Yankees' management is with reality, the working public; one wonders how the team, in what is considered one of the deepest American recessions in decades, can dare charge upwards of $2,000 for its prime, field-level seats. I hate to say it, but my Yankees, my beloved Yankees, have taken what I love about baseball and turned it something vile and crass; the team seemingly spits in the faces of those who can no longer afford to subsidize the multi-million-dollar contracts of men playing what is essentially a game for children. While it is true that the glory years of baseball, its professed innocence, faded long ago, and that the sport is a business like any other, there is absolutely no reason for the Yankees to take advantage of its own fans by forcing them to pay exorbitant ticket fees--extortion money, really--for the "privilege" of sitting in the last row of the bleachers.

I didn't quite feel the same sense of wonder earlier today on my first visit to the new Yankee Stadium, but then again, I am much older if not a little wiser, and understand that some changes are simply meant to carry one moment into the next.

[D | R]

Two Poems

Hymnal I

Winter again, throbbing as brightest fear.
On the westbound train into the city, a man
reads from a prayerbook, the timbre of his
breathing an ofrenda, an insistent wave. His
voice I claim as my own (suffer quietly), and
I imagine her in bed, alone, arms raised to light.

Sleep now, without disquiet.

--December 22, 2008

Hymnal II

“Love is a special humiliation reserved
for bleating dogs, infantrymen, the elderly,
and the invalid,” you once said. In your
mouth, memory becomes its own pressing
noise, and yet, in that battery, the crowding
of the heart is refused no longer; another
lamb siphons the afterbirth from her young,
and a wind, insolent, forces itself through
marrow in steps as delicate as hunger.
“Love,” you say years later, “is a question
borne not of necessity, but of integrity.”

--December 21, 2008


[D | R]

Big Beat

Let me start off this brief review of It's Blitz!, the new record by downtown rock-aesthetes Yeah Yeah Yeah's, by saying that its album artwork is the most memorable I've seen in ages, rivaling even Spiritualized's stunning Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space and Fantomas' Delirium Cordia. It is a bit of a rarity nowadays for musicians, or, rather, the art departments of the record labels for which bands aim to move "units," to apply as much thought to the packaging of an album as much as its to the songs therein. A hearty bravissimo!, then, to artist-photographer Urs Fischer for having the technical capacity and artistic vision necessary to capture the temperament of a record that refuses to be held down, even by its own limitations.

The first few measures of the album's opener, "Zero," will tell long-time listeners that Yeah Yeah Yeah's find themselves in a period of transition, growth, and, dare I say, "maturity" (if maturity means abandoning a formula that was already successful, deliriously so). Gone are the diamond-cut guitar lines of the band's debut, replaced with the decidedly more subtle textures of keyboards usually reserved for dance music, the song's propulsive rhythm framed around Karen O.'s distinctive cooing. And so it goes until midway through the album, where there's something of a shift in tenor, as though the band decided to abandon its experiment and embrace once again the chug-chug-chug of Marshall-driven rock music.

In this context, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, the 2.0 version are, in essence, a dance band for listeners, the hip and uncool alike, who lift hairbrushes to their mouths and gyrate in bedrooms while no one is around, because such is the fantasy that dance music generates. This change in approach can be a little jarring, given that this is a band that once opened for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (remember them?) at the Knitting Factory, which once relied on dirty aggression and the sort of detachment which marked one's membership into the privileged circles of indie rock fanatics. Ah, but if only things were so simple: the most effective, kinetic song on this record is "Dull Life," a track that relies on Nick Zinner's tunefully aware guitar; it rocks, plain and simple, which is a reminder why YYY's were so popular in the first place.

Here's to hoping that the band doesn't entirely turn its back on its substantive strengths for the sake of creating a mood, a tone. Incidentally, the Yeah Yeah Yeah's are the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live" tonight.

HOT WAX:

"Dull Life"

"Softshock"

The Smallest and Longest

The world's smallest dog and the longest wedding dress have been unveiled today.  

The pup is a chihuahua-Jack Russell cross named Tom Thumb. He weighs a few ounces. The dress hails from Romania and is more than 5,000 feet long. It was designed by Oana Comanescu of Il Creatore in 70 days. 

A Partial History of My Stupidity by Edward Hirsch

Traffic was heavy coming off the bridge

and I took the road to the right, the wrong one,

and got stuck in the car for hours.

Most nights I rushed out into the evening

without paying attention to the trees,

whose names I didn't know,

or the birds, which flew heedlessly on.

I couldn't relinquish my desires

or accept them, and so I strolled along

like a tiger that wanted to spring,

but was still afraid of the wilderness within.

The iron bars seemed invisible to others,

but I carried a cage around inside me.

I cared too much what other people thought

and made remarks I shouldn't have made.

I was silent when I should have spoken.

Forgive me, philosophers, 

I read the Stoics but never understood them.

I felt that I was living the wrong life,

spiritually speaking,

while halfway around the world

thousands of people were being slaughtered,

some of them by my countrymen.

So I walked on--distracted, lost in thought--

and forgot to attend to those who suffered

far away, nearby.

Forgive me, faith, for never having any.

I did not believe in God,

who eluded me.

What I should be doing now, on this rainy Friday afternoon...

The Part About the Book Review

[I've been reading Roberto Bolaños' 2666, the future of pan-global fiction within a geography devoid of border towns and customs requirements--an epic, sprawling novel which features long, meticulous sentences, one flash-dynamo of a sentence after the other (and you wonder, how is language possible in translation; isn't everything a false repetition, a reflection of something misplaced? Is language possible when uttered at our backs?), all of which shape paragraphs populated with characters, no, lives, named after some distant European principality, or such is the impression--Archimboldi and Morini are some examples--lives, rich, full lives of beings residing in places as wide-ranging as Leipzig and Turin, beings, like most others, in pursuit of women and themselves because this the hunger of the sudden world, a world refused once disease overtook the author, a Chilean expatriate who, in wanting to secure a future of his family, planned to see his final novel, his final examination of all that is proper and human, published in the five, distinct chapters that now make up 2666, until his literary executors saw fit to do otherwise, and we are given this presence to consume in a single block, a single, undulating mass that needles and underscores, and for this the author is forgiven, he is forgiven because he was not to know, he could not ever have known, that I was unable to stop reading and turning, even after fourteen pages in, no, twenty, sixty, one-hundred pages in, despite my being hungry, despite my being tired after a session of work in Lower Manhattan, though lately these days I have been feeling something closer to dread, because the words that most closely approximate tiredness and hunger are not words at all, but are, instead, screens through which I confess, forgive me, Father, I sin and remain--]

Photo of the Day

Photo taken while on a fotowalk with my brother, Steve.

Elsewhere:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danito

Reclaiming History

What you're looking at is one of the earliest photographs of Manhattan, a daguerrotype taken in 1848, and which was expected to be sold earlier today at auction by Sotheby's for up to $70,000. The image, which depicts a farmhouse on a hilltop in what is now the Upper West Side, is one of the few to show an area north of 14th Street, which, at the time, was considered the upper limits of Manhattan. (Imagine New York ending at Union Square!) Without context, this picture probably doesn't hold much interest for the average viewer, but for New Yorkers, most of whom I suspect cannot imagine our City, our shapeshifting, ever-developing City, as once existing as a swath of pristine, unsullied land, this daguerrotype is a reminder that history has a way of coming back in ways both unexpected and revelatory.

Oh, and that stretch of road in the foreground? That's Broadway.

*

You may be familiar, without knowing it, of the work of Terry Richardson, photographer, artist-about-world, bon vivant. Richardson has taken commissions for some of the world's major fashion houses, and has shot album covers for acts as varied as Bad Religion and Justin Timberlake. Most recently, Richardson photographed the lead actresses of the televised teen drama "Gossip Girl," for a cover that is perhaps the most suggestive that Rolling Stone has ever printed (this from a magazine that has shown Blind Melon and Christina Aguilera without so much as a guitar pick).

As a photographer and, I suspect, an everyday person, Terry Richardson relentlessly holds, without any sense of shame, to some pretty base instincts: physical passion, hedonism, and, above all, unbridled fun. While Richardson's work can be described as vile, prurient, and even juvenile, it cannot be argued that Richardson doesn't enjoy what he does; the man likes to play, not only with his subjects, but with his viewers: He makes us uncomfortable, makes us question whether what we are looking at is art or a cheap excuse for pornography, but in the end, it is his sense of bonhomie that is inescapable. How else to explain the twisted feeling one gets when looking at a picture of a gun, a condom wrapped around its barrel?

It's hard to make artistic arguments for Richardson's approach, given that just about anyone can pick up an Instamatic (nostalgia, anyone?) and shoot one's sexual exploits or the raging party from which you're still recovering, but there's no reason to come up with one, really. Richardson's pictures, however graphic, disturbing, and unnecessary, still point to one of the reasons why photography remains so essential: Without it, the moments in our history, however mundane, collective or otherwise, would be relegated to the library stacks of memory, left to fade in yet another drawer, yet another folder, inundated with yesterday's papers.

Link:
Richardson, in interview, on YouTube

*

Anyone ever read Susan Sontag's On Photography? It is absolute genius, and I can't believe that I've lived this long without having been aware of its lessons. If you've read it, let us know what you think...

[D | R]

Waters of March, by Antonio Carlos Jobim

A stick, a stone,
It's the end of the road,
It's the rest of a stump,
It's a little alone

It's a sliver of glass,
It is life, it's the sun,
It is night, it is death,
It's a trap, it's a gun

The oak when it blooms,
A fox in the brush,
A knot in the wood,
The song of a thrush

The wood of the wind,
A cliff, a fall,
A scratch, a lump,
It is nothing at all

It's the wind blowing free,
It's the end of the slope,
It's a beam, it's a void,
It's a hunch, it's a hope

And the river bank talks
of the waters of March,
It's the end of the strain,
The joy in your heart

The foot, the ground,
The flesh and the bone,
The beat of the road,
A slingshot's stone

A fish, a flash,
A silvery glow,
A fight, a bet,
The range of a bow

The bed of the well,
The end of the line,
The dismay in the face,
It's a loss, it's a find

A spear, a spike,
A point, a nail,
A drip, a drop,
The end of the tale

A truckload of bricks
in the soft morning light,
The shot of a gun
in the dead of the night

A mile, a must,
A thrust, a bump,
It's a girl, it's a rhyme,
It's a cold, it's the mumps

The plan of the house,
The body in bed,
And the car that got stuck,
It's the mud, it's the mud

Afloat, adrift,
A flight, a wing,
A hawk, a quail,
The promise of spring

And the riverbank talks
of the waters of March,
It's the promise of life
It's the joy in your heart

A stick, a stone,
It's the end of the road
It's the rest of a stump,
It's a little alone

A snake, a stick,
It is John, it is Joe,
It's a thorn in your hand
and a cut in your toe

A point, a grain,
A bee, a bite,
A blink, a buzzard,
A sudden stroke of night

A pin, a needle,
A sting, a pain,
A snail, a riddle,
A wasp, a stain

A pass in the mountains,
A horse and a mule,
In the distance the shelves
rode three shadows of blue

And the riverbank talks
of the waters of March,
It's the promise of life
in your heart, in your heart

A stick, a stone,
The end of the road,
The rest of a stump,
A lonesome road

A sliver of glass,
A life, the sun,
A knife, a death,
The end of the run

And the riverbank talks
of the waters of March,
It's the end of all strain,
It's the joy in your heart.

{gc}

Like the first bird

Black syntax filled me on the third day. Children are talking about trash and heart chocolate.

There was laughter but no one heard it.

Winter gave its last f, handing me a soft blanket, a reminder of beauty sprung. It was desperate, showing off, building up.
Morning broke.

I think I lost the game for us but I can’t remember. I just whispered tell me to go to.

Every time I hear Spanish, I get sad.

The turf came apart and clumped together, soft black mounds in the white and green. Fake soil peppered my feet and shoulders. It didn’t feel cold. I wanted to gather.

How do you say, I want to run to you, too?

This morning it snowed on the first day of spring.

The Night Dances by Silvia Plath

A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!

And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics?

Such pure leaps and spirals ———
Surely they travel

The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift

Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.

Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,

And the tiger, embellishing itself ———
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.

The comets
Have such a space to cross,

Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off ----

Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling

Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given

These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes

Six sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair

Touching and melting.
Nowhere.

Storytelling by Barbara Guest

(introduce pavement)

Old-fashioned people in clothes.

Passage to friendship (details, momentum. firefly)

wave "bye-bye,"

idly unfolds.

(dark, light, etc.)

(separately, form,)

indifferent combinations. (jest, tears.)

( Rhythm upswing) ( collision with serpent),

repeat and repeat moonlight

as suspense, moonlight.

Neither Hello Nor Goodbye

There are some songs, by virtue of their arrangements or lyrics, carefully laid out, which ask you, time and again, from the deepest recesses of your brain to the most open of tunnels, to give them your undivided attention, and which remind you, with all sincerity, that there is more to your simple life than the waiting to which you've grown accustomed. Oh, these songs are rare, they offer infrequent visits, but when they do arrive, you cannot help but say yes, cannot help but be taken by their insistence; the only disappointment, like an orchid past its glory in a shaking hand, is that brevity continues to be their name.

For me, such a song is Bonnie "Prince" Billy's "I am Goodbye," from his new record, Beware.

Please follow the link, and enjoy.

Love,
[D | R]

Absolute Power, Absolute Terror

Alec Soth
The Last Days of W.
Gagosian Gallery
January 20, 2009 through March 7, 2009

Taking cues from predecessors such as Robert Frank and Stephen Shore, Alec Soth, in his extensive travels, has shown us with a large-format camera a view of the United States (and in the instance of Dogs Days, Bogota, South America) which for the average person remains secretive and out of reach. Soth's latest show, The Last Days of W., which ran for a couple of months at Gagosian's outpost on Madison Avenue, solidifies his position, in this reviewer's mind, as one of the artists whose interpretation of American life, and any sense of dissatisfaction and ennui therein, as one of the major photographers at work today. Mixing politics with religion and social commentary, Soth is eager to discuss that which many would like to forget, in this era of "change," about the Bush administration's work in eroding Americans' civil liberties and the global goodwill that was engendered following the 9/11 attacks. Soth reminds us that American history hardly ends with the turning of a page, and that if we remove the lens away from ourselves, we are prone to become the same (political, ideological) enemies against whom we fight.

Religion, in one manifestation or another, plays a heavy, thematic role in Last Days. This focus is no surprise, because as Bush once noted, rather infamously, that God wanted him to run for the presidency. Elsewhere, but at the same time, the conservative right, along with the Republican Party, took up the mantle of righteousness, and positioned itself to represent proper American values, in an effort to counter the immorality of the "(g)odless," to quote Coulter, and the liberal left. Soth plays up this dichotomy of good versus evil, of light against dark, rather beautifully, in ways which escape the heavy-handedness of lesser artists--especially in photographs such as "First Baptist Church, Bemidji, Minnesota." This photograph features a rec room--with a ping-pong table devoid of players--on whose walls we see a mural depicting Jesus, over rough seas, saving a man from certain death; in the background, there are eleven men in a boat (is the man being saved Judas himself, and are we to see ourselves in this man?) extending their hands, supplicating for divine mercy. There is a touch of humor in this image, as the mural itself is clearly the work of an undeveloped artist, and because it hangs over an area meant to relax the nerves of even the most faithful of followers. God, it seems, for the powerful and the meek alike, is everywhere, and pursues you relentlessly.

The photograph that best crystallizes Soth's ideas, and which speaks so eloquently to the false starts and failed promises of the Bush presidency, is "Ron, San Antonio, Texas," (above) in which the titular subject, in the wide expanse of an open field, looks forlornly at a toy rocket--a flame adorning its side--and whose face expresses the sort of frustration shared by many Americans when confronted by so much (masculine/military) hubris. Thousands of miles away, in "West Point, New York," the viewer is presented with fresh-faced cadets in their fresh, crisp uniforms, milling about the grounds of the Army's fabled military academy, a grey building sitting rather ominously in the background. One can only wonder if these young people, who stand to represent their nation's core, if not twisted, values, will survive to see the passing of another generation. A pervasive sense of sadness saturates this image, despite the bright, clear sun, despite the optimism of youth and hope inherent in its subjects.

For this exhibition, Soth decided to self-publish the photographs in a forty-five page artist book that was printed on newsprint, a material so prone to the effects of time and the environment. It is possible that the decision, seemingly self-conscious, to release Last Days on newsprint is political in its own way, given that the medium is falling out of favor thanks to the rapid changes in technology; the suggestion here is that, much like those who fought against Bush, Cheney, et al., there is very little that can be done when one is set against absolute power, either natural or man-made. (I, for one, am not so cynical.)

If there is one criticism that I have of the show, it is that Soth is speaking to an audience that, in all likelihood, already understands and believes in his message; in this respect, the images lose some of their shock and awe, their gravitas removed at the expense of what ends up as a civics lesson. Having said that, I found myself taking deep breaths at a number of the images in this show, some of which stand as Soth's best work.

You can see The Last Days of W. here.

For more information:
Soth at Magnum, the photo agency;
Soth at Gagosian Gallery;
Soth at his website

[D | R]

Fuck You Poem

fuck you to porn and poem industries. fuck you to NATIONAL blah blah blah MONTHS. 

Fuck you DENTISTS.

FUCK YOU TO THE EX-CONVICT WHO SWERVED INTO MY CAR AND GOT US BOTH STUCK IN THE INTERSECTION. fuck him and everyone like him who makes me back up so he can get by. fuck that COCK-GOBBLER IN JACKSON HEIGHTS WHEN I WAS ON MY WAY TO GET ALL-I-CAN-EAT BUFFET. fuck the waiters and weirdos who stare at single women for a living. fuck everyone who says gurgle with warm saltwater. FUCK holes. fuck them. FUCK YOUR SUPERHEROES. fuck you mom and dad. fuck you puppy and chi. fuck you hippie disneyland. I HAD A FINE OLD fragile little tooth. NOW I HAVE YOUR fake fragments in the sink mixed with my blood and spit. DAMN RIGHT I HAVE AN OVERBITE. fuck me? fuck your silver-spooned ass. I love you. You've exceeded YOUR minutes, fucking phone company. 

Single-Minded (March 2009)

Here are some songs, both old and new, that I've been listening to lately. Perfect and delicious. The format is vinyl unless otherwise indicated.

1. Dan Auerbach - "I Want Some More" - [Nonesuch]
2. Fleet Foxes - "Mykonos" - [Sub Pop]
3. Morrissey - "No One Can Hold a Candle to You" - [Attack]
4. Servotron - "Matrix of Perfection" - [Amphetamine Reptile]
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Yeah! New York" - [Polydor/Universal]
6. Bad Religion - "Atomic Garden" - [SFTRI]
7. Tom Gabel - "Anna Is a Stool Pigeon" (Acoustic) - [Sire/Sabot]
8. Rocket from the Crypt - "Killy Kill" - [Interscope]
9. Eddie Vedder - "No Ceiling" - [Monkey Wrench/J]*
10. Black Dice - "Cone Toaster" - [DFA]
11. Trans Am - "Cocaine Computer" - [Thrill Jockey]
12. Barrington Levy and Beenie Man - "Murderation" - [Yaga Yaga]
13. Toots and the Maytals - "54-46 Was My Number" - [Trojan]
14. Enon - "Disposable Parts" - [Touch and Go]*
15. Fucked Up - "Black Hats" - [Matador]*

*MP3/AAC

Border Crossing

A few years ago a young musician, Zach Condon, under the guise of "Beirut," released an album called Gulag Orkestar, a record that displayed a fascinatinon with sounds from Eastern Europe, and which became a favorite with the cognoscenti over at Pitchfork. I must admit that I find the recent tendency in indie-rock to absorb, if not appropriate, "world" music and repackage it for a hipster audience rather unsettling, as though the music somehow needs to be reworked, reformulated (read: watered down and bastardized). Having said that, there is no denying that Condon's songwriting talents are genuine and immense, and there is no doubting his sincerity; his music, and our troubled ears, would suffer otherwise. As Beirut, in releases like Lon Gisland and The Flying Cub Cup, Condon has taken the best of disparate, wide-ranging rhythms and taken them on as his own. In this way, Condon uses a very post-modern approach to music; he is not, as some might suggest, a cultural thief who is only interested in the new and "exotic."

Beirut's newest release, March of the Zapotec/Realpeople: Holland, finds the ever-precocious Condon, a young man still in his early twenties, looking southward, to the Mexican state of Oaxaca, from which he drew inspiration for the record's first half (more on Realpeople: Holland, later). Working with a local, nineteen-piece brass band called the Jimenez Band, Condon relies upon traditional instrumentation and patterns to striking effect, resulting in songs that look to the past as much as they look to the future. On March of the Zapotec, Condon and his bandmates come through as restless recorders of the troubled and weary, and turn on a new definition of popular music, but make no mistake: this is not the soundtrack of nostalgia, this is not the diary of dusty, backwater afternoons. No, there is something far more important here, if only felt and not seen.

My favorite track of the first half of the album, "The Akara," is a mid-tempo song with enough pathos to suffocate a class of wayward schoolchildren. The song opens with a few measures of a plaintive horn line, making it sound like a funeral dirge, before that instrument de rigeur, the ukele, ushers in a steady, military beat. Once Condons voice, surprisingly deep and rich, enters, one cannot but feel the melancholy reflected in the track's lyrics: so long to these to these kite strings / so long / I've been saved before, I'm saved once more. One can only wonder what Condon may have experienced, or may have imagined, during his time in Oaxaca, a historical region of Mexico that has recently seen its share of political violence.

The second half of the album, credited to Condon's earlier musical incarnation, Realpeople, is electronic music that leans toward bouncy, glitchy beats, as in "My Night With the Prostitute from Marseilles." While electronic music--no matter how pop its sensibilities--can feel cold and removed from anything resembling emotion, songs like "Venice" do much to infuse Realpeople: Holland with a warmth missing so much from its contemporaries.

Beirut, the band, on the Internet:
Official homepage
Myspace

[D | R]

Return the Gift

To the list of tattooers from whom I want to get some work, including Stephanie Tamez (for the second time), Thomas Hooper, and Eric Jones, you can now add Eli Quinters. Formerly of Saved Tattoo in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Quinters recently opened up a shop on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens, also in Brooklyn, and is known for clean, traditional work (think animals, swords and flowers, etc.), some of which are on view at his site, Tattoos for the Unloved (check out the absolutely sick, Clash-inspired piece in the "Portfolio" section). For whatever reason, (is it the bright colors, or the not-to-be-messed-with designs?) I particularly admire the classic, Sailor Jerry-style approach to tattooing, which Quinters himself respects and to which he holds true. While it's true that the popularity of iconography in tattooing changes upon the whims of the public, I find that anchors, swallows, and other maritime imagery holds up best over time (anyone remember the "tribal" craze of the nineteen-nineties?), and will surely provide many a tattoo recipient with ideas for decades to come. I'm just itching for a new tattoo myself; I'm thinking of getting an anchor. No, a lighthouse. Actually, what I really want is a skull over a set of brass knuckles...

A link, further: Smith Street Tattoo Parlour

*

In yesterday's edition of the New York Post, that rag which masquerades as a newspaper and which publishes the work of right-wing lunatics such as Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin, there was an editorial "cartoon," crude as it was, which depicted a police officer standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimpanzee. The speech bubble above the officer reads, "They'll have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill." Anyone see a problem? A lot of people certainly do, and they have taken their distaste with the cartoon, and the paper itself, to the Post's headquarters.

Now, while the Post shrugged off criticism of the cartoon by noting that it was nothing more than "a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut," and that it "broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy," anyone with half of a brain cell can see that the cartoon, by Sean Delonas, plays upon ugly, racist imagery. Unfortunately, there is no satire, no parody, in comparing the President of the United States, a black man who has taken the lead in crafting an economic stimulus package, with an enraged animal which had to be shot after mauling a victim.

That blacks are compared to wild, barbaric animals is nothing new, of course; the practice dates back to "first contact" between Europeans and Africans all those centuries ago, and this cartoon simply extends that troubling narrative in human history. One would think, however, given the cultural changes brought about in the United States since the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and in other court decisions, that people, however conservative their politics, however rigid their views on race in America, would at least be aware of the kind of reaction this cartoon would spark. The cynic in me says that the editor responsible for publishing the piece knew full well that it would draw plenty of attention (he's got to see as many fifty-cent copies of the paper as he can), and that nothing more can, or should be, expected from the right-wing.

So much for American progress in the twenty-first century. Change, indeed.

[D | R]

A Racket Most Unholy

I should probably be writing about William Eggleston's show (Democratic Camera) at the Whitney, recently closed, or Alec Soth's latest presentation, The Last Days of W., at Gagosian's uptown gallery; instead, fair/weather reader, I will take up this space to talk about music, in the form of Canada's Fucked Up, that the kids have been talking (or "blogging") about lately. It's the least I can do for you today, whatwith my decision to withdraw my nomination to head the Commerce Department.

It's true, I admit, that I'm a little late to the wave of praise that has been bestowed upon a band so inclined to reject praise in the first place. After all, what kind of self-respecting punk band releases seventeen-minute long singles, some of which are adorned with potentially embarrassing/morally questionable photographs depicting Hitler Youth rallies and mass suicides? Well, Fucked Up, that's who, and what can be more punk than attempting to obliterate your chances for mass appeal?

The argument can be made that a band, any band, that chooses to purposely antagonize its audience by splitting a 7-inch with one song, "Baiting the Public," on both the A- and B-sides (so that it cannot be heard in its entirety straight through) is pushing to subvert the one-two-one-two-three-four! dynamic of punk rock used and overused since the Ramones' long-distant turn at the microphone. As I see it, Fucked Up are less a hardcore punk band and more a performance art troupe with slightly silly, off-kilter tendencies; in this way, Fucked Up remind me of Italy's artworld troublemaker, Maurizio Cattelan.

To borrow the title of the band's new album, The Chemistry of Common Life, Fucked Up's music is anything but common and ordinary; for a collective that respects its predecessors (such as Black Flag and the like) and holds no fear about starting off an album with the tenderest of flute solos (!), it's pretty clear that inventiveness is that chemistry, that elixir, so absent in here-today-gone-tomorrow outfits like Vampire Weekend. (I won't even bother adding a link to Vampire Weekend. I mean, a band that wants to sounds like Paul Simon circa 1986? You've got to be kidding.)

Can you tell how excited Fucked Up makes me? Maybe I'll get one of their snazzy t-shirts.

Links for the curious, bored, and marginally informed (ooh, a sing-song rhyme!):

a) Fucked Up at Matador Records
b) Fucked Up runs your new favorite blog
c) Fucked Up blows up right-wing televisions
d) Fucked Up owns you on MySpazz

[D | R]

In Memoriam: John Updike

Photo of the Day

[To reach, to attain.]

United Pink Slips of America

El Diario

Sunday, 4 January 2009

Saw LM off to her game. Checked for messages on Internet, a network. Showered, dressed, and walked, stepping lively, over to bagel shop. Egg and swiss on toasted sesame bagel, please. Counted change, correctly given. Thank you and have a good day. Over to F train station a few yards away from storefront, no liquor, with sign: CONTACT US REALTY. Is that U.S. or us, I thought on subway train gone local. Homeless man now: I am tired, I am hungry, and I am alone. Looking into my bag, I recognized what he was saying, and, after tugging on his torn coat, offered my egg and swiss. Thank you and God bless you, sir. No need to thank me for temporary comforts. Homeless man talks about drinking, losing his family, and reaching depths he never knew existed. At Jay Street, a mariachi band minus the mariachi--just guitar and accordion--gets on to play, entertain. Most are annoyed and I have a headache and remain without a morsel to eat. The band plays a few bars of a folk tune, shaped for delicate American ears, before quitting and asking for some money. It's a song I've heard before, on the record player my father once used, and at which he cry on Saturday nights. Why are you crying, I asked him once. Nothing, it's nothing. I didn't believe him then, and I don't believe him now. That's another song I've heard before, oh, it's nothing--there's no need to worry. It's a song without a title, without time changes, without a discernible pace; it is the song of vulgar laughter that was once heard in Newtown Creek before the chemical release, or in the Bowery before the arrival of another kind of filth. It's a song so commonplace that it has now become indistinguishable from crank-noise, indistinguishable even from itself. I think of that other rarity in music, genius, and John Bonham. He drank himself to death, you know, and I'm scared because I am seeing it happen all over again, closer. At 14th Street, a woman with a black beret and fur-collared coat gets on, looking intently at her map. She's lost and she knows it; the entire subway car knows it. I tell myself that she is a freelance consultant from Buenos Aires, or Prague, and she is in New York to land some business contacts, and perhaps to see some friends who have long since abandoned their ancestral homelands. The newspaper has an article about tourists steadily destroying Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat, and I resolve to add to that erosion. I think of LM, and wonder, among other things, about the plays she is making on the field. Onward to Lexington Avenue, where the woman with the black beret gets up and leaves, followed closely by a man holding a book whose title reads BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, year of issue unknown. No one writes short stories anymore. The best short stories are written as synopses of, and introductions to, articles in medical journals like JAMA and Lancet: Prostate cancer mortality in the United States has declined in recent years, but this cancer remains the most common nonskin epethelial malignancy in US men, with 186, 320 new cases and 28, 660 deaths (the second leading cause of cancer death) estimated for 2008. A grim prognosis, duly cited and noted. Father again, and his health. Parents off now in Colombia to regain composure, pleasant sun. Home is 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue, and I head off into Elmhurst. I shouldn't have tugged at the homeless man's jacket like that. I was only trying to get his attention.

[D | R]

Seven Contemporary Italian Poets

My translations of Florinda Fusco's poetry are up here and here. My translations of Marina Pizzi's work are also up on the International Exchange for Poetic Invention and The Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog.

{LM}

A World in White Gets Underway

Happy New Year, friends. Sorry we couldn't all be together last night. Let's rectify that soon.

In other news... uh, it's a new year. No news yet. Except I'm a little tired and hungry and hungover. Imagine that.

{gc}