lolkitteh smile!

newsy news

I wrote this story about Martian snow posted today on our news blog...

I got three poems accepted for publication in Drunken Boat!

Who's got ideas for halloween costumes?

{LM}

This Is How We Build a Place

Of all the records I've heard this year, there has been just one that has kept me bright, open, and, best of all, dancing: Antidotes, by Oxford-based Foals. Continuing the heritage of sharp, angular post-punk of Gang of Four and Franz Ferdinand (with some traces of Wire for good measure), Foals' focus is on the immediate pleasures that are centered in the hips. At the same time, Foals, anchored ever-so-steadily by drummer Jack Bevan, somehow manage to sound as serious (or just so) as their more cerebrally-minded predecessors. Now, what helps this band so much is the use of a horn section, the cutting tone of which serves as something more than an accent, works more than an afterthought; it's a shame, however, given the instrument's punchy nature, that the horns were essentially buried in the final mix under a hailstorm of guitar- and bass-lines.

While the criticism that Foals' music isn't new or even all that interesting might very well be true, there's alot to be said, I think, for reminding listeners that music can, and should, remain the safest escape route from "the lighthouse (that) is an accident."

I'm particularly fond of "Olympic Airways," "The French Open," "Cassius," and--fuck it--I'm just going to say that I'm all over this record.

*

Anyone with half of a brain cell--or at least those who don't entirely consume their political coverage from Fox News--who saw last week's vice-presidential debate understood that the victor, clearly, was Joe Biden. On matters ranging from foreign policy to the economy, Biden, unlike the "debater" standing a few feet away from him, answered the questions that were directed at him, and he held back some of the sharp tongue that has gotten him into trouble in the past. Madame Governor, on the other hand, with her faux-populist leanings, ready-made zingers, and cutesy winks at the camera, proved evasive and insincere, and stood as something of a puppet for McCain's speech writers. (What price, desperation?)

What I found most troubling is the idea, as Maureen Dowd pointed out so insightfully in her column, that to be part of the "elite" necessarily means something sinister, misguiding, as though what we need in Washington are four more years of raging incompetence and tomfoolery. Oh, and let me just point out that Palin wants the Vice-Presidency to be granted more power, a black-black move given that the era of the most dangerous vice-president is about to end.

*

Homeward bound...

Don't Gawk, Just Walk, Now Talk

Seeing Jim Jarmusch on the street in Soho the other day makes me want to see Down by Law again, with all those fabulous tracking shots of pre-Katrina New Orleans. I'd suggest it for movie night, but who knows when we'll have another one of those.

I sent my "Song for Nola" to the New Orleans Review, and they sent me back a nice small slip of cream-colored paper.

I can't tell if I'm still in a sort of emotional fog or if I'm just hungry.

Time to eat. Everyone be careful out there.

{gc}

Definition of the Day

Narcissism
-n
1. inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.
2. Psychoanalysis. erotic gratification derived from admiration of one's own physical or mental attributes, being a normal condition at the infantile level of personality development.
3. A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.
4. the act of posting self-portraits, especially revealing ones, on websites open to all, especially ogling self-contained men who appreciate the "art" of perfect strangers.

-Syn: self-promotion, self-peeping, self-porn, self-worth
-See also: aesthetes, voyeurs, fantasizers, feminists

Signs and Portents

I found a Dell Paperback edition of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac's From Among the Dead, the 1954 French mystery that Hitchcock used as the basis for Vertigo, at Westsider Books for three bucks.

This is a very good omen.

Hope everyone is taking care.

Quote of the Day

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. - T.S. Eliot, writing in Tradition and the Individual Talent

Finite Jest

I hate to say it, but nearly the first thing I thought when I heard that David Foster Wallace had hanged himself over the weekend was "Did he leave a footnote?"

I know, I know.

In other news, I have Richard Hawley's Coles Corner and Willie Nelson's Red-Headed Stranger in heavy rotation.

In other, other news... well, I don't have any other, other news. It was nice to see everyone on Saturday night.

{gc}

I turn to her and say . . .

Don't switch the blade on the guy in shades, oh no!

Ted Hughes Domesticated

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREGORY!

Solid Gold Beauty Unveiled

A £1.5m solid gold sculpture has been made of supermodel Kate Moss as part of a British Museum exhibition.

Entitled Siren, the 50kg statue was made by Marc Quinn, who described Moss as "the ideal beauty of the moment".

His previous work included the marble sculpture Alison Lapper Pregnant, which appeared in Trafalgar Square.

The gold artwork will be exhibited with statues by other contemporary artists, including Damien Hirst and Antony Gormley, at the central London museum.

Mr Quinn previously created a bronze sculpture of Moss in a yoga pose, which was painted white and entitled Sphinx.

The museum has only revealed a close-up section of the new statue, which is also thought to depict Moss in a yoga pose.

'Live up to image'

He also made Self, a bust of his own head created from eight pints of his frozen blood.

His statue of Ms Lapper naked, who was born with no arms and shortened legs, was on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth for 20 months.

Describing the gold statue of Moss, Mr Quinn said: "I thought the next thing to do would be to make a sculpture of the person who's the ideal beauty of the moment.

"But even Kate Moss doesn't live up to the image."

The exhibition, entitled Statuephilia, will also feature 200 plastic skulls by Damien Hirst.

Antony Gormley's Case for an Angel 1, a smaller precursor to his Angel of the North sculpture which overlooks the A1 in Gateshead, will also go on display.

Statues by artists Ron Mueck, Tim Noble and Sue Webster will also appear in the exhibition.

Co-curator Waldemar Januszczak said: "The British Museum helped to make these artists what they are. Now they are seeking to return the favour."

The exhibition opens on 4 October.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7585440.stm

Pope labels crucified frog sculpture blasphemous

Italian museum board to decide future of Kippenberger artwork after official went on hunger strike

A sculpture in northern Italy depicting a crucified green frog holding a beer mug and an egg could be soon removed from display after Pope Benedict condemned it as blasphemous.

The board of the Museion museum in the city of Bolzano was meeting today to decide whether to comply with the wishes of the Pope and other opponents of the 1.3m (4ft) wooden sculpture, Reuters reported.

The work by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger is called Zuerst die Füsse (Feet First). The frog with its tongue hanging out is wearing a green loin cloth and is nailed through the hands and feet on a brown cross in the manner of Jesus Christ.

Museum officials in the Alto Adige region near the Austrian border said Kippenberger, who died in 1997, considered it a self-portrait illustrating human angst.

But Franz Pahl, the president of the regional government, was so enraged by the sculpture he went on hunger strike to demand its removal and consequently ended up in hospital during the summer.

"Surely this is not a work of art but a blasphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people," he told Reuters before the start of the board meeting.

In a letter of support for Pahl, the Vatican said the sculpture "wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God's love".

However, Claudio Strinati, a superintendent for Rome's state museums, told an Italian newspaper today that censoring the work would be wrong.

"Art must always be free and the artist should not have any restrictions on freedom of expression," he said.

Kippenberger's work has been shown at Tate Modern and the Saatchi Gallery in London, and the Venice Biennale. Retrospectives are planned in Los Angeles and New York.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/28/italy?gusrc=rss&feed=artanddesign

In Which No One Gives Anyone the High Hat

So I'm having a cup of coffee at Edgar's Cafe on West 84th Street (Edgar Allen Poe Way), reading Colin Meloy's underwhemling entry into the 33 1/3 series, The Replacements' Let It Be, when I pause and look up to see, sitting opposite just a table away, the actor Gabriel Byrne, a rolled up Times of London in his mitt, in the midst of an intense discussion with a short bald guy in hipster eyeglasses. I could catch enough of the conversation to hear the lilt of Byrne's Irish accent, but not enough to really make out what he was talking about, as the acoustics of Edgar's resemble the cellar in which Montressor bricks up Fortunato in "The Cask of Amontillado."

Not a bad NYC celebrity sighting--it beats seeing a very weary and cranky Alan Alda trudging through Staples. Only later did I realize the literary synchronicity: I finished Fiona McCarthy's exellent biography Byron: Life and Legend two nights before, and had just finished the first canto of Don Juan the previous evening. Bryne of course played Byron in Ken Russell's ill-advised 1986 film Gothic. Odd to have spent two weeks musing on things Byronic and to then bump into an interpreter of George Gordon Noel, 6th Lord Byron.

Plus, Byrne is one of the highlights of Hal Wilner's 1997 tribute to Poe, Closed on Account of Rabies. Byrne reads "The Masque of the Red Death" with chilling efficiency. So it was nearly an NYC celebrity sighting in context.

Sadly, Byrne hasn't been in a particularly good movie since David Cronenberg's Spider (2002) and hasn't had a hit since The Usual Suspects (1995). I wonder if he was in town for the Coen Bros. retrospective at BAM. I think Miller's Crossing (still my favorite gangster film) was playing that very evening.

And here's the other odd connection: I own a poster for Miller's Crossing that's signed by Byrne, but because he signed it in black ballpoint, the signature is completely obscured by the background of autumnal forest that makes up that poster's top half. I was completely unaware of the signature, until one night the light hit that spot on the poster just so, for at least ten years.

Which saved me the trouble of asking for an autograph. Not that I would have asked in any case.

{gc}

Peek-a-boo

Boy Chucker

Adventures in American Capitalism presents...Things I Bought Yesterday:

1 copy of the Daily News: 50 cents
1 packet of extra-strength Excedrin: 75 cents

Total expenditures for Monday, August 11, 2008: $1.25

*

Call me a romantic, a traditionalist, even a fool if you'd like, but I prefer my Morrissey songs to be full of melody, grandiose and sweeping melody without shame or restraint. And as much as I enjoy the pulverizing bass of Morrissey's new single, All You Need is Me, his best work--both as a solo musician and with the Smiths--has always taken advantage of pop music's jingle-jangle sensibility and love for restlessness that only melody can provide.

To be fair, though, Morrissey's most recent records have corrected some of the missteps that the singer took in the 90's (Southpaw Grammar, anyone?), which means that there is much delight to be had in tracks like "First of the Gang to Die" and "Irish Blood, English Heart." (The latter also relies upon rock'n'roll bombast.)

*

Don't you just hate it when things are just so painfully obvious? To wit:

To treat cyanide poisoning, use nitrites to oxidize hemoglobin methemoglobin, which binds cyanide, allowing cytochrome oxidase to function. Use thiosulfate to bind this cyanide, forming thiocyanate, which is renally excreted.

from First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 2008

*

Is it to much to ask for a decent, well-playing baseball team, or at least one that plays up to the expectations of its $200 million payroll?

[D | R]

Belmar Triptych

The Glory of Love

Aside from ace records by Spiritualized and Bonnie "Prince" Billy, there hasn't been all that much to listen to--until now at least. The newest from Stereolab is due out next month, and Primal Scream's tenth full-length is released tomorrow. I'll be forking some cash over to my local, friendly record store clerk very, very soon. Sizzle!

Stereolab - Chemical Chords - [4AD]

Primal Scream - Beautiful Future - [Warner Bros.]

Prolific Mother Thanks God

ABBOTSFORD, British Columbia - A woman has given birth to her 18th child in British Columbia, making her the province's most prolific mother in 20 years.

Proud dad Alexandru Ionce said Saturday that his 44-year-old wife, Livia, gave birth on Tuesday. Their daughter Abigail weighed in at 7 pounds, 12 ounces.

"We never planned how many children to have. We just let God guide our lives, you know, because we strongly believe life comes from God and that's the reason we did not stop the life," said Alexandru Ionce.

The couple immigrated to Canada from Romania in 1990 and now lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Their 17 other children range in age from 20 months to 23 years old.

Ionce said he did not know if the couple would have more children. The family now has 10 girls and eight boys.

"We would have liked a boy to be even," he said. "We thank God all of them are healthy and happy."

framework: hull

soda fountain dry
iron lawn chairs
meld our myths

practice hiding life
alternatives to cures
massacre mind sects

buzzard's ear missing
attempts country song
weak bills fly

before the mast
plastic knives spar
erect sliding scales

fishing boat skeleton
baby penguin chest
hunger tread tire

Interruptions

Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in tequila in a tea cup, Galvanized tub fires, midnight explosions, the spitting of dregs, Dreamweaver and basket cases, rhythmic screams in Prospect Park, bygones and bulwarks, the chandelier in the basement, the dollar bill on the counter, shots at the missing sun, the bouncing of sonic waves, your thumb on my wet glass, the stirring and the gathering, the stack of MGD bottles, the pool of urine and Jack, the daily double, the steel around her finger, the hyperlinks in the fence, the ocean classroom, dove semen, shampoo and conditioner, the cannibal and the quartet, the slate of the ear, the fat cross nestled in cleavage, where she lives with her dog and two cats, among others.

Black Dog

Here's an interesting piece by Joan Larkin that Sarah just forwarded to me.

Where are all those fabulous fireworks photos? The memory is already fading...

Assignment

Can you create a poem using 10 words from this spelling test?
Winner gets candy!

Weather Report by Tess Gallagher

The Romanian poets
under Ceausescu, Liliana
said, would codify opposition

to the despots in this manner: because
there was no gas and they were cold, everyone
was cold, all they had to do was write

how cold it is . . . so cold . . . and their
readers knew exactly what was meant.
No one had to go to jail
for that.

Liliana, in the dead of night
writing her poems
with gloves on.

I think I’ll take off my gloves.
It’s freezing in here.
There’s a glacier pressing on my heart.


From Dear Ghosts, by Tess Gallagher. All rights reserved. Copyright 2006.

Yes, But What Do You Do for a Living?

Well, this is what I used to do for a living:

Ghost Town Blues: Anthony Alston's Orphic Excavations

The check, as they say, is in the mail.

New York humidity has ruined me for the desert. I've got the mother of all sinus infections.

Did anyone go to the Mermaid Parade?

{gc}

Spring Quartet

[D | R]

No Good Deed Etc.

As a former journalist, I should know better than to talk to reporters. As this guy was talking to me, I knew precisely which quotes he would use, and correctly predicted the sniggering tone the story would take. I didn't think he would completely misunderstand the poem as well, but that should have been the most obivous prediction of all:

Poetic Justice Doesn't Get Much More Literal

Oh well.

I'm actually visiting Las Vegas for the next two or three weeks. Postcards are forthcoming.

{gc}

Fresh Platters

Here are a couple of records--including the newest by Supergrass--that are worth some of your precious time and money:

Supergrass - Diamond Hoo Ha - [Astralwerks/EMI; 2008]

Band of Horses - Cease to Begin - [Sub Pop; 2007]


Choice traxxx include:

Band of Horses - "Is There a Ghost," "No One's Gonna Love You"
Supergrass - "Diamond Hoo Ha Man," "Ghost of a Man," "When I Needed You"

[D | R]

Strictly for the Birds

As I was eating my lunch earlier today in a park just outside the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, I noticed a small bird just beyond my feet. I briefly considered throwing it a small piece of bread off the PB & J sandwich that LM had so kindly prepared for me, but thought against it. A few minutes later, I felt wings brushing up against my left hand, a sensation strange not only for its rarity, but also for its acute softness, quickly granted. I then looked down, again, at my feet, and saw that this same bird, a lark perhaps, had a sliver of bread in its beak. It then occurred to me that the avian interloper had just stolen a portion of a meal, so delicious and fresh, from its rightful owner. The bird, which much surely belong to a hitherto unknown species of animal prone to urban thievery, then flew into the waiting chasm of Trinity Place, where Alexander Hamilton must have called out to it from his grave.

*

The new EP by Brooklyn- and Chicago-based These Are Powers, Tarot Taro, suffers from ideas that are far too broad and loose, as though its creators were unable to agree on what chords to keep, on how to set their dirty impulses to tape (or Reason or whatever recording software the kids are using nowadays). But at least you can't say that their songs are devoid of spirit and drive; "Chipping Ice," for example, arguably the collection's best song, starts with an double-time snare drum pattern and just doesn't let up.

These Are Powers' abrasive energy, which can sound rather menacing, counts for plenty nowadays, whatwith positively dull bands like Low and Sigur Ros taking up precious space. The band, which features Pat Noecker (formerly of Liars) on bass, has previously released one full-length record, Terrific Seasons, which may or may not be terrific.

[D | R]

Transmigration

A few weeks ago, while waiting in LM's car, I turned on the radio, something I hadn't done in years. While running through signals of stations playing poor, mid-90's metal, alternative rock, and other sounds that only seem to exist on the far-left end of the dial, I heard a song done in the vallenato style, a type of folk music native to Colombia. I was instantly riveted, as though my brain was receiving a line through the aural conduit of my ancestral homeland. I've since discovered that the song, called "Eres" (Spanish for "you are"), is performed by Alejandro Fernandez, a Mexican pop singer. That last bit may not appear all that interesting, but I find it fascinating that there can be, in this world of light-speed communication, so many cross-cultural exchanges, so many opportunities for creativity to reinterpreted and reshaped.

The accompanying video, which has an overnight security guard going on a rampage of joy in an otherwise empty shopping mall, is also fun.

*

Perhaps it goes without saying, but human stupidity seems to know no bounds:

"Homosexuality...is the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism." - Sally Kern, Oklahoma State Representative, as quoted in Equality, the magazine of Human Rights Campaign.

*

Good night, and good luck...

[D | R]

Monday's Inferno

My friend Katy Lederer's new book of poetrty is coming out on BOA in October. Here's a link to the book's page.

I just had a poem accepted into the next issue of Rattle. That would be issue #30, which has a Cowboy/Western theme, though the poem they accepted is neither by nor about a cowboy (it does take place in the West, however).

Earlier today I had the worst bus ride since the final episode of M*A*S*H.

Album of the Week

A different kind of folk/indie/Americana/roots music album for the end of days; its "Where Is the Puzzle?" is the most moving song I've heard all year. Highly recommended!

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Lie Down In the Light - [Drag City]

The Assassination

It begins again, the nocturnal pulse.
It courses through the cables laid for it.
It mounts to the chandeliers and beats there, hotly.
We are too close. Too late, we would move back.
We are involved with the surge.

Now it bursts. Now it has been announced.
Now it is being soaked up by newspapers.
Now it is running through the streets.
The crowd has it. The woman selling carnations
And the man in the straw hat stand with it in their shoes.

Here is the red marquee it sheltered under.
Here is the ballroom, here
The sadly various orchestra led
By a single gesture. My arms open.
It enters. Look, we are dancing.

(June 5, 1968)

--Donald Justice

Quote of the Day

"When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses." - John F. Kennedy

A Race of Rhetoric

click here

I disagree that Clinton is a walkman and Obama is an iPod, but Dowd makes some interesting points about how she should have billed herself as the mother of change instead of the father of experience.
-LM

Swan Song

Bo Diddley (1928 - 2008)

Spoon June Moon Swoon

The teenagers who vandalised Robert Frost's cabin have received the ultimate punishment: a mandatory course in Frost's poetry.

Photos from my visit to the fabulous Telectroscope are available here.

Congrats again to everyone who has graduated, passed orals or had a poem published. Excelsior, True Believers!

{gc}

Quote of the Day

"At least since Emerson and Whitman, there's a cult of experience in American poetry. Our poets, when one comes right down to it, are always saying: This is what happened to me. This is what I saw and felt. Truth, they never get tired of reiterating, is not something that already exists in the world, but something that needs to be rediscovered almost daily." --Charles Simic

the world is your oyster, don't f*** it up

Memorial Day 2008

[DR]

LAWDY!

The middle of a work week; used in the context of climbing a proverbial hill to get through a tough week. After hump day, the weekend gets closer.

The term, which implies that you have to get "over the hump" before you can anticipate the weekend, was not originally intended to carry a second, more risque meaning. Damn, I wish every day could be hump day!

Quotes of the Day by John Updike

Sex is like money; only too much is enough.

Art is like baby shoes. When you coat them with gold, they can no longer be worn.

On This Day

New England was enshrouded in darkness at noon on May 19, 1780, in the midst of the Revolutionary War. Birds sang evening songs, farm animals returned to roosts, and humans were bewildered, commenting on the strange beauty of the preternatural half-light. Many thought it was Judgement Day. In 2007, evidence from Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario documented a massive wildfire as the likely source for the infamous "Dark Day."

China stands still to mourn tens of thousands of quake victims
Bush opposes homeowner rescue legislation he claims bails out lenders
How to save $451 per month

Yearbook to be reprinted after heads are switched on student photos
Custody hearings begin for polygamist compound's children
Truck carrying 14 tons of Oreos overturns on highway

My neighbors erect makeshift memorial for Mrs. Woo, killed inside her dry-cleaning store during robbery Friday. Over rows of wrapped bouquets, they share memories of a spirited woman, previosly robbed twice and undaunted, a woman who manned the store by herself because her husband was too sick to work, a woman with a green thumb who sewed buttons for free for the helpless

The smell of charcoal burns in Prospect Park.
Clouds swarm. Birds peck at swaying trees.

I simmer vegan meatballs in red sauce, pour over pasta al dente. I think of Chef Boyardee after school. I think of love and war.

Stationary Waves

(Selections from http://www.tldm.org/news4/deathraygun.htm)

“Russia, my children, has this implement of destruction.” -Our Lady (7-25-85)

I. Our Lady of Russia

Veronika, oh, I see that
Our Lady is showing me now that
there are some kind of implements they’re using…
it doesn’t look like a gun, it looks like a flashlight
but I know it's not a flashlight; it’s some object,
some kind of a ray. And now, now he’s lifting it…
I see a man in a very odd looking uniform. I don't recognize the
uniform. But he’s raising high, like this, this ray gun. That’s what
it is. It’s a ray gun. And now he’s pushing the trigger, and I see...
It looks like long streams of light, but everything it hits just
disintegrates and melts. (Veronika groans.)

II. Armor Has No Effect

Shielding is ineffective. The scalar pulse (or continuous wave) can go anywhere gravity can go. It penetrates the steel hull of tanks and armored vehicles. It penetrates underground shelters and bunkers. It penetrates pillboxes and foxholes. There is no longer any place to hide. Just shoot through the earth into them. An infantryman with a bazooka-sized scalar EM pulse can easily knock out a tank with one shot. And with the same weapon he can knock out another tank, and another, and another…

III. Death Comes Instantly

Hidden in the noses of HIND helicopters, these truly all-purpose rays
deliver instant death. The body does not decay, not even in 30 days.
Those hit by the scalar EM have a most peculiar death mode.
There is no convulsion, no response. Every living cell,
including all bacteria falls like a limp rag and
lies where it falls. Like food irradiated.
The material is preserved.

IV. The Mind of Man

Each side secretly develops new
means to employ them unexpectedly…
because the enemy, caught unawares
was for some time incapable of
effective counteraction.

Brezhnev’s unheeded 1975 characterization of these weapons as “more frightening than the mind of man has ever imagined” has very real justification. There is now a “balance of terror” loose in the world that makes the old MADmen’s MAD concept look like a sunny day in Hawaii.

V. Lightning in His Hand

Stationary waves in the earth...will enable us
to…produce at will, from a sending station,
an electrical effect in any particular region
of the globe. We may send...over the earth
a wave, of electricity traveling at any rate
we desire, from the pace of a turtle up to
lightning speed.

Tesla developed a method to transmit power long distances without wires. As a result, he discovered methods to create mass alterations in the weather by electricity.

He discovered the principle of the rotary magnetic field, applying it in the induction motor. His design provided the basis for the millions of electric motors now used all over the world. Many of Tesla’s achievements helped the U.S. reach its high standard of living and obtain its great productive capacity.

Nikola Tesla (1857-1943) was born in Smitjan, Lika, now part of Yugoslavia. In 1884, he came to America and worked in the Edison plant in Orange, New Jersey, and later, with Westinghouse.

Keegan’s warnings met strong objections from the Rockefeller political flunkies who control the Pentagon.

VI. Free Air

“A strange, star-like ball of light was sighted
over Petrozavodsk in Soviet Karelia, spreading over it
like a jelly fish and showering down shafts of light.”

A number of Russians witnessed the event, which was reported by the Soviet news agency Tass. A similar phenomenon was seen over neighboring Finland. Witnesses in Helsinki stated that a strange and unusual “ball of fire was visible for about four minutes.”

VI. Directives from Heaven

These prophecies came from Jesus, Mary, and the saints to Veronica Lueken at Bayside, NY, from 1968 to 1995.

“You understand, My child and My children, when a man is not with his God, his god then becomes Lucifer.”
“And do not become smug, My children, and think that you will be saved. They are very powerful and cajoling.”

“Yes, My child, you have every reason to be affrighted.”

“I do not say, My children and My child, that the situation is a hundred percent hopeless. I say that each and every child upon earth is wanted back, as the man whose sheep has scattered, and he will await that one lost sheep to return. And much joy should be had over that one lost sheep than if the whole fold had returned.” (7-25-85)

One nation, Russia, My children, shall be your scourge. As they shall go across the world, ravenous in appetite, destruction as their means for enslaving the world!” (9-13-75)

VII. Red Ruse

Shortly after Veronika finished reading the articles in the daily newspaper pertaining to the demise of communism in the Soviet Union, and the subsequent birth of the new Commonwealth of Independent States, Our Lady appeared in what Veronika perceived as a message expressed in desperation:

“Do not be deceived. Their father is the father of all liars: Satan. Their master plan is in motion. Pray for the light. Minds are clouded. I repeat: it is a ruse. Wake up America or you will suffer much.”

Portrait of the Day

LM
[D|R]

Summery, Hot Und Sweaty

I've been playing around with my new D-SLR, a toy for boys and girls. Thank you, thank you to L., Monsieur Crosby, and cats Edgy and Obi.




*

The schedule for this year's Central Park Summerstage has been announced, and boy is it a doozy. Aside from the likes of Sonny Rollins and Sharon Jones and her Dapkings taking to the stage to play freak-out jazz and nu-soul, there will also be a reading from Junot Diaz. What's great is that most of these concerts are free of charge.

Now, I don't know about y'all, but I know where I'm going to be on Saturday, August 16 from 3pm to 8pm. That's right--I'll be front row, center to see three of my favorite bands on a single bill: BLACK DICE, BATTLES, and GANG GANG DANCE. How sick is that? Also, did I mention that this is a free concert?

Man, you have to love New York for stuff like this.

[D|R]

No! It must be finely manicured!

This is the quote of the day by Mr. Rivera, in reference to the type of moustache I hypothetically scribble onto his book cover image of I, the everyman character in Stephen Dixon's book of the same name, who peeks out from beneath a cut-out capital I. But, as he informs us, I is not I; I is the person in which he is writing the stories. He prefers the handlebar to the bush. I fake this gesture on purpose, as the I who seeks to rile him as he reads said stories. If I wanted to deface Danny's "I", that is Dixon's "I", I would draw a Tom Selleck-style moustache onto I's clean white upper lip. Danny puts my papers into tidy piles. His I does not like stray paper or hairs. His eyes are black pools flanked by palm leaves. His lashes jut out like a Jersey shore jug handle. They brush against frames and cheeks. Unflitting as flames, his I's are felt ink.

Notes:

I, it should be noted, am everywoman.

A jug handle is, contrary to popular belief, not a reference to the act of boob-holding, but a type of ramp or slip road that changes the way traffic turns left (when driving on the right). Instead of a standard left turn made from the left lane, left-turning traffic uses a ramp on the right side of the road. Signage can appear to be haphazard and confusing to out-of-state drivers.

Keep the Faith

Lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely
I have nobody for my own
I am so lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely
Wish I had someone to call
on the phone

Last Friday I caught the opening of Harmony Korine's latest movie, Mister Lonely, at the IFC Center. The film, the first from Korine in a number of years, centers around a down-on-his-luck Michael Jackson impersonator eking out a living on the streets of Paris. One afternoon, while performing at an old folks' home, Jackson (played by Diego Luna, who starred opposite Gabriel Garcia Bernal in Y Tu Mama Tambien) is visited by a Marilyn Monroe impersonator. "Marilyn," delicately portrayed by Samantha Morton, urges "Michael" to move to a commune, comprised entirely of celebrity impersonators, located in the Scottish highlands. There, she insists, the inhabitants are free to be themselves, and the path to youth will exist for eternity. The irony, of course, is that the characters, under their own volition, exist as a product of others' creative imaginations; as a result, their identities are stripped and entirely subsumed by the musicians and actors whose traits they try so desperately to perfect. Mimicking celebrity, it seems, has its price.

Elsewhere, in the rain forests of Panama, a German priest, smartly acted by Warner Herzog, oversees a group of nuns--flying nuns no less--who are able to escape death because they fervently believe that their faith is strong enough to carry them to safety. This seemingly unrelated narrative thread adds little to the film's overall theme--anything is possible if you believe in yourself--since it succumbs, at one end, to cynicism; at the other end, to pure sap. I'm not sure if Korine was trying to comment on the nature of religion or human fallibility, but it's hard to come up with a reason for why he chose to address these themes at such an angle.

To be fair, the film has some funny--no, brutally funny--moments, but I was expecting an effort with a lot more edge from the artist who wrote the screenplay to Kids, and who directed Gummo, a disturbing look at Midwestern disillusionment. (Both films are not for those who deplore violence, and who also happen to like domesticated animals.) It is this humor, at times dark yet playful, that is a fixture in Korine's work, and which prevents Mister Lonely, already so strangely close to a conventional Hollywood offering, from becoming a complete loss.

It's always disappointing when the best thing about a movie is its soundtrack, and so it goes: J. Spaceman (of Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized) and Sun City Girls have written terribly effective mood pieces for a film that, given its focus, rises and falls with the characters' attempts at redemption. My personal favorite is Sun City Girls' "Circus Theme," which reminds me a great deal of Firewater's "El Borracho."

So, on a scale of one to four graduate film students, I give Mister Lonely a rating of two.

Links:
Trailer--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ufN1RxFu-4
Review--http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/movies/02lone.html?scp=2&sq=mister+lonely&st=nyt

[D | R]

Crazy 80s

The other night, I was trying to stump my darling by asking how many obscure and semi-obscure Eighties bands she had on her iPod (quite a few, it turned out). It got me thinking about all sorts of bands, many of which I didn't even like or I knew only glancingly, whose names are nevertheless lodged in the nether regions of my brain (or the netherlands, as they are known in Holland). Wither Run Westy Run? Scruffy the Cat? Ed's Redeeming Qualities? The Wolfgang Press? The Screaming Blue Messiahs? The Woodentops? The Hoodoo Gurus? Aztec Camera? Concrete Blonde? Stump? Shriekback? The BoDeans? The Del Fuegoes? The dBs? Icicle Works? Romeo Void? Lets's Active? The Feelies? Christmas? Phranc? The Wonder Stuff? The Go-Betweens? Is Greg Kihn's love still in jeopardy? O Motels, can only the lonely still play?

Panix

I'm sending the new Portishead record, Third, through my ears right now, and can surely say that I've never felt so creeped out listening to music. This album, which bears very little of the signature trip-hop sound which made Portishead famous, sounds positively psychedelic, with fuzzed-out guitars, organ stomps, and Beth Gibbon's mood-dulling vocals push, push, pushing me into my myself.

If I were to describe what this album sounds like to a stranger (perhaps you are one), I would use the following phrases: panic room, negative space, and Christ, I'm suffocating in my own presence.

Seriously, I feel uncomfortable.

*

The fine(r) folks over at McSweeney's are having a sale this week: today, all items in their store are 30% off; tomorrow, all items will be 20% off; and all items on Thursday will be 10% off.

I think I'll treat myself to a couple of books by Stephen Dixon which, as a bundle, are being sold for a grand total of $15. Go forth and help our struggling economy!

http://store.mcsweeneys.net/

[DR]

Not the North Fork

LM (Montauk Morning)

Apropos Appropriation

Hey, Archie McPhee! You ask, Who is Senor Misterioso? Well, if you weren't such a gringo, you'd know that he's Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, future patron saint of Venezuela and a lesser deity in the syncretic cult of Maria Lionza.

Amazing what you learn while staring into the window of the Botanica San Antonio. But if the blessed Dr. Hernandez can do double duty as a Catholic and cult saint, he can certainly fill in as a hipster icon.

{gc}

Pinsky Tells It Like It Is

It's all about that last line, friends:

Frequently asked questions about poetry

I Don't Wanna Be a Pinhole No More

I just met a camera that I could go for:

Dowloadable Pinhole Cameras.

For, you know, photography, nudge nudge wink wink say no more.

Use Your Lightning Bolt!

At long last, the perfect storm of the literary and the geeky, all for a good cause.

I think I might actually do this. After all, there will be, you know, girls.

I would make this the Video of the Day, but I can't quite figure out how to do that.

{gc}

Selections from Cane

Oracular.
Redolent of fermenting syrup,
Purple of the dusk,
Deep-rooted cane.

Georgia Dusk

The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue
The settling sun, too indolent to hold
A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,
Passively darkens for night's barbecue,

A feast of moon and men and barking hounds,
An orgy for some genius of the South
With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,
Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds.

The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop,
And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill,
Soft settling pollen where ploughed lands fulfill
Their early promise of a bumper crop.

Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile
Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low
Where only chips and stumps are left to show
The solid proof of fromer domicile.

Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp,
Race memories of king and caravan,
High-priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man,
Go singing through the footprints of the swamp.

Their voices rise . . . the pine trees are guitars,
Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain . . .
There voices rise . . . the chorus of the cane
Is carolling a vesper to the stars.

O singers, resinous and soft your songs
Above the sacred whisper of the pines,
Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,
Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.


Evening Song

Full moon rising on the waters of my heart,
Lakes and moon and fires,
Cloine tires,
Holding her lips apart.

Promises of slumber leaving shore to charm the moon,
Miracle made vesper-keeps,
Cloine sleeps,
And I'll be sleeping soon.

Cloine, curled like the sleepy waters where the moonwaves start,
Radiant, resplendently she gleams,
Cloine dreams,
Lips pressed against my heart.


--Jean Toomer (1894-1967)

In Heavy Rotation (Deep Spinner)

1. Thom Yorke - The Eraser - [XL; 2006]
2. Daft Punk - Alive 2007 - [Virgin; 2007]
3. Against Me! - New Wave - [Sire; 2007]
4. The Black Keys - Attack & Release - [Nonesuch; 2008]

Refuse to listen at yr own peril.

Tragically yours,
[DR]

New American Tragedies

During one afternoon a couple of years ago at City College, while taking a study break in the English majors' lounge, I decided to look through the department's collection of literary journals, some of which dated back some thirty years. I could not help but wonder, as the name of writer after unknown writer passed over my eyes, whether, in time, another young man would come across my own work in some journal, and whether he would take a brief second to consider my life, my desires and impulses, my place in a world that measures its citizens by the weight of language. A grief then came over me, not because I feared that I would one day join the ranks of minor, forgotten writers (there are far worse identities to be had, to be sure), but because it occurred to me that so much of the writing life, this true circus, is about glorified failure, ready-made.

*

All of this is to say that I haven't written a single line of creative work since December 2007, which leads me to a certain preoccupation: Will the urge to write, once seemingly natural and ingrained, return? Will it be a matter of time before pen is set against paper, or will I have to relinquish that title, dear writer, I've worked so hard to develop?

*

Outside, somewhere in Prospect Park, parents are cheering their well-trained children, dressed in clean, multi-colored uniforms, running on the basepaths--perhaps at the expense of their own lives.

*

I should clarify that second point: I wrote a line of poetry just yesterday. It is only a line, a brief and not altogether good one, which, for the sake of readers not aware of the concept of failure, I shall keep to myself.

*

And now, a chorus of seven Vespas, so foreign, in a formation normally the domain of fighter pilots, on the road just beyond her third-floor window.

[D - R]

Drown

Junot Diaz has been awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a rich, funny, and full work that examines the Dominican immigrant experience and the ways in which the past refuses to release its hold on those who insist on living in the present.

Diaz, who arrived in the United States as a young child without knowing a word of English, is the second Latino to win the prize; the first such author was CCNY alum Oscar Hijuelos, who won for his sex- and drink-riddled novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, published in 1990. (This book would later be adapted into a film and, uh, a Broadway musical.)

While I do not know Mr. Diaz personally, I still feel quite proud that, in a country which insists its Latino immigrants are little more than border-jumping thugs, he has been able to reach this level of professional success.

The winners in poetry:

Robert Hass, for Time and Materials
Philip Schultz, for Failure

Congratulaciones, Junot, y mucha suerte!

[D | R]

W.

Isn't a bit early for this?

And who, I wonder, would you cast?

Just another karaoke hit...

Six o'clock already
I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissin' Valentino
By a crystal blue Italian stream
But I can't be late
'Cause then I guess I just won't get paid
These are the days
When you wish your bed was already made

It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my funday
My I don't have to runday
It's just another manic Monday

Have to catch an early train
Got to be to work by nine
And if I had an air-o-plane
I still couldn't make it on time
'Cause it takes me so long
Just to figure out what I'm gonna wear
Blame it on the train
But the boss is already there

All of the nights
Why did my lover have to pick last night
To get down
Doesn't it matter
That I have to feed the both of us
Employment's down
He tells me in his bedroom voice
C'mon honey, let's go make some noise
Time it goes so fast
When you're having fun

Six Degrees of Everything

Last night, I saw one of the most enchanting (in the fullest sense of that word) and enigmatic films ever, Wojciech Has' The Saragossa Manuscript (1965). It's playing this week at BAM--I can't recommend it highly enough, even thought it's three hours long and has an utterly puzzling ending. It's at once more accessible and more mysterious than Last Year in Marienbad (which was the last movie I saw before this... all I need now is another viewing of Memento and I'll be fully Meta).

Thursday night, my friend Jennie invited me to the NYC Ukulele Festival to see her beau's band Dreamboat. They were delightful (in the fullest sense of that word, too): sort of what Combustible Edison would have sounded like in a pile-up with The Squirrel Nut Zippers and The Style Council.

Wednesday night, I was reading David Halberstam's fairly brilliant and densely textured history of the Korean War, The Coldest Winter. In 1967 Halberstam, working as a foreign correspondant, was kicked out of Poland after writing an article criticizing the first secretary of the Polish Communist Party, Wladyslaw Gomulka. He took his Polish wife of two years with him, the utterly gorgeous actress Elzbieta Czyzewska... who just happens to be one of the stars of The Saragossa Manuscript.

A sleep trance, a dream dance,
A shared romance,
Synchronicity...

{gc}

In Memoriam MLK (and K.L.O.*)

from Parturition
by Mina Loy

I am a circle
Of a center of pain
Exceeding its boundaries in every direction

The business of the bland sun
Has no affair with me
In my congested cosmos of agony
From which there is no escape
On infinitely prolonged nerve-vibrations
Or in contraction
To the pin-point nucleus of being

. . .

Pain is no stronger than the resisting force
Pain calls up in me
The struggle is equal

. . .

Relaxation
Negation of myself as a unit
Vacuum interlude
I should have been emptied of life
Giving life
For consciousness in crises races
Through the subliminal deposits of evolutionary processes

. . .

LIFE
A leap with nature
Into the essence
Of unpredicted Maternity
Against my thigh
Touch of infinitesimal motion
Scarcely perceptible
Undulation
Warmth moisture
Stir of incipient life
Precipitating into me
The contents of the universe

Mother I am
Identical
With infinite Maternity
Indivisible
Acutely
I am absorbed
Into
The was—is—ever—shall—be
Of cosmic reproductivity

Rises from the subconscious
Impression of a cat
With blind kittens
Among her legs
Same undulating life-stir
I am that cat

. . .

The next morning
Each woman-of-the-people
Tip-toeing the red pile of carpet
Doing hushed service
Each woman-of-the-people
Wearing a halo
A ludicrous little halo
Of which she is sublimely unaware
I once heard in church
—Man and woman God made them—
Thank God.


* Kitties’ Lady Organs

The End of History: On Baseball & Memory

Every year around this time, with the opening of a new season of Major League baseball, I cannot help but to think of possibility and promise. I also think of those times during my childhood when life was little more than launching tennis balls over chain-link fences with a wiffle bat, trading baseball cards with Nelson ("Do you have Don Mattingly?"), visiting the Stadium to watch my beloved Yankees, or trying to find a left-hander's mitt that felt just right. It all sounds like nostalgia, sure, but to me baseball is far larger than training one's eye on the trajectory of a curveball, tight and sharp; the game, rich with contradictions and history, is representative of life as an adult: the brute force of the daily grind versus the grace and candor of time spent with family, loved ones.

*

I'll never forget the first time, during the early 1990's, when I walked through the gates of Yankee Stadium. I remember gasping at the sight of the infield, the empty seats, and the famed facade, a hold-over from the Stadium's early years, when names like Ruth, Mantle, Maris, and DiMaggio held significance not only over the rest of professional sports, but over New York City itself. It all seems so much smaller on TV, I thought to myself as the Yankees warmed up on the field prior to playing the Milwaukee Brewers (then still a team in the Central Division of the American League), and of course the Stadium was much larger in real life than it could appear on television or in the mind of a little boy.

On that evening, whose warmth I still feel every single time that I hand my ticket to an usher at the Stadium, I heard for myself the thunderous crack of bat meeting ball--"that's a home run!"--and was witness, for the first of many chances, the home team managing to eke out a win in the early summer, in what would be another hopeless season (the Yankees would only win about sixty-five games that year).

Oh, to feel that wonder again.

*

My Dad accompanied me to a Yankee game once and promptly fell asleep. His verdict? "So boring!"

We haven't seen eye-to-eye since.

*

During my sophomore year in college, I decided to take a summer job at Shea Stadium, home of the Mets (just like the "Cathedral" in the Bronx, the ballpark in Flushing is due to come down after the end of the current season). It was one of those thankless jobs, one of many that young people take in order to make some money during the time between semesters, in which I was charged with selling bottles of Coca-Cola, hot dogs, popcorn, ice cream, lemon ices, and, if lucky, cotton candy.

With my Mets jersey, to which a button with the price of a soda ($3.25) was attached, I walked into the stands and belted out my tired refrain:

Hot dogs! Get yer hot dogs, heee-ah!
Ice cream, ice cream! Get yer ice cream, heeeeeee-ahhhhhhh!

The most I ever made during a game that season was $50. The least I ever made was $3.00, when I was told to sell lemon ices during a game in which a massive rain storm passed over Shea. Needless to say, the stands were empty when the skies cleared during the sixth inning, and I walked around trying to sell ices to the fans that decided to remain, over and over. Over and over I walked, the ices melting, melting...

*

Yankee Stadium, like so many other fields before it (Seattle's Kingdome and Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium come to mind), will be razed at the conclusion of the 2008 season, will meet its fate with crane and wrecking ball. With it will go the memories that I've accumulated over the years: the yelling, the tears, the pure joy that could only be the product of the perfect game that is baseball, of a creation that, in some ways, is more about myth than reality.

*

A new season has begun. Will my team reach another World Series, or will I have to keep making excuses for a collection of players who make upwards of $200 million?

*

I know I am more whole, somehow more alive, when I am holding a ball in my left hand, its red seams tightly wound and crisp, staring a batter down into oblivion.

[D | R]

Dogs schooling babies

CLOSE THAT!
CRAWL!

Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week

The Spring 2008 issue of The One Three Eight is now live (more or less).

Send "Get Well" wishes to my dear Myella, who is stuck in the hospital tonight instead of hosting a fabulous dinner on Roosevelt Island! (Insert very sad face here)

{gc}

kitty pitties

yes, i'm a dorky new-mom, i'll own it. but do note my stealthy silence a la national geographic. (ummm, but you can stop watching once they run into the closet: they don't come out.)

Pop Matters

The fine folks at Fence--following the model that Radiohead used last year for In Rainbows--have announced that they are accepting subscriptions to be paid at whatever price level that readers decide is appropriate. I might just have to drop a shiny gold $1 coin for this one...

http://www.fenceportal.org/support/

*

My brother, Steve, did really well in his interview at Hunter College, and has been accepted into the MFA program at the school. Congratulations, Steve!

*

I was listening last night to the 25th anniversary edition of Michael Jackson's landmark Thriller album (released in 1982 on Epic), and was taken by how fresh the songs sounded despite the massive changes in pop music since Quincy Jones set the tracks to tape. And did anyone remember the 3-4-5 listing of "Thriller," "Beat It," and "Billie Jean"? Seriously, you just can't fuck with that shit.

Sick, sick, sick.

*

Anti-pop Consortium, once disbanded, has reformed. Hurrah! for underground, progressive, weird, and simply strange hip-hop. Their video for "Ghostlawns," taken from Arrhythmia, is the GMC Video of the Day.

[ d | r ]

Threefer Thursday

1) Two of my poems, "Sea-Change" and "Ghazal (Not Guzzle)" will appear in the Fall 2008 issue of Big City Lit.

2) Did I mention that I saw the Mountain Goats at Webster Hall last week? I saw the Mountain Goats at Webster Hall last week. They played my favorite song. What more can you ask?

3) Richard Widmark passed away at age 93. Lead in the obit? His star-making role as the sadistic killer Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947), memorably alluded to in Don DeLillo's White Noise. In case you've never seen it, he ties Victor Mature's mother to her wheelchair with a drapery cord, and then pushes her down a flight of stairs while he giggles fiendishly. Highly recommended (the movie, not pushing helpless old ladies down flights of stairs).

{gc}

March Madness

We come to love this newness that repeats itself
like a virus. Just remember, do not kill the golden goose.

How the Romans Celebrated:
XCIX Bottles of Wine on the Wall, XCIX Bottles of Wine,
And if one of those bottles should happen to fall,
XCVIII bottles of wine on the wall...
And the ditty never ends for the ancients did not use the number "zero".

Tonight, the moon is a giant golden egg, or a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup I licked all the chocolate off of.

Emily and I once entered an egg-toss competition at Gold Key Lake. She was annoyed at me for underthrowing her. We lost in the final round when I overthrew her and it cracked on her forehead.

Hideki Matsui may be replaced as my new favorite baseball player by Japanese-Iranian Yu Darvish, a 6-foot-5 whirling dervish known as baseball's rebellious 'Elvis'.

"There is still enough left to live by. Only help her to know...she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron."