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...