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}

Picture of the Day

From an exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org
http://www.cooperstownchamber.org

I Pledge...

I was never a bright kid; at best, I was average. What you would call a child who once stole one miserable walnut from a supermarket display ("What's that bulge in your pants, Danny?"), but who thought he'd get away with it? A kid who looked twice before crossing the street but who still got run over by a car? What about that time, when on vacation in Cancun, Mexico, after jumping into the deep end of the pool—despite not knowing how to swim—I nearly drowned (many thanks to the burly American for saving my life)? "But these things happen to the best of us, Danny," I hear you saying. "After all," you continue, "you were a kid." I couldn't have known better, right? The point is that life, which is, ostensibly, a collection of experiences, need not—should not—be filled with such failures. In other words, I should have known better, I should have known that telethons weren't created to entertain people (*wink*); they were created so that good deeds could be performed, so that people could dress up and have somewhere to go. The problem I had as a kid—and, frankly, still have—is that I have some trouble relating to what people really need. I have trouble, and I don't think this has ever been clearer to me, understanding the messages and signals that are sent my way, as though my brain is inherently incapable of understanding the 4 billion+ people with whom I share this planet. (I exaggerate, of course, but you get the idea.)

A good example of this little quirk of mine is when, many, many years ago, I was watching one of the "Jerry's Kids" telethons, which, if I remember correctly, went on for what seemed like weeks, and its host, Jerry Lewis, in a fancy tuxedo, implored viewers to donate money with which to help children with some incurable disease. The program was something of a mish-mash of celebrities and musicians coming together for a good cause and a common purpose: helping the less fortunate. At various points throughout the show, cameras would pan over to volunteers working the phones, taking money from folks all over the country. My favorite part of the whole thing, the whole feeling of the program, was when Lewis would walk to the counter with bright, LED lights and say, "We've now raised $250,000 dollars!" Then the band would play, the studio audience would offer polite claps, and the motivation to participate would swell in me even more.

I wanted to help, to participate, and knew I had to do something. I picked up the phone and dialed the 1-800 number, after which I heard the volunteer's voice on the other end of the line: "Jerry's Kids! What's your pledge?" This was the moment that I had been waiting for all afternoon; the opportunity for me to give the only pledge I knew would not be denied: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America..." Before I could finish my pledge, the volunteer hung up the phone, and I was left terribly confused. How else could I have helped? What else could I have done? Had I failed so miserably as to not deserve a response? I still ask myself these questions, and I still frame my life, to some extent at least, in terms which only allow for victory and for loss—a particular view of my relations to others that leaves for much confusion and distress.

There will be one day, though, one far-off day, when I'll pick up a phone and the person on the other line will say, with all sincerity, Hello. It's good to hear from you.

*

And now, in no particular order, the Best Albums and Related Stuff of 2008:

Stereolab - Chemical Chords - [4AD]
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes - [Sub Pop]
The Night Marchers - See You in Magic - [Vagrant]
Hot Chip - Made in the Dark - [Astralwerks]
Portishead - Third - [Mercury]
The Black Keys - Attack & Release - [Nonesuch]
Spiritualized - Songs in A & E - [Fontana]
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Lie Down in the Light - [Drag City]
TV on the Radio - Dear Science - [DGC/Interscope]
Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair - [Mute]

Best Song: "On the Water," by the Walkmen

Best Song by a Band Called "The Black Kids" That is Not Comprised Entirely of Black Kids: "I've Underestimated My Charm (Again)"

Best Single: "Blind," by Hercules and Love Affair
Best Compilation: Randy's 50th Anniversary - [VP Records]
Best Album Not Released in 2008: Damaged, by Black Flag

*

I'm here with you all, truly.

[D | R]

Happy Birthday! Time for Cupcakes and Cocktails...

Lolcats still rule...

At last, a blog worth reading...

Fuck You, Penguin

I've been laughing hysterically for the last few minutes.

We can't push shopping carts . . .

But we love our new bed. Thanks, Aunt Laura!

Shopping Time, Sez Kitteh

Rattle

The new issue of Rattle includes my poem "Everything & Nothing (TM)." Not, mind you, in the tribute to Cowboy & Western poets,(in that section, however, there's a poem by Red Shuttleworth, who I knew back in Vegas--he was part of the UNLV playwriting program, and let me tell you, he could have walked full-blown out of one of Sam Shepard's plays).

As always, there's a glitch: an R has been dropped from my name on the back cover, turning me into "Gegory." I swear, I've had more misprints in the last few years than a drunken compositor. Oh well.

{gc}

Arrrgh!

Check out Ryan Stechler's Pirate's Christmas Carol, newly added to Elaine Equi's Holiday Album on Jacket.

It must be December--they're playing some really crappy Xmas song right now that samples the Beatles' "Got to Get You Into My Life." Heavy sigh.

{gc}

my day

The lines on the highway, the horizon,
both sides of a debate. The flash of yellow in
rear view. Deer's guts splayed on the white.
Please discard your personal life here.

Teddy bear wears a Yankees T-shirt,
his feet are up the air. The trees are
bottom heavy. It is hard to be
creative on demand.

My food network is gone, fuzzy.
The cat is snoring. Where's my
bloody mary? There's nothing
quite like a woman in love.

—this poem is forthcoming on my personal blog

More News

Two of my poems, "Sea-Change" and "Ghazal (Not Guzzle)," are now online in the Fall 2008 Issue of BigCityLit. Huzzah.

I think I'm also reading at BigCityLit's release reading at Cornelia Street a week from tomorrow night...

{gc}