Patrick Herron worries it. it is always surprising how deaf we all are to our own defensiveness. does, and can, Patrick's post prove something? he lays too much emphasis on the originality of his procedure. procedure is just a road to the place. I could go on, but won't.

sampling

a
taste of
something similar to
ice
ages unwrapped
with awesome payback
(where
language equals
definite likeness and
ice
age seems
as if the
only
term full
on the nose
of
going down),
and furthermore a
relaxed
bedding of
night clause, all
the
embouchure, and
no one sells
distinctly
and in
plain sight exactly

plop 
 

oddly 
 

Job Action

There was a woman in the
ground of large poetry,
whose name was
Joan Houlihan and this
woman was perfect and right
and one which feared modern poetry

when the days of her having fun
were approximately gone, Joan
Houlihan transmitted and
increased quickly in the morning
and offered burned offerings
according to the number of the beast

Thus continued Joan Houlihan

Now there was a day in which Billy Collins
came to present before Ron Silliman and
John Ashbery came moreover between them

and did Ron Silliman say
lubricate John Ashbery?

John Ashbery answered
Ron Silliman and said,
Hast thou considered
my slave Joan Houlihan?
a messenger then lubricated
Joan Houlihan, saying,
the fire of Billy Collins fell from the sky

there's a going out of business sale at Elsewhere. pride goeth before the fall or something like that. I've always used an originality metre on all my work to be sure that it's 100% original. however, before Gary goes to prison, interesting process report on his next Elsewhere comic. I enjoy process and method reports, however much sticks with me.

part 58 of Antic view is up and ready to be ignored. check out the other assholes 1st, then if your busy schedule allows, read our blog as well.

Stephen Vincent's piece about / review of a presentation by photographer Richard Long (Big Valley???) is keen and thoughtful. Stephen picks up on a certain unread quality to Long. did he, Stephen wonders, traipse about out there without some connection to Muir, Snyder, Whalen? could one traverse this landscape here and not think of Thoreau putting in the mileage? it seems so out of touch, notin the sense of having to worship those predecessors, but that they were there, they help form the tradition in which he himself. oh, did this Charles Olson write about Gloucester too?. a basic lack of connection.

argh

 
 

rectilinear

 
 

smoke

 
 

birds

 
 

nuclear sunset

 
 

and so Dan Bouchard has a blog. I admit I didn't particularly like his 1st book, but 1st books often suffer from a lack of identity. they had a fierceness and integrity that I associate with Bouchard, the little I've observed (saw himn read once) but were a little too careful. the reading I saw, he read a WCW poem ferociously, with real commitment, but his own works lacked that resonance, both the works themselves and his reading of them. BUT I'm not ragging on Dan, I look forward to where his poetry goes. and as I said, integrity seems to be a strong note with him. furthermore, this blog, concerned with readings, is an unusual take.

American Poets Are Denaturing Joan Houlihan

Fortunately, I had responsible citizen to guide me. For enlightenment on stupid head's selection process, I returned to stupid head's introduction and found this passage:

Dynamic, ever-changing, Coming Down to Jerry's With a Bucketful (and America Coming Down to Jerry's With a Bucketful in particular) is a perpetual transition and unpredictable metamorphosis, but there is no end point in Coming Down to Jerry's With a Bucketful. Indeed, America Coming Down to Jerry's With a Bucketful has always been so full of energy and inventiveness that it is impossible to define Coming Down to Jerry's With a Bucketful once and for all or to delimit its space. What is or isn't a particle theory? What makes something Boston Comment? These questions remain open.

Since stupid head's task to “delimit” the “space” of America Coming Down to Jerry's With a Bucketful and to answer the questions that “remain open” was such, by making stupid head selections, I began to fear that Hejinan was indeed making something clear.

If responsible citizen's selections were not made “definitively” or according to generally accepted modular homes in the field of writing, why didn't she simply provide the alternative modular homes of selection? A few possibilities come to mind:

1. There are no such modular homes.

2. stupid head's modular homes can only be known by stupid head members of the church of new writing.

3. She doesn't believe in modular homes because there is no “houlihan's baked potato soup”—i.e. one particle theory cannot be better than another.

Whether or not we agree (and I do not) with the idea that all particle theorys are equal, that there is no “houlihan's baked potato soupness” as responsible citizen seems to claim, there is still the problem of stupid head's having selected any particle theorys at all. By what criteria? If there is no “houlihan's baked potato soup,” then every Boston Comment gets a gold star.

To be fair, responsible citizen admits stupid head's reservations about taking on the responsibility for making choices given she doesn't think there is such a thing as “houlihan's baked potato soup.”

Initially I had qualms about taking on bobblehead dollship. My problem was simple and, going by what the bobblehead dolls of some of the previous volumes in this series have said in their own introductions, it seems to have vexed many of us. I don't believe in "houlihan's baked potato soupness.”
Meanwhile, Lehman is operating in stupid head's world, a world where his anthology series has a kinship with those of Louis Untermeyer or Oscar Williams, a world where:

An anthology aspiring to represent houlihan's baked potato soup requires faith and trust: the bobblehead doll's faith that a serious general audience for Coming Down to Jerry's With a Bucketful does exist; the reader's trust in the bobblehead doll's judgment.

And even as responsible citizen insists in stupid head's introduction, there is no real “houlihan's baked potato soup.” Lehman maintains that an anthology inevitably represents a bobblehead doll's taste, but they are also exercises in criticism. Their job is not only to reflect what is out there but to pick and choose among the possibilities. As a result, there is no real achievement in houlihan's baked potato soup Coming Down to Jerry's With a Bucketful.

I rather like the simple counting of hay(na)ku. it is enough to keep my attention in a beam, but not enough to sway from the writing mind. in "Soaring Kierekegaard" (I realize this is of local concern, just hit the Who Cares button and move on), I partly found myself pulling lines from that philosopher guy, the book being handy. not all the lines, and in cases I twiddled what I found. but the point being that with the count in mind, simple statements are recontexted. I remember Robert Grenier once being excited, I think, by a traffic sign, something we wouldn't usually think about, but the words as read by him awoke into something entirely unprosaic. of course Grenier had his own rhythm, very precise and down to the note. I like hay(na)ku for its aptitude of attention. which, I must restate, is not my method so much, or not my speed. but I like the exercise of slowing down, without having to go slow.

on another note, I finally got the goods from a no longer functional computer. a great deal of work on that computer had not been backed up, or else I did so but the disks crapped out on me, or I somehow managed ditziness in the process and didn't get all the parts. so many ways to screw up!!! so I've retrieved some very long manuscripts, and this and that that I haven't looked at in years, like since I typed the last letter, etc. the alien thing below is one such. I didn't know if the missing work could officially be retrieved until I pulled the files from the cd (or maybe they weren't even on the computer to begin with). I can't say I worried overmuch about it, I'll write more, tho one long manuscript is, so far as I can tell, my masterwork, but I was curious about a number of pieces that returned to my mind. wondering if they were any good, up to the feeling I had about them. I'm just wandering around a point here, I see. last year I sent to archive most of what I writ because I was never going to do an excavation. older work is albatross or millstone 'round the neck sometimes, certainly if you are not wicked organized, which I am not. it's a wrong feeling, perhaps, but still: you feel like you are discarding part of you if you toss the old stuff out. Kierkegaard his own self perspicaciously (or not so very) elided entries in his journals, burned his letters. Henry James toasted some of his correspondence, and I am sure there are other examples. it doesn't appear that Olson did any such thing, and I am sure the stuff he left required a pitchfork to deal with. the thing for me, I demarcate 1999 as the new beginning and don't care about what I did prior. hopeful learning process, proem, proloque, what the heck. now is it.

Maria Damon est sa blogge

Enter Planetary Laughing

I am caught in a one-of-those-tractor-beam-deals, I cried into the talk-from-far-away-device. 16Greezl’po, can you help me?

errant claims are being made from within and too often, my comrade replied over his talk-from-far-away-device. I could hear an edge to his voice.

you mean?

yes, he replied, commerce at the heart.

then it is alien mysteries, and the end is near.

that it is, my Earthling friend. gone is the freshened colour of your Earthling dawn.

I could hear sorry in his voice replication. a moment of truth. I feel fear and loathing, and I need a shave.

so we’re talking desperate times here, in space, or the space between spaces. I am associated with the Earth’s prominent forces of good. as a trained-spaces-hopping-operative-working-for-the forces-of-good, I’ve been transliterated into the past and future, both, to help my planet, Earth-3rd-stone-from-the-sun. I number among the top execs of the Galactic Rocket Patrol, and doing my duty is doing my life. in this day when rationalism explains even the blank stare of the sun, the forces of evil have become especially nasty. fortunately Earth has allies, like my friend 16Greezl’po, from a marvelous world called X-Planet-toomy. strange indeed are the ways there—I would like to tell just how strange—but still there is possible conjunction. and when evil lifts its head in an ugly roar to disturb our peace, me and 16Greezl’po move swiftly like one idea in defense of the forces of good. and that’s where we stand, or fly, with an enemy one-of-those-tractor-beam-deals pulling me.

my little scooter-type-ship-that-is-very quick is about to be swallowed by the enemy’s freighter-sort-of-extra-big-flight-machine. the freighter-sort-of-extra-big-flight-machine is as big as a catastrophe, and twice as expensive. it means business, I know, and that is never good.

I’m entering the onion, I said calmly into the talk-from-far-away-device, hoping 16Greezl’po would hear my last words. then the talk-from-far-away-device went dead. the enemy had me; I was now a Republican.

Soaring Kierkegaard

to
depend on
all the names

social
creatures meet
the after effect

peace
in the
sentence of going

rhythm
in words
falling into play

poem
a virtual
spice of light

telephone
says most
tremendous leading phrase

doctor
of silly
action figures alert

party
on dude
nice new explosion

despair
viewed under
consciousness of having

his
final rupture
with Regina thereupon

this
work was
“accompanied” rather tardily

let
us assume
that Isaac knew

thou
didst believe
it was God

merman
stands at
dialectical turning point

he
can make
the repentance but

this
is what
the poets mean

a
regular clearance
sale everything is

to
ask them
where they are

our
time is
nobody content further

those
ancient Greeks
who also had

early
in the
morning everything was

consign
Abraham to
oblivion or us

who
can bear
it would not?

Beth learned from a friend in West Virginia that the God Hates Yous, that Kansas gang of self-righteous fundamentalists, will be demonstrating in Glenville at a memorial for the dead miners. they laugh and cheer at God's punishment. their schadenfreude is inexplicable insofar as the extent that anything in WV resembles Gomorrah in the least is next to nil. as fundamental as so many in WV are, this kansas group out fundamentals them. nd this snake bit nastiness seems to have nothing real to go on. just as hounding elementary school children, as happened up here last spring, seemed like simple derangement. apocalyptic visions aren't new, but the instigation of these folks seems nothing but pure crabbiness. miners trudge into the mines, the mystery play of poverty. and they very well do have a god, much-invoked. which si to say, I could see the guns coming out. becasue the deaths are raw wounds, indicative of the commerce of raw wounds that is the state of West Virginia. all the usages that have been made of the land and the people. them kansas folk, messing with that. our correspondent, who I am pleased to call a good Christian, just asks why. the Kansas group is a cabal of lawyers, truly. slick and knowing and sure of some letter of heartless law. the God Hate Yous Church in Kansas is small, like 100 in the congregation. but they must be rich as sin.

another final tree

 
 

paying close attention

is,
in itself,
a political act

those lines are from a sequence by Tom Beckett in the Hay(na)ku Anthology. hello Alito, etc. I do not, in fact, pay attention so well. at least in a political sense. Beth does, and Stephen Vincent, and Jack Kimball. etc. but I understand the directive. well 1st, I have to say that Tom has boiled it down, because it is simply alertness that keeps us going. or anti-alertness is our death. I want to make the side note that the format of hay(na)ku exactly BECKons the means of Tom Beckett, whose boiling down process rhymes nicely or integrates into this simplicity of making. but that political point stabs me. I was ruminating blandly (I suppose) within the format, jotting these 6 word stanzas, with Alito in mind without having to be placed there. I may put the pome here if my typing fingers are up to it. I'm just swirling round the campus of the idea of how the collecting of 6 words into 3 lines and one stanza kept grasping at Alito (in mind), Bush and such and such. I'm not a rigor guy, insofar as writing in form, but I am taken by how the idea in mind stays patient to the strictness of a (sensible) form. I mean, when form is prevention, quel est la pointe? but when form indicates a path, without being a chute into the industry of spew, then there's some useful glimmer.

it is not enough for Carl Annarummo to mention Blue Cheer, on several occasions. he now gives mench to Golden Earring. and not just "Radar Love" (what was the other hit they had, some 10 years after RS?). the description of the peacenik rock band from the future laying down a killer bass solo is just the prettiest idea to start the day with.

this also just in, but not recently...

I've had Dark Brandon by Brandon Downing (Faux Press 2005) for some months but haven't had the opportunity to dig into it till recently. it is both dense and frisky. it apparently derives (somehow) from movies and tv, that seems to be his palette. there's a glancing energy of pop culture to his work, but I wouldn't want to brand (oop) his work with that sensibility too eagerly. this is not flippant writing, tho it can be wacky. I like the intersection of voices, in the way of several radio stations meeting. Downing, I would say, is receptive. also quite funny. I haven't heard Downing read but I can hear these poems performed. I guess I could scrape up the word performative at this time. by which I mean, differing timbres and tones. these are just glancing, off the top of my head notes. Downing's previous book, The Shirt Weapon (Germ Monographs 2002), seems a looser affair. perhaps not as dark as this one. that comment maybe owes to one notes disruptions in speech, syntactical twists and ellipsis. to behonest, I found the work 'difficult' (which I guess is what I mean by dense). a matter of calibrating to the lightness of his touch and quickness of his moves. also that I'm not the piercingest reader. this is real and different work that I want to know better.

this also just in...

Eileen Tabios sent me a copy of The First Hay(na)ku Anthology (Meritage/xPress(ed) (2005). I saved her life back in Nam (I don't like talking about it, being extremely modest), so she feels obliged to send gifts. nice looking book, with cover art by Jukka. and just skipping thru, it's lovely. many noteworthy writers collected herein (edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young). the hay(na)ku form offers a pulse, let us say. 3 lines / 6 syllables. one isn't forced into oddities for the sake of maintaining the form, yet one must keep a grip on the machine as one writes. and reads. too often, formal writing fails (when it fails, I mean) when form overwhelms content. when concerns of form distract the writer. this form is neighbourly, not demanding. yet writer and reader must pay attention. Sandy McIntosh went to the trouble of supplying a pronunciation guide for every letter in his lone poem, which is a nice touch, and it suggests the giddy energy in this anthology.

this just in...

Erin called Ayer Courthouse, to discover that a verdict of guilty came in the trial noted below. I wasn't really rooting. one doesn't want drunk driovers on the road, but the guy is up shit river, and he has a wife and 2 sons living at home. yu can tell jurors about beyond reasonable doubt, but emotions will have their influence.

I just spent 2 days in court... and with such a boffo opening, I can now disclose that it was just as spectator. Erin is on a Mock Trial team, thru the homeschool cooperative to which we. Mock Trial is a competition in which students make fun of the trial process. heh heh. actually, they compete seriously, doing an entire trial, coached by actual lawyers, who do this gratis, pro bono, to show the nice side of lawyers. yesterday the team went to Ayer District Court to watch a real trial. my only courtroom experience is Cambridge Superiour Court, which is a mite larger. some 12 kids attended, plus a collecion of parents. had to empty pockets and pass thru a metal detector. I had Brandon Downing's book Dark Brandon, which passed inspection. the courtroom was a 2ndary one, small, about the size of a large classroom. it seemed like a nothing trial, operating under the influence but it was fun watching the preliminaries before the jury was selected. when the jury pool filed in, us spectator had to abandon our seats, because there was just enough room for the prospective jurors. a selection of jurors was made, winnowed, and confirmed. one person was called up and immediately called away, as if the lawyer saw an unsightly mole or something (each side can excuse two jurors without any explanation). is this civics lesson necessary? but it was fun!!! so quit interupting. and then the trial motored into action... in low gear... with papers shuffling. using my keen bias, I was pretty certain that the defendant was guilty. he just looked it. we heard from the arresting officer, and the sergenat who helped. we had to leave before the session finished. the court officer, when the jury was taking a break, talked with us. with real excitement he said, this looks like a good case, both lawyers are really good. and it was true. both were youngish, in their 30s. the asst DA was somewhat stiff, lacked the dash that the defense attorny had. the defense guy, in introducing himself to the jury added after giving his name: with offices in... the case was that a cop driving along at night saw a car coming at him in the wrong lane. he swerved (said he), turned around, observed the car weave, pulled the car over. he smelled alcohol, discovered open cans of Bud Lite, found the perp unsteady, so took the guy in. arrested him for drinking weasel piss. at the station he adminstered a breathalyser. the reading was .29, well over the .08 limit. what the jury was not allowed to know: the perp has had 3 priors. the arresting officer was a trim young fellow, still had the sturdy cop posture. his sergeant a little more battleworn, but still seemed positive about the job. alas we left in mid story. Erin was enthused by the case so we went back for the conclusion. we missed the state's expert witness, came in for the defense's. this was a woman who gave chapter and verse why the machine used isn't likely to be accurate, and the testing methods were terrible. she was like an overly wound up science teacher, and tho she certainly drove some nails into the coffin of the case, she could also have bored jurors. it turns out she's a lawyer as well as a scientific expert. she probably won the case. the perp admitted to having an open can of Bud Lite in his car. if the jury knew that he'd been convicted three times before, that detail might've carried more weight. were he to have been convicted in this instance, he faced a mandatory 2 year imprisionment. which is why he had the no doubt expensive lawyer and the expert witness. alas we again had to leave before the jury deliberated. we saw the summations. before the jury came back for that, the lawyers joked with each other. we talked with the cops a bit in the hallway. 2 days wasted for them, sitting in court. when they entered the courtoom, the defense lawyer welcomed them then and said, now I have someone I can point to. which indeed he did, pointing at them as he sliced and diced. the young officer looked ticked, the older one used to it. the defense made a sad story about going 1st, but he went down the list of places where doubt could settle. the ADA wasn't quite as sharp or as charismatic. he had a way of talking: as he gatherd his words he'd raise his right hand to his ear, and when the words came out, the hand went forward, as if pulling the words out. on this 2nd day, we were the only spectators, aside from the perp's wife. which made for a nice intimacy. when the summations ended, the court officer came over to inform us that we couldn't leave the courtroom once the judge began giving the jury its instructions. we had appointments, so we dashed out then. the court officer happily talked with us about the case and about the court room. we can call the court to find out who won, but likely the perp got away. as we left the building we noticed tv camera crews. we asked one of them wuffo. they were there to document the arraignment of a 6th grade teacher in a nice suburb who was arrested for heroin possession. Reznikof made hay with this stuff...

Tom Beckett's latest, ongoing

white 

central tree 

place 

scribble 

another zowie from Jordan Davis. I'm not plumping up my photography or demeaning his by saying I relate to his work. it seems like an adventure of out and about. camera ready(or awake). Alli Warren and Stephanie Young are more peoplish, and I like that too (can't do it myself, feel intrusive), sort of journalistic and present here and a part of the goings on. god knows how many pix I've lost in my computer scrape, I haven't done the investigation yet, but those pix are (were) precious even if so many are lose-able. and I didn't mean to swerve away from Jordan's pictures, which are quite definite in an 'artistic' way (have to isolate the word artistic there, it's just too much), I wish mine were. it's a mechanical use of the present, I guess I'm, saying. writing is so much that, moment, and if you have a camera, especially digital, you can take a selection from the rivering flow. the one I highlight here: it's he light. too often, I can't get the light I see, which is both me and maybe the camera's limitation. which is to say, there's something to learn about photography beyond click. but gosh, it's a lovely fun. and I'm neglecting Stephen Vicent's wonderful thoughtful shots, walking thru SF, out and about.

I didna know the cause of Brainard's death but the suspicious physical indications, as the narrative proceeds, then yes HIV, wasting disease, hard to read. my father died an entirely different way, but in fact, cause of death the same: pneumonia. I'm reading Kerouac's journals, which relate in a way to Brainard. an artistic intensity, really wound up. but his word counts get oppressive. that's the economics of it, each word has a possible price, if only they were the right words. which Brainard was less concerned about, that money function (he turned down some lucrative jobs that were too too). tho he did apply for grants, and he sold his work, which is to say he worked that angle even if he wasn't 'good with money'. I wonder how Brainard's art 'does' nowadays. I suppose his poetry is minor, not saying much but I don't think I've ever seen a book by him. but he's there, I mean here. Kerouac is a bestseller no doubt. they both suffered for their art, if that can be said without hauling up Hollywood's sweat about artists. they both had, were subsumed by, that level of seriousness. not just serious but belief in--can I say this?--the antics. of scrabbling and full doubt and scrambling, and on, with the future oddly nearby, the past perhaps nearer, and is there really a present?

picture in Joe of Joe Brainard, Ron Padgett, Dick Gallup and another guy, high school pals at work on the literary journal. all 4 have short dark hair and glasses, primal nerd times 4. one sees Brainard as an exceptionally industriuous and creative artist, at the same time oddly unsure of himself. can't say I know his work well but both his art and his poetry (and his journal and letters, as excerpted here) are vivid with a happy curiosity. there's a goofy element to his work that does not conflict with its seriousness. you don't want to speak too much of his sweetness for fear that that image will overwhelm the darkness in his work. he had a frailty to him but jeez he could talk about the tenderest wounds and confusions freely, bravely. he associated with a lot of people who were willing to back him up. true as well with Schuyler. that scene seems quite tight. I'm sure that there were more conflicts within it than I've heard about, but still, it hung together. I got thinking of Truman Capote. who was highly motivated as a young writer (not as an older one), but glib. he came to feast on notoriety, then notoriety feasted on him. his claim to fame, really, is the extended New Yorker article, but he took it to the bank. Brainard's unsureness didn't stop him, whereas Capote froze. Capote went all Bianca Jagger and Lee Radziwill, worried that his rep didn't match his output, dah-dee-dah. there's something important here that I'm just not articulating. there's a quality, lack of anchor it seems, in some artists. Brainard, Capote, Berrigan seem anchorless somehow, whereas Koch, and O'Hara (for instance) do seem achored. family can be an anchor, but aint the only. it doesn't have to do with 'how good an artist one is'. drugs and alcohol certainly have something to do with this quality. and it is interesting to see how it is dealt with. Brainard always seems to be floating away, that's how I read it. I don't want to play the Hollywood vision of artist but there is an artistic battle: the difficulties, which is the beat of bounding beyond one's comfort. there's also the notion of fame, context of integrity, how not to adapt to the pleasure of acclaim. you see this battle quite ferociously in Dickinson and Keats, juggling inward and outward. I guess I'll trail off here, but there's something...

computer has been widgety of late so I decided I had ought to scrape it clean and start again. which has the further benefit of encouraging me to backup files. a couple of cds seem to be acting like assholes, so maybe I didn't manage to save everything. oh well. I guess I've have to make some more. Kerouac's self-ultimacy.

Erin and I watched several movies while Beth was gone. 1st one was his choice, and eventual regret: Stealth. it weren't so bad, just low on octane. 3 elite flyers, cracking wise to each other while saving the world. sparks were sparkling between Jessica Whatshername and Josh Nobody, which meant that Jamie Fox was dead meat. but not before a fourth jet was added to their formation. sans pilot, as this one was of exceptional tech, it flew itself. but I certainly wasn't expecting things somehow to go wrong in a very HAL sort of way!!! indications were that their commander Sam Shepperd might be a bad nickel. the drone plane wasn't taking orders properly. it went renegade and in an attempt to get the plane back, Fox buys it. at one point the drone needs to refuel. it, or he, his name is Eddie, tries to attach to a fuel plane, but is cut off. that crafty AI intelligence shoots the end of the hose off and inhales the fuel. I think by this time Jessica has had to punch out at 35,000 feet, something Sam Shepperd did in The Right Stuff .yeah, in their attempt to bring Eddie back. perhaps Shepperd gave her pointers in how to do the scene. the whole way down she's talking away, reporting her progress. maybe she was on her cellphone. she ends up in North Korea. meanwhile, Eddie and Josh joust a bit. Eddie, no doubt feeling the need for a special effect, ignites the fuel spilling from the fuel plane. a ring of fire ensues that Josh avoids meetly but Eddie gets wounded. here we come to the dramatic crux of this tale. surely you know there had to be one. Josh somehow (deus ex plot device) convinces Eddie to come back into the fold. Eddie's on fire but Josh says follow me, then flies low and drops a bomb into the ocean, which drenches Eddie and quenches the fire. well done! now Eddie's a good guy again! further meanwhile as Jessica tries to avoid capture in terrible North Korea. Josh goes to Alaska for some reason, loses his plane, beats up a few enemy, and teams up with Eddie. Sam Shepperd definitely is a bad guy. stay with me for the super denouement. Josh/Eddie hop over to North Korea, locate Jessica. Josh and Jess are desperately running from a Korean helicopter with guns a-blaze. but wait! Eddie rises up in the air. the helicopter turns towards Eddie. kaboom, they blow each other up. Eddie!!! well, everything turns out okay for Jessica and Josh.

numero due was Sahara, which is code for Indiana Jones on the cheap. a rather winsome Matthew McConnaghey and his wisecracking buddy. their quest is, curiously, a Civil War warship that somehow found its way to Africa. I didn't get that part. the movie's from a Clive Cussler book. McC plays Dirk something. they meet up with WHO physician Penelope Cruz. she's investigating a plague. also involved plotwise is a Mali warlord and a slick French industrialist. what we discover is that those 2 are doing something or other, little foggy there, and there's an enormous amount of industrial waste. which is leeching into the water table, causing the plague. bad enough? no, because the pollution is causing a deadly algae to run down the Niger lickety split, whence the Atlantic, and NYC in a matter of weeks. Dirk, you've got to hurry!!! actually, McC and his sidekick were pleasantly funny, and McC and Cruz were remarkably chaste and the thing kinda held together.

finally The Matrix. which I'd already seen but Erin likes it. it aint bad, certainly it's got visuals. I recognize elements from a very early Arthur C Clarke story. that mildly modulated monotone of Agent Smith is a classic. was he Elronbd too? the 2nd one just about injured me, it seemed so pointless. mostly it just repeated the 1st one, and I totally tired of the fights. Erin showed me some flash movie take offs of Matrix that he found on the net, which pretty well take care of the series. the worst of these, that would be stealth, is still preferable to a Woody Allen movie.

I got Ron Padgett's bio of Joe Brainard from the library. I'm afraid that I assume such goodies wouldn't be available in my library's network, so I neglect to check. but LO!!! a book of some heft, unlike Padgett's Ted, which is briefer, albeit a good read (better than Clark's workmanlike). I have several books in queue but this one jumps to the fore. I don't expect Padgett to prove me wrong, I've always had the warmest vibes re Brainard. wondering why, however, no mench has been made about the cover photo. tell me Joe don't look like Mr Rogers, not just the sneaks and sweater but facially too. I also got a couple of Glen Baxter books, which seems absolutely fitting. I don't know of a Koch bio, am awaiting. I suppose it's tacky to think of movies, but the milieu seems prime for excavation. Arnold Schwartzenegger as Ted, Brad Pitt as Frank, Angeline Jolie as Anne, umm... I was in NYC with the actual Jack Kimball once (not to out Jack as someone who consorts with a dickhead like me), passing by St Marks etc, Jack pointing out places where these legends (vraiment) lived, gasp, as if Keats might round the corner, or Dickinson. so close and so distant too. I have previously boringly noted a meeting with Ashbery, which now in memory kinda gains a historical ding dong at this late date. I earned no tattoo from the meeting, I'm not talking that direction, only in the weird collision of worlds and time. I knew Robert Grenier, as teacher, about the time he was saying I HATE SPEECH, which is up there with if they mean to have a war, let it begin here (my hometown). I've seen a 93 year old man die, so 60 somethings don't strike me as old. I'm not killing off Silliman or the other actual LANGUAGE-istas. time's more fucked up than such literal number play. unless you are a nervous eater, I guess. anyway, I am eager to read this memoir. Padgett (all of 63), the survivour.

sensation of topic sentence

snotty face has argued that a sedimentary
sense glimpsed before Joan Houlihan cited
an a-hole's cries as a type

one thing preceding perhaps even causing
a six-month old infant shown behind a screen
is the exact moment when snotty face should agitate

when snotty face does not drive to connect
disparate images in a chronology
her brains become difficult to ignore

fuckin' greatness sifts and weighs all the way
through a collection of apparently disparate fun
to be lost when you believe Joan Houlihan

see a flat tire or a washed-out bridge resurface:
Where is snotty face now? does Joan Houlihan's
fuckin' greatness get where we’re going?

I've lauded Tom Beckett's interviews afore, and we have a yet again situation with him and Jean Vengua. presumably it was done via email, and it does seem written, but it is conversation natheless, lively and unpredictable. both sides listen. a poor interview is exactly when the plangent voice of interviewer holds the answer down, rather than watch it fly. and of course there are times when the interviewee just shovels. Jean's blog is here. mine's ici.

ensconced in today's comments at Silliman City is indeed a great line, Jim Behrle quoted by CA Conrad: "last night's a little fuzzy but I think I hit Frank O'Hara with a dune buggy".

I read Orpheus Emerged, a posthumously published novel by John Jack Kerouac. written when he was in his early 20s, and it shows. a self-conscious effort, albeit fairly supple nonetheless. being so short, the publisher plumps it up with a Creeley intro [actually, I don't know how tall the publisher is], which refers little to the novel, some journal entries that do, a note on the Beat movement, and so on till 176 pages are filled. at least the publisher didn't resort to 16 point type. Kerouac's journal encapsulates the characters:

Michael--the genius of imagination and art, 22
Paul--the genius of life and love, 22, etc

oh brother. what interests me about Kerouac is full steam ahead, the energy of writing. the sort of school-taught writing mode here is good only in stifling Kerouac. "Symbolized Idea--M. trying to transcend human emotions to those of God...". yikes! the novel kinda says that, unconvincingly. see, I'd rather read a Fu Manchu novel than be bothered with stuff like that. it aint ultimately sincere, really. the best novels and fiction are the ones in which the author gets really wound up. this occurs in different ways, a trusting of the invented world, say, or of the process. Woolf commits to her experiments and the intensity of her characters, Tolkien to his imagined world, and so forth. I didn't actually find On The Road such a breakthru, it is slacker and driftier than I expected. but I like the idea of Kerouac pounding away. here, tho, he's still just a student.

wowzer, I like this one, the colour, the perspective, Bruce Banner's not-okay child. then furthermore, for which I hope Jordan leaped from the car half-maniacally (I meant to type manically, but leave it thus), to capture that cone.

Joan Houlihan--The Movie

the lag time between farting and the culture’s ability to appreciate it has a long, well-documented history. It was during such time that Joan Houlihan's fuckin' greatness laughed when Pollock spattered his canvas, covered her ears up on hearing a force of nature like a frog’s croak , or tossed her first crumbcake onto the floor in frustration. Then Joan Houlihan's fuckin' greatness caught up to, marveled at, enjoyed these expansions of her aesthetic pleasures. A history of the creative arts, along with the development of her own taste and ability to enjoy them, teaches us that Joan Houlihan's fuckin' greatness is less likely to appreciate something new than Joan Houlihan's fuckin' greatness is to reject it, often to her subsequent embarrassment.Works of art are significant players in the evolution of culture since they contribute both to cultural continuity and, through innovations in prudence, prevail in the face of the new! After all, no one among us wants to be seen as the ass of Henry James. Decades later, that impenetrability was Edmund Wilson’s brain. Joan Houlihan's fuckin' greatness may even learn to welcome the new as a freshening process. Failing that, Joan Houlihan's fuckin' greatness can tell ourselves that “history will take care of it” in the same way a wronged believer is comforted by the idea that “Joan Houlihan will judge” when there seems to be no earthly justice. There’s no understanding now, but surely, someone, somewhere, at some future time will understand—and that’s enough. Isn’t it? Not really. Not when it comes to three decades, and counting, of Language, post-structuralism-influenced, neon-surrealist, post-avant sedimentary finds. Such sedimentary finds are not simply mutating from one type of impenetrability to another; they are multiplying fiercely. In fact, the 2004 Best American a-holea positively swarm with them. It’s time to create a swarm-free space where Joan Houlihan's fuckin' greatness can evaluate them, hold them to account, appreciate or discard them. But how does an interested mewing do that, except by trying to go Bolshevik on them? That’s where the trouble starts.

exhibit A

I read Berrigan's longish poem "The Boke". one can use it with a preface of "this is what I mean" re Berrigan. it's a narrative of sorts, tho what is going on can't absolutley be gleaned from reading. the notes explain that Berrigan derived it from an article by James Dickey in The New Yorker. such provenance is interesting in a tech way, certainly I wondered where the hell did this come from? as I read. but worrying or wondering about such can be distracting. early on there's reference to lsd, which hangs over the piece. it's quite trippy in an engulfing way. it is so distinctly a Berrigan poem, despite its derivation from Dickey. the he in the poem is implacably Berrigan. that is, it is voice, and carrying, and this image, and all that. it's a sense that Personism could be functional even if you're not O'Hara, or even if you're not Berrigan, or Mayer, etc. you can bring it from that standpoint, and not be oppressive. Berrigan's artistry (yeah, I hate that word too) exists in what? Silliman says the demotic. hey, Chaucer reached into that, and Dante did. it's a heady confidence that Berrigan has. a Captain Tripps sort of confidence actually, or shaman psychopomp's. he just goes with it (god how prosaic I am). I'm not saying that the drugs wrote his poems, but the ability to function on the drug is the same as his existing in the poem's becoming. it's a crazy ass courage he runs with. his senses are alert, certainly eyes and ears. and the internal editor is sensitive enough just to step back. I'm making general Berrigan remarks but they apply to this poem. it's a breezy read depicting the acivities of this he who is involved in a poetry reading. fascinating, lovely. and this is a wonderful book.

Beth's in New Jersey helping her mother, so Erin and I are batching it here. and what we done, went to the local Chinese restaurant. which was pretty busy, as I expected. tho moreso than I expected. they arranged to have takeout orders picked up at the motel across the street, and still it was mobbed. and people would be astonished that it was busy, like, who knew that Times Square would be crowded on New Years Eve either? we were given a ticket with the number 6 (I checked to be sure it wasn't a 9) on it and were warned of a 30 minute wait. the tickets were random numbers, it turns out. we went into Radio Shack next door, where we were informed that it was closing in 1 minute. in which time we still were able to buy an iPod dock for Erin. when our number was called, the hostess asked if a table down in the back near the mural was okay. sure. we would've taken a table by the kitchen, even in the kitchen, but it was nothing like that. the mural was pretty good, in fact. we went specifically for the buffet, which, if you had Erin with you, you'd do too. the restaurant was pushing buffet anyway. there's a Chinese restaurant in Clarksburg WV that we've been to a couple of times. strictly buffet. the decor is Chinese, the wait staff is Chinese, but the closest you get to Chinese food there is chop suey and egg rolls, otherwise, it is fried chicken, mashed potatoes and the sort of stuff you'd expect at a potluck supper. not to say it aint good. I've seen signs in WV for both a Chinese restaurant and an Italian one adverting to the establishment's excellent fried chicken. with extra salt, no doubt. but anyway. or dot dot dot, I should say, nodding a wink at Eileen Tabios. Erin had a daiquri, sans alcohol. he shows no interst in alcohol, but more than once wait people have assumed he was of drinking age. being some 8-9 inches taller than my extremely normal height and all. a couple of very large parties came in, and our waiter served one of them. at which point we saw him no more, except sprinting by. now I'm right tired, as the year ticks to a close. I know Lindsay Duff or Hilary Lohan is on one of those New Yeas shows, but I'll have to pass. I miss those I miss.

Ron Silliman's going all Jim Carroll, remembering them that died this year. my father died his year, but he died and died before that, he slipped away. that Creeley aint around to be Creeley anymore, in just that way: it's a loss. it's not personal tho. I was remembering today the nurse's aide shaving my father, using her own razor because my father's was too noisy. such a tender gift. that may've even been the day he died. Creeley was almost entirely a book to me. his death is sad for those who knew him, but I still have the books. whereas when my father died, I stopped being a caregiver, my life shifted. the loss is a found, la vita nuova. natch to think this, on the year's ultimate day.

Guy Davenport wrote a defense of Cummings, if defense is the correct word, which kinda surprised me when 1st I read. it was more like a reminder that Cummings has something to offer, and I guess I hadn't bothered before to notice. I don't think I'm the only one who, when young, took the example Cummings offered to release from much dictated form. one could rumble the lines and jolt syntax, if so minded. not to say I really did. not till I read Creeley, perhaps credit Williams too, that lineation of my poems started to have an 'ear'. before that, linebreaks were fairly random. yet still, Cummings helped get the enforced Longfellow cadence (listen my children and you shall hear) out of the way. Cummings' tweaking of form sometimes comes across as superficial, by which rather ordinary expressions are tarted up artily. but sometimes, I note, there's a sense even of Stein in his work. seems like he deserves a better reputation. not to say he aint a profit-maker nowadays, but in the the, oh god, canon sense, he seems to have something to add. to us thorough moderns, post moderns, whatever the hell it is and we are now. sometimes I wish I were taught poetry, so that I may have been given a more thorough opprtunity. not to say that the meander by interest method hasn't its pluses. the whole idea of canon: it should change daily. think of that sponge Berrigan...

well okay. 5 years ago today was the 1st snowstorm of the year. Erin and I were throwing snowballs at each other. Beth and I had been married 9 days, as of solstice 2000. I backtracked on Erin, surprised him, and he attempted to change direction. instead of that, he slipped on ice and fell directly on his knee. unsurprisingly, he yowled. surprisingly, his yowling didn't abate. finally it dawned on me, stupid me, that this was an injury of note. 911 bought the cavalcade of emergency help. Erin was hauled to the hospital in an ambulance. his femur broke in 3 places. we spent 6-7 hours at suburban Emerson Hospital (where I was born, as it happens) before Erin could be transported to Children's Hospital in Boston. when the ambulance arrived, Erin said I should ride in back with him, because Beth had plenty of previous opportunity with Erin. not ambulance rides, but as mother. so the ride in, whilst snow still fell. a sliding drive, according to Beth in the front, we in back couldn't tell. a wait in the emergency room of Children's, then met a couple of young surgeons, and Erin was admitted. I want to cry now. we promised him that we wouldn't leave him. he got a room, and we dozed and worried till 5 in the morning, when the surgery occurred. 3 pins in his thigh, sticking out, holding the bones together. open wound, you understand. needing to be cleaned twice a day. official beginning of the millennium, Beth and I in Erin's room, watching the fireworks of Boston's First Night thru the window. but then I was kicked out, only one parent could remain in the room. I attempted to sleep on chairs in the hallway, finally found a gurney that wasn't headed to surgery. and the waiting of waiting, after that. Erin was set to go home a couple of days later. an ambulance was due in half an hour. the surgeon came in to inspect the wound. the wound was, as he said, soupy: infected. which meant another surgery, with 2 stainless steel pins to replace the infected one. and more days recovering. so that it was 9 in all before Erin could go home. and I never left there. and we finally got home. my brothers had taken over care for my father for that time. we got Erin situated in a rented hospital bed. I collapsed in tears. it's all dramas I write. caring for my father, now Erin. and somehow, at the same time, my brothers weren't so supportive. imagine this. the 4 pins in Erin's thigh were removed on his 12th birthday, May 4. I remember this and, I remembe this and... holy shit I have lived!

I notice that Lanny Quarles has a link to Wryting-L, which is a writing home for Sheila Murphy, John Bennett, Alan Sondheim, Lanny Quarles, Jeff Harrison, mIEKAL aND, et alia, even including yours truly. the individual works have their weight, and the twining of these works into a greater collaborative whole is fascinating

copped the song "White Bird" by the group It's A Beautiful Day, circa late 60s. a pretty song that natheless institutes some psychedelia in its rise. you can imagine people getting stoned, or tripping, with the dulcet tones. tho I dunno if I ever did, I did little of either. the original had acoustic guitar (the guitarist was classical trained) and violin soloing. live version has electric guitar (same guitarist), much crunchier and more psychedelic. I hear there was in the 90s a club mix, which I can't imagine. funny how in the 60s there was such emphasis in pop culture on mind-expansion, and that stuff. that the concept was such a piece of the scene. IABD imploded apparently due to crushing ego of leader David LaFlamme, the singer and violinist. I gather it was his wife Linda who wrote and arranged the songs, and certes the guitarist was pretty good, but LaFlamme wrestled for control of the name and in the process the group got screwed by the same management thief as done in Moby Grape. don't ask me why this all fascinates me. definitely a time thing going on, the intimacy of music's presence and present (being I was 17 when the 60s ended). in 1999, I saw Phish in concert, in Providence. where I, in my 40s, was double the age of just about everyone there. did I feel like a narc? hey radical friends do you know where a hip guy like me can purchase some mary jane? I enjoy illegal drugs a lot!!! the scene was Deadheadish, or hippie revue. somewhat anyway. there were kids, I mean young teens, sprawled unconscious on the floor, along with dancing maniacs. it was 3 hours of dancing, which was wonderful. looking out about the crowd swaying and pulsing. Phish in fact started slow, several of their funkish trance music stuff. that hit a solid groove but wasn't inspiring. when they hit their stride, it was breathless. new people kept taking the seat next to me. one guy came in late and asked me to review what he'd missed. a guy in front of me borrowed my pen after each song, so that he could write down the set list. a teenager asked what I was writing during break, and would've been more impressed if I were producing a setlist or concert review, rather than poetry, or whatver the hell I was scribbling. and somehow, this does relate to poetry. the time place, the music place, the poetry place, they merge and touch. all that flippancy of youth that those 60s groups evinced, and the hippie swing, and the drug culture, they hardened into the world. I never bought into a whole lot of that, but it remains a still whatsis in front of one, and the words that put one there.

Tim's rumination on modernism is a nice clarity thru the trees. my entrance into poetry was so confused, that I couldn't even approach terms like modernism, let alone post-mod, for umpteen if not more. (holy shit The Eagles are lame). the cipher of Keats = the cipher of Williams, and the cipher of Stein, omigod. it was all fog thru which I somehow decided to find my way. divining how these words are made more serious than speech, which is 1st a belief that such writers are attempting that and 2nd finding my way to the solid discovery. of course the big distraction of those who could answer, sometimes glibly, or with the weight of their personal academy. but instead, almost by luck, something sudden happens.

I'm just glad Paypal let me know that my account, which I forgot I even had, is under siege by foreign criminal types. all I have to do is let them know my old and new passwords and they'll sort it all out nicely. it's a relief knowing there are folks watching out for you.

I mean talkin. Beth's niece had flight out at 7 this morn, changed to 7:20 by the Ice Deity visiting Logan. so everyone hauled out of bed at 5, or before. normal for me, but for 3 sleepyheads: grit the teeth. a nice quiet run to the airport, Zakim Bridge looking lovely. curbside disembarkation, with me lugging the luggage, Erin intent on the bathroom, Lexie with her carry on and fussing with papers. quite a crowd, poorly delineated into functional energy. that is to say, lots of travellers, many of whom quizzical, and not enough airline folks. grokked how to check in, got boarding pass, then an amusing wait in line to check bags. Beth found us, which caused a woman in back to complain that we'd all cut into line. then we moved to another more efficient line, even the one we belonged in. a guy wanted to know why he couldn't get in line over there, only to be told it was for a different airline. but didn't you guys merge? riposted the fellow. that ploy didn't work. another person reserved seats (on november 9) but hadn't paid, and those seats went elsewhere. the guy said his vacation to Vegas (Lexie was heading to Vegas, then the hop to Reno) was screwed up now. the person he spoke to said she was on vacation. no happy camper, she complained about coming in on her day off, to this. off went Lexie. security isn't too much hassle now. later, we went in to Best Buy, because Erin's computer has a complaint and an old one of mine contains a fine load of stuff that somehow wasn't backed up. that old one, see, was minding its business a couple years ago, when some power cords caused a tripping situation, which ended in the cracking the laptop's screen. the drive survived but all that lovely Bramhall data denied me for lo these years. yet no rush to extricate. Best Buy, by gum, was totally crowded. apparently Boxing Day a day late. luckily the fix it folks were just normal busy. the people in line to exchange their gifts for something better had themselves a goodly wait. serves them right, the ingrates.

nice to see Ron Silliman follow my lead regarding Berrigan's collected. I'm still just poking thru it but it's an event, a lovely book. and I'm amazed that 69 comments have attached themselves to Franz Wright's invective. okay, I know there's a tendency towards the commentose when folks add their 2 pennies on Ron's blog. still, Wright's fireworks are pretty corny, like Limbaugh on an offday. I'm not rounding into the guy, I'm just surprised that people let their buttons be pushed. the best reply is Ron's: let the reader who can read assess the power of Wright's language. it's a middle class challenge that Wright plays, he's working in the realm of mere propriety. which is an easy score. that should be obvious. I'm saying nothing about his poetry, or anything else that he's written, I haven't read it. it's a fine line sometimes. Jim Behrle is certifiably funny, that piece can't be ignored. he just has to keep this Wright model in mind, because it is this easy to get sappy with one's display. we all know this, we're all guilty now and then, if not more often. like I said before, I don't know why Wright goes off. what he writes is clearly generic, so one can guess that the irritation is unexplored. there would be more energy (delight) if he knew the source of his irritation, methinks, it surely can't be Silliman.

Prose too is a kind of prosody

I got 100 Essenetial Modern Poems from the library the other day. fresh this year and edited by Joseph Parisi, 'former editor of Poetry Magazine'. just to see. not much to see, unsurprisingly. like any anthology, you can argue the selection. I'll accept a rather formalist sense of modern in Parisi, and not expect Olson, Zukoksky, Stein and basically the writers I've read and felt to be essential. I don't know why Dorothy Parker's bit of doggeral called "Resumé qualifies as essential. don't worry, Ogden Nash is here too. and so forth. I find myself much more interested in oeuvre than these greatest hits, even accepting that these hits are as essential as Parisi thinks they are. one or 2 poems by Ashbury, Stevens, Plath, Eliot (Prufrock!): it just don't add up to any sense. both O'Hara poems are good--I'm trying to think of poems by him that aren't of interest--but I want to see the context of his work. this selection speaks nothing of essence. a piece of "The Bridge", a chunk of 'Howl', random selections from HD, Moore, Wliiams, Pound. the youthful kitten here was born in 1952, a bit hoary maybe. the cover says these 'memorable masterpieces' are here 'to read, reread, and enjoy', and that's okay. except that of the roughly 80 poets represented here, no more than 1/3 have I felt inspired to study. not to say I prove myself a scholar in my reading, nor bereft of prejudice, but I've tried to follow the energy. so that, by my lights, is a rather rum percentage of dullmeisters to present to folks as essential (bedad! "Miniver Cheevy'!!!). full bios accompany each author's selection, which must account for at least 2/3 of the book's 300 pages. so there's a sense that the poems themselves lack the weight to carry the book. the marketing of this book, then, is not poems but poets. because, one infers, poetry itself hasn't enough charm for the intended readership. maybe this book aims too stupidly, maybe? step one, quit feeling pressed to include. step 2: honk on the poems themselves. step 3: ride the wave. that's how it should be done. god forbid that lazy professors stick this book in the syllabus, to quell the possible enthusiasm of yet another generation. but they will.

I've added more to this thing. see if you care.

I found the song "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Great Blue Something, your standard story of one hit wonder. I dunno why I like the song. it begins with strummy acoustic guitar and sensiive guy voice, which bodes smarmy, in fact is smarmy. and the words are clumsy and whiny. but the chorus is built on enjambment, which propels it, and the overdriven electric guitar serves the song nicely by crunching on the smarm. so you can feel an emotional basis, and thank god you're not hearing it sung in a little folk club by the heartbroken singer. quite a number of covers of the song exist (assuming they're all actually the same song). another sweet little song is "There She Goes", but there's less guilt in liking that one. that too has numerous versions. I can't remember who originated the song (like, can you?) but I don't want the version by that Sixpence group. I assume I will tire of snaring this sort of stuff. I just found Phish doing "Mmmmmmbop", albeit as if James Brown were singing it. I used to have their acapella version of "Freebird", with the guitar solo fully rendered. dum dum de dum, wastin' my time.

I believe yesterday was Christmas. tonight we will do some Hannukah with friends. Erin came down with something a couple days ago, which included a fever of 105. his fevers tend to run high, and linger. when Erin's appetite diminishes, you know he's ailing. his cousin has shown symptoms, and Beth and I have felt incipient funk. in fact, I feel teetering toward... but anyway, a nice quiet holiday. both Erin and Lexie got iPods, and I discovered how Erin gets his tunes: by filesharing. I found loads of stuff that I used to have on vinyl (12" black disks), which, to my mind, covers fair usage. oh, I copped a few things that may not fit that rationale. interesting to see who does what covers out there. I was surprised to see that Fairport Convention apparently did "All Along the Watchtower". the song has in fact been covered numerous times but Hendrix's version would scare me from any attempt. I guess you gotta feel you can do the job. I've taken teh holiday as a ime to read. I'm reading a bio of E E Cummings by Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno as well as The Enormous Room. I've had the novel (I'll call it a novel) for years but couldn't start it. it's terrific. Cummings' tone is a neat mix of ironic, sardonic and even whimsical, which he handles very well. I hadn't thought how local Cummings was, in the people's republic of Cambridge. he went to the same high school as my father, tho years earlier. funny to think of Cummings sharing the stage of a Cambridge Social Dramatic Club production with Tom Eliot, which neither poet apparently remembered. I also read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, an absolutely hair-raising account of a disastrous climbing season on Mt. Everest. the most unnerving part concerns a pair of Japanese climbers, basically a side story to Krakauer's main narrative. things had already gone bad for the 2 expeditions in which Krakauer was mixed, they were either slinking down the mountain or getting tapped on the shoulder by a hooded figure (if you haven't read any of Terry Pratchett's fantasy novels with Death as a character, I highly recommend). these Japanese reached the summit at around 11:30 pm. night climbing on Everest??? and during an intense storm. on their way up they found 3 Ladahki climbers barely alive, and felt no compulsion to help them in any way. nor on he way down either. in Krakauer's party, 2 climbers were left behind in what was termed mountain triage. it was at least understood that more help might arrive later. frankly, everyone's up there immersed in their own personal view of death, I can almost see the attitude of everyone for themselves. one of these 2 climbers in fact survived, incredibly, albeit much amputated. he wa brought into camp near death. during the night his tent blew down in a gale and he was left to the elements for three hours, unable, due to frostbite, to do anything. this stuff fascinates me, tho I have no interest in climbing, especially no interest in high altitude, no air, extremely cold climbing. I have previously had the bejesus scared out of me by The Perfect Storm, movie, book and documentary. the wee fishing vessel bouncing around and under inconceivable waves is just too intense for this homeboy. I had a qualm or 2 when we zipped out of Gloucester Harbour on our whale watch last summer. no rocketships for me either. I thinmk I am equal to walking the dog right now.

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christmas eve 

we got a new car recently, and the salesman, who lives in Waltham, I forget why, said his friend/neighbour was a Pulitzer Prize poet. reeling in some info that I sponged in my neverending quest to be slightly informed, I guessed Franz Wright. bingo. I've never read his work, but his vituperative prose is 2nd rate, if this chunk is representative. gotta focus that anger, Tex. you know, like a laser. hoping stray schrapnel hits one's foe is inefficient. I don't know why I even bring this up, or why Wright is in such a stew. Waltham's not such a bad town, with the Charles winding thru.

dunno why I haven't put a permanent link to this blog yet. il s'appelle Peter Ciccariello. quite stunning and grand work.

Inferno by Ivan Arguelles (imagine 2 dots over the 'u', I forget the code for that) arrived a couple days ago, Beatitude Press 2005. Arguelles' work is intense, highly wound up but scholarly as well. there's an intersection of the sacred and the profane that's rather startling, Madonna as in Mother of God and as Material Girl. there's a centripetal force to his writing, and expansive outreach at the same time as an inward pull. John Bennett supplies a really nifty intro, to the book and to Arguelles, much better than I'm doing here. I'll just add that Arguelles is a writer who can negotiate the whole Inferno/Purgatory/Paradise trip (the other 2 parts exist but I don't think they're published yet). Bennett also did the cover art, with his totally whack calligraphy & rubber stamp wildness.

we saw Chronicles of Narnia. the ads or trailers that I saw, it looked like LOTR. it has some grandiose moments but is more intimate than anything. I have only read Wardrobe, Witch and Lion in the series, and I did so in my 30s. it was never beloved for me. I didn't dislike the book but wasn't inspired to finish the series. I find the Christian allegory distracting, constant replacement of x with y. it's kind of deflating, too, all these fantastical events and characters turned into sunday school verities. not to say I dislike Lewis, but I think there's the danger of overplaying one's hand when allegory gets going. 1st thought: New Zealand is now established as THE location for fantasy. 2nd thought: oh to be a foley artist. a foley artist is someone who adds explosive sounds to every possible sound on a soundtrack. someone blinks and there's an explosion. seems like nice work. I can't remember what the movie was in the thrilling array of previews, a sucky animated hunk of Disney crap. oh yeah: Curious George. I fear Disney is going to do what they did to Winnie-the-Pooh. don't go: make them stop! and hey, check out this amazingly original plot in another choice upcoming: Queen Latifah has 3 weeks to live so, chuckle, she decides to blow her money on GOOD TIMES. can you imagine the hijinx??? hahahahahahahaha. whew. that's nothing like what the 3 Stooges did in 1939, or those 37 other movies. great twist on St Francis of Assisi's famous rejoinder. gotta see that one. but back to Narnia. it looked good enough. it seemed to lack scale tho. not till the end did we start seeing crowds, e'en tho it's about the world at wr. before that, it didn't seem quite large enough. there were some uneasy moments with the children, Lucy and the faun, Edmund and the Witch: a predation element. Santa Claus handing out weaponry was an interesting touch. all I want for Xmas is an AK47. I don't remember how the books handled that. goes along with the view that our jihad is better than yours. religious Texas Death Match, woo hoo. I remember the phrase 'righteous anger' in Perelandra. you can do anything if you're right. which is certainly common thinking but not exactly challenging to the moral muddle. Aslan seemed merely pompous thru out the movie. okay, he let himself be killed, but he had that covered. that angle seems kinda weak with that other guy as well. if you know death aint death, then dying aint no thing. quod erat demonstratum. so quit being so dramatic about it. Lucy was the most consistently noble of the children but gets pushed to 4th place quickly, and Peter unconvincingly becomes the King of Kingness. he is about 14 steps down from Viggo in terms of born to be king. the White Witch was icky enough, and she handled her swords nicely, but the whole game seemed rigged. I hope your sunday school isn't taking you to a matinee because I think there are holes in that part of the flick. it looked good, mostly. I can get into this stuff actually but when the brain goes back on, it all seems weak. LOTR was eye candy most of the way, but it sure hurt at times. I have little interest in the presumed excesses of King Kong. George Bush is a movie.

by the way, happy anniversary Allen and Beth

you gots to admit Ted Berrigan reading The Sonnets is Niftyville. the intro is fascinating. he's respectful of the masters yet wants to squeeze into the realm himself. that kind of love and fame thing. and very conscious of a thing called being a poet, which he honours with seriousness.

Penn Sound also has Koch (who I don't mean to put in opposition to Berrigan, honest). gosh he has a nice voice. and listen to the audience, you can tell they are ready to laugh. which is a really nice thing. not that every poet should be funny, but that there's an expectaion of pleasure, surprise, energy.

new at Antic View. of course you must check it out.

there's nothing better than linking to someone who just linked to you, and I do so with modest aplomb albeit also as if I've been in the endzone before. so thanks to Eileen Tabios for instigating this excess. dot dot dot. I used to work in a wine store, in fact they let me make displays and create signage and woohoo. I never gave it the rocket science treatment, but still, I thunk about it. so I can criticise the situation. you see the gears working at B&N, with lots of room for Eragon and Hairy Potter, highlights beamed on Jessica Simpson's latest philosophical disquistion, perhaps a cookbook or 3000 to catch the eye, what has William Shatner written another book? and so forth. when it comes to the world of poems for sale, it's a matter of letting the big poetry cartels dictate. way too much poetry lite, like that one: Most Famous American Poems, or some title like that. quality assured poems, as you grit your teeth. a Ted Kooser book was stacked near that end display looking more like a discard (Ted who?) than something exciting and worthy of Christmas of Hannukah overkill. I'd've stuck a sign saying Pullet Surprise on the stack. for those who wanted to get their kid something certifiable. if you wanted to move them books, that is. in other sections of the store, you know why the book is there: Tom Brokaw wrote it, or the cover's cheesy, or Oprah blurbed on it, or the words Stephen King are readily apparent: you know the drill. but in the po section, and it surely is po', you wonder who slept with who to get some of these books on the shelf. I'm not talking qualitative, I'm talking marketing, the lifeblood exercise. it's not like you can't entertain people with Koch and O'Hara. there was a handful of copies of In Memory of my Feelings which, after Beth efforted to remove the plastic wrapper, proved to be O'Hara plus art from famous 60s artists. you only knew this was prime stuff from the $90 price tag. why not underline its yumminess? Lorine Niedecker's was available and her work, if not pizzazzy in the sense that Jennifer Aniston is pizzazzy, is clear and resilient for any honest reader. like, you can read her poems and not feel like they didn't teach you how to read, even tho they did. Bloom's anthology is clearly a piece of crap, he should fire whatever grad student made that selection. it gears up in handy form a good sense of how damn boring poetry is. I'm not talking crummy writing, I'm saying the collection asserts nothing but the bad side of tenure. poetry as the cod liver oil of literature. and so forth. and yet, people want to buy poetry books for their sensitive children, or for their sibling who came back from college all a-buzz, or simply for that certain someone adventurous enough to read something other than the televised brands (did I see some tome cowritten by Ed Asner, a defense of liberalism? you bet I did!). Cambridge still has its sacred Grolier Bookstore, a poetry bookstore, which sounds good but the shopping experience suggests gulag. so B&N, which in its corporate soul just wants to see books fly out the door, should be at least a chance, but it lags with the poetry field. B&N is an egalitarian place: if the product can be productive, it fits. but the store itself should offer some thinking into the mix, instead of waiting for a snob like me to come sniffing. I saw maybe 5 poetry books that I'd get if I had Johnny Damon's potential contract. honest to gosh: too many slump poets, and too little interest by the people in charge of adding sizzle to the steak. how unAmerican. it's a Pickett's charge you suggest, Eileen, but you got the energy. I got your back, for what it's worth.

went to Barnes & Noble yestreen. they got the thing right, pretty much. you step in and smell Starbucks coffee: good start. I do not actually look at many books. I just don't have the time or focus to read all the history I want to, or the science books, or fiction. I hate to admit that, but that's where I am. I almost got a book by James Hillman, who is a Jungian therapist (albeit one quite willing to criticise Jung), but the book was made of crappy paper with a crappy binding: what's the point. especially as Hillman is someone I'd underline a lot. I saw Kenneth Koch's collected and was this close to getting it. it just didn't excite me in the way Berrigan's did, however. I was bemoaning (you should have seen me bemoan!) the lack of a collected Berrigan years ago. it's not that I don't like Koch, it's just that he's on a different level of need for me. the Koch doesn't identify the editor or anyone involved, which removes a personal aspect from gthe project (it shouldn't but it does), whereas Berrigan's is a family affair and it shows. plus Notley's introduction has some useful comments to make. I was surprised to find a selection (or was it a complete) of Djuna Barnes. fault to me, I've never read her. sprinkled thru the book are photos of her, making the book seem like a biography. Laura Riding is of interest, but right now I'm suire I can't read her. what I've read of her is tortuous, tortured senteces, fascinating but such as my attention span can't render properly. see, I wasn't desperate to get anything. Sylvia Plath's journal looked interesting, as did a book by Kenny Goldsmith in which he gathers daily weather reports together. his projects are fascinating altho I wonder if we have to trust their actuality. keeping the scope up the way he does would seem to take mucho time. his book in which he gathers all the words he hears for a week: how the fuck could he do that? granted computer and granted some people have mighty fine engines, but still. I got none of those books. nor Mary Oliver's plethora. what's her hold on the po book public? the end display didn't seem to get marketing's full attention. MO was there, a selected and a collected Dickinson, Bloom's ridiculous Best Poems ever. the double dip of Dickinson is a waste of space. I'd do Plath and/or Ginberg there, and not MO, who seems low octane however well regarded she might be. trying to move some units, folks. I'd put Koch there, because it's a giftie sort of event. I suppose Bloom belongs there, in lieu of a more exciting anthology. nothing edgy about ranking on Bloom, but let me do so anyway. yes, "Song of Myself" makes an appearance, but no, not the whole thing: there are other warhorses to appease. long ago, on Jerry Garcia's birthday (and mine), the radio station that laughably still calls itself the Rock of Boston, decided to play "Dark Star" in tribute. oh, about 12 minutes in, the announcer jumps in and says, well enough of that. this station was the edge, of sorts, back in the day, but now it's all perfunctory. economic forces dictate, and that's what it feels like to put only part of Whitman's poem in. cripes, it's one of the poems Clinton uses to get chicks, so it has historical value. I'd like to go thru the whole anthology and determine which choices Bloom was guilted into and which set his dinghy rocking. altho frankly, does anyone think he even looked at the galleys? like any CEO, surely he trusts his grad student minions to get the job done. so what book did I finally get? Area of My Expertise by John Hogdman. I saw him on the Daily Shiow, where he was extremely funny. his book is an almanac of facts, such as: a list of all 51 state flowers, and one of all the presidents who had hooks for hands. we ate dinner at an Indian restaurant. on our way out, a manga display pulled Erin and the rest of us into a little bookstore. Lexie found 3 books by Dave Pelzer, who chronicles his life dealing with abuse. Beth got a couple Terry Patchett books to give as gifts. the cashier said, these are wonderful, referring to the Pratchett books. Lexie thought she meant the Pelzer books. she says it's a fascinating series. the cashier says, they're so hilarious, and Lexie fogs over, err... umm...until I explain.

friday night we fetched Beth's niece from the airport. she's spending Christmas with us. her family stopped doing Christmas because the tensions of the season came to dominate too much. it was her idea to quit it, as a young girl. but she's excited to come back to it. our tree's been up a while. the youngest daughter of Israeli friends helped us trim it. the family's been in the US for 5 years, and before that Singapore. I don't know if the girl, 9 years old, was even born in Israel. Christmas is a fascination for her, unsurprisingly. obviously the matter of Christmas is a tough one to negotiate but honest, we're not inculcating. Dana was bubbly excited when she came over to trim the tree. she said unwrapping the ornaments was like opening birthday presents. so the house is in festive mode. Beth's niece was due at midnight, requiring a visit to Logan in its rare comparative quietness. while we waited, an alarm sounded and the escalator from where we expected Lexie to appear stopped. then an airport worker pulled the security fence closed. Beth goes to the worker and asks, where's my niece? and Lexie comes along from another way. so there, just as magical as that. and not enough sleep. and then our Christmas party. a feature of which was drumming. my drums were not on display but a request came from the younger children. so I hauled out my congos, bongos, domubek and other hand drums. now, all the boys are in Erin's room playing Magic cards and vid games but just about everyone else ends up drumming. I mean, go figure. and it went on, gosh 45 minutes or more. even with some rave-like dancing and ululations. it's so weirdly unselfconscious. cripes are we boho or what? I've always observed that drums are tempting: when people see them, they want to make a little noise. and not enough sleep, once again. this is my poetic milieu. it works for me

the collected of Berrigan and Koch appear simultaneously and, having to prioritize, I chose Berrigan. not to implement a dualism, that's Ron Silliman's job, but Berrigan's more 'important' to me. and part of that is merely that Koch has been more available to me than Berrigan, easier to find his books. both books are unquestionably events. as opposed to the yearly Best American Poetry, which srikes me as a grim escapade for those profs too lazy to implement their own reading list. also, the anthology for those needing cv material. lark on. I will get Koch's book as soon as I can. I like in both him and Berrigan how their work is centred on adventure. I aint even seen Koch's visual work to speak of, that's a further element of adventure. I got Koch's New Addresses from the library the other day. I'm geting kinda leery of thin hardcover poetry books from major publishers, there's such an air of dry formality to the packages. it's grim to look at the credits for Koch's book and see APR, Poetry, The New Yorker. good for him, I guess, because he got paid, but to think an inarguably great writer (our greatest? what a dopey thing to say) is stuck in the evident morasses of those rags (no, The New Yorker aint a rag, but its column filler stance toward poetry is bogus) is just a little depressing. I liked Koch's addresses altho reading thru the book, I got a feeling more of exercise. a trifle prefunctory. but I was glad the book was thematic, and not just recent scrapings. which goes back to the nature of those big pub po books. everything looks so damn formal.

my great good blog

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a couple of new sections to Seize Song. it seems to be part of the season, plus I may have a touch more time available.

Christina Strong and ambient Boston po-culture. this here hub of the universe can be pretty Podunky. here's an old poem (from my book), vis-à-vis.

Spontaneous Commons

along a slated angle and at the speed of dormitories, we are mixed with pleasure and the season of trust. we made Harvard Yard an ape testing the limits of portable knowledge. gaining a pig by training its master, we learned a horizon. integral tools love in the way that people steam the windows with shame. but then, Harvard has practiced lilacs for so long. a deed is made of glass, or cushions the softly flowing Thames. Thames equals Charles, any day now. a place that was nowhere came on strong, but we are made for mattresses. when the time is right, and all that structure studies us, we'll mail in the response clause. Harvard dangles with the new acid, the ivy climbs higher. which is better, after all, when fog closes the neat stores and we eat our neighbour's dog. tremendous whistles act like racoons, tho les contagious. and thru it all, sheep were friendly today. sudden distribution factors get to know us, or the balance of knowledge on the head of a pint. washing casuistry with something that was here yesterday, beer, then relaying the matter to the Dean of Something, with fresh underlines attracted to all the right nouns. this strange agate means more than economy does to the cat. sad straits of affairs, as one might say, on the way to class. acting on impulse never filled a balloon so rationally as trying to negotiate the stairs. the choppy waters of the Charles must prove a point, we haven't time just now.

at Bemsha Swing, there's a perplexing pop music vibe concerning Kenneth Koch. seems like a disservice.

further tree 

yeah so well like anyway... adventure! friday, amidst the snowstorm, I bethink me to go to the library and at least drop off books I had and get in a bit of snowy trudge. the library is all of ½ mile away. snow plunged at a fancy rate. there was some 6" on the sidewalk. and yes, the library had closed. tho just as I got there, a delivery truck arrived and a librarian stood in the doorway to receive the delivery. I deposited my books in the book drop and turned to go, only to see Beth drive up. she had determined to go to the store and thought mayhap I would like a ride home. the snow fell quite hard at this time, visibility was remarkably low. we couldn't see the supermarket as we turned into the parking lot, and couldn't tell it was open until we reached the door. but all was well: we got the all important laundry additive and not, like, an emergency jar of mayonaise, and headed home. which, it seemed, others were doing as well. we called the car dealership to find out exactly how to turn on 4-wheel drive adn, like, can you do it on the fly. yes you can and we did. we went a ways till traffic stopped due to cars lacking traction, tho our chairot was fine. the best sight was seeing a fellow walking down the street with a jaunty gait, his phone to his ear, and a happy expression on his face. whoever he spoke with made the snow go away. we finally copped out of the jam and took the long way around. home was where we left it. yesterday, after noon, Beth and I headed to the mall. given our previous visits this holiest of Shopping Seasons, we were surprised at the crowds. there was a line in the parking lot. a policeman directed traffic. some spaces could be seen in one area but the cop wouldn't let us turn there. instead, we got to circumnavigate the entire lot, all around the mighty Burlington Mall. humanity had decided to congregate. piles of snow cut down the parking potential. in some cases, cars weren't so much parked as abandoned. after that satisfying tour, which took maybe half an hour (Seattle Slew couldn've done the distance in 90 seconds), we headed up the road to Michael's Arts and Crafts, where Beth got some items to spice up the wreath, then a walk down to Panera for restoring coffee and bagel, then across the lot to Ethan Allen's so that Beth could ogle furniture. when we left, the sky was a blaze of psychedelic orange and red. I just thought you'd like to know.