cool photos by Peter Ciccariello, who also has a blog for his digital artwork here. I particularly like this one. I don't do a great deal of adjusting my pictures but if I thought in terms of the printed picture, I would do more. right now, I just hope there's some presence in the images. I have yet to print out a photo on good paper because I've yet to commit to photography to that extent. I will someday, when time and money.

as I walked the dog today I noticed a flock of starlings rushing thru the air. they headed directly towards a large oak, i. e. 'the scene', and settled in the treetop. the birds kept pouring in, until that first batch of birds, with a Malthusian inspiration, uproosted themselves away towards another tree/scene. the flow continued for a good 60 seconds with only brief breaks. I thought, whoa! that's a lot of contemporary poets! they were all, of course, voicing their starling opinions simultaneously. I don't speak starling but so much chatter must reach babelian levels just by sheer numbers. anyway, the contemporary starlings traveled on, then all was quiet, and peaceful.

Kasey Mohammad posted this link to the Bay Poetics discussion blog. nt really a discussion, it is Tom Orange's collation of commentary on the anthology Bay Poetics (Faux Press 2006). I like the idea of a presentation of different views (even mine are included, scraped from this very receptacle that you read now). the anthology is a particularly good subject for such treatment, being, what, a palimpsest or multiplicity. it has its manyness for one to sift thru. the blog, by being there, suggests an alternative to bouncing off to the next book, i. e., sticking with it. it hasn't the poetics intent of New American Poetry, but it is a substantial something that had ought to have a large audience. which almost leads me to wonder what is this generation's Howl or Cantos (poem everyone reads). I said it almost leads me to wonder. my comments used the occasion to consider poetry scene, Boston having its difficulties in that arena, whereas the Bay area. and I should reiterate that Stephanie Young is a reckon withable force, having edited this anthology, and writ the lovely Telling the Future Off (Tougher Disguises 2005), 2 awesome recent additions to the world as we know it. if she can play the solo for Freebird, well, we've got a trifecta. rock on.

sunday we drove around exurbanly. we came to a railroad crossing just as the gates lowered. a guy stood in the street with a camera. the train proved to be a freight rather than the more usual commuter. the guy was taking pictures. I realized I had a camera, so I took pictures of him. here's the link to my Flickr proof. he wasn't the only one who apparently knew the scheduled visit of this train, as several others also stood there waiting and watching. trains do kind of excite me. one regularly passes Walden Pond. rather than feel like an intrusion, it seems like another natural creature of the woods. and if it don't seem fit to have trains buzzing Walden, a train first came thru there a year before Thoreau went to Walden. file this under easily amused, I guess.

Erin got a chance to do lighting for a local play group. no experience needed. he liked doing it well enough to commit to doing more, even if it means missing one or two Halloween parties (at least he went to one last night, as a 6'5" ninja elf!!! (great costume, and he had the 6'5" part down pat)). we arrived to pick him up early, and watched the tail end of the production. Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. I don't know who this production group is, but it's professional to the degree that even Erin will get a little money. when we came in, standing in the doorway, actually, 2 characters were talking. then they started singing. which is standard for musicals but always seems so odd (I think of that character in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who wants to burst into song but his father always clamps down). I don't know why I assumed they would sing flat, but they didn't. a pianist played live backstage but it still seemed a hearty trick to sing in such circs, especially as the music isn't all that catchy. I barely get drama and definitely don't get musicals. I mean the one character is sitting disconsolately while the other sings advice. can't... wraop... around... that... I don't know the play but it is something of a collision between 4 fairy tales. the wife of the giant that Jack slew has come for revenge, and there's Cinderella, Rapunzel and what all. at one point, Prince Charming comes in from the back of the hall near where we eventually sat, singing grandly. it's all rather alarming for my delicate sensibilty. a nice camraderie amongst the troupe, and the director called out the lightning folks or a good job. Erin was in charge of a tracking spotlight. I don't know what sort of set, if any, the production will have. I once saw a bare bones production of The Magic Flute, with 3 musicians playing onstage, costumes but no set, and much of the action occurred thru out the audience. that worked well. I also saw Nutcracker long ago, and it is impressive, even to say magical, to see all that theatrical whizbang.

I found Led Zep's Moby Dick (live version) on Limewire. came with the comment, best drum solo ever!!!. well, whatever. took me a while to appreciate Bonham. the contrast of his precision, and JP Jones's, with the looseness of Plant and Page (call it sloppiness for Jimmy), made it seem like Bonham was off the beat. he aint. he sometimes tries to put too much in fills, which can be impressive but also distracts, but his beat is rock hard. "Moby Dick" is like Cream's "Toad", with a ripping rock guitar intro then the band walks away as the drummer shows off. I can't imagine Elvin Jones making such a mess of things. jumping from one rhythmic bit to another, no cohesion. Bonham's impressive, I'll admit, but it's still largely boring. it's nice when he starts hitting the drums with his hands. I remember in high school, someone was crowing about the Zep concert the night before. he couldn't get over that Bonham used his hands. that was enough for him. reminds me of whatever beer commercial, which bespoke the virtue of the beer as being that it's cold. not cold brewed or something like that, just cold. as if that were an intrinsic of the beer. anyway, Bonham used a monster drum kit. which always seems like a bit of baloney. I remember seeing Gene Krupa on tv, soon before he died I think. he had 5 or 6 cymbals, including one maybe 5" across. imagine that. I think you need only so much precision when yo're basically making noise. you listen to his work with Benny Goodman (I used to listen to Live at Carnegie with my father), and his drive is apparent thru out. Bonham's solo lacks drive, he's too busy shifting gears. drum solos always seem like a bone for the cheap seats. my memory of Ginger Baker was of his drubbing 20 minute solos (I saw 2 in one night at a Cream concert, yawn), but listening to some Cream stuff lately and his drumming is quite tasteful. just don't solo, bub. I suppose my favourite drummers are Elvin Jones and Dave Mattacks (of Fairport Convention). Jones makes such definite statements with his drums, give them such presence in the music. I saw a thing on PBS about Coltrane, and there's Jones saying how incredible Trane was. Jones has a faraway look in his eyes as if he can't believe what Trane did. coming from Jones, I mean. Mattack also gives incredible presence. what he doesn't do, the air between the beat, comes alive. that's good drumming, when the silence reverberates. so in conclusion, folks, rock on.

awesome photos by Brandon Downing at his site. architectural shapes and light framed as motion, etc.

contributor copy of Otoliths issue two, part one arrived yesterday, via Lulu.com. a very friendly gesture on Mark Young's part to supply this hard stuff for an online publication. it's a nice range of work. two reasons exist why you might consider purchasing one of the books published by Mark under the Otolith imprint (or is it an aegis?), to wit: the work is good AND you support an effort to get the work out. see, the world is working on ways to free up, isn't that it? hadn't we ought to lend a hand?

our trip to NYC, 2nd version, having lost the 1st to the evils of whatever the computer did (twasn't me, I swear). must give shout out to Bill Luoma's book, from The Figures, My Trip to New York, fine, skewed, earnest language. poetry, that is. yeah so lst version of this travelogue disappeared into the ether. such is writing, then you start again. see, Erin won tickets to the Digital Life conference in NYC. the odds may be greater NOT to win tickets, but it was an excuse to go somewhere. and we had Erin do the planning, just to go all parental upside him, what can be better than? I think it was his inspiration to bust down to Beth's mother's place in Jersey, where we could doss, and the next day take the train to the city. this all sounded green. redder aspects developed, insofar as Erin needed to attend Mock Trial class friday afternoon. and a last minute auto repair necessitated our leaving this area at 5:00, on a friday afternoon, at the beginning of a perfect weekend. begorrah! others, I'm guessing 17,003,001 people, thought they'd do something similar. so it was a slow haul on the Mass Pike and into Connecticut. leisurely dinner in Sturbridge. we reached Lakewood after midnight. we worked out that a train from Pt Pleasant could reach NYC properly and we made the train with 3 minutes to spare. Beth's mother came along. lovely trip. the pretty Jersey Shore and the marshes of NJ. it's funny how the delicate ecological niche of the marshes is zackly where is plunked the hydroelectric turbines and gas tanks of our national energy pastime. as I partake of that jolt, I can't complain, but it is an odd contrast. you see a lone fisherman in a boat, or dabbling ducks, in sight of intimations of massive power, incorporated. and you can believe there are gangland plantings here and there. fascinating. also to recall the evocations of Mark Helperin's Winter Tale, tho its whimsies paled on 2nd read. we reached Penn Station all comfy and right, then came out to the broad city where, according to Erin's best info, a shuttle bus would shuffle us to the Javits Center. we saw nothing of the kind. I betook me to the informational window down below, where I was pitilessly informed that no such shuttle was known about, and that no buses are down here. naught that I could say but, first removing the straw from my mouth, I shore thank you kindly ma'am. armed with that info, I returned to the street. there I enguired of some doormen, knowing full well that they must know all perinent infos. neither doorman knew of any shuttle buses but they'd heard of the Javits Center, even to the point of being able to direct an out of towner. so we walked the 6 blocks. this is only the 2nd time I'd been in NYC. the Javits Centre was your usual airy enormous urban show off place, and as such, right in my wheelhouse. I love such spaces. it was pretty crammed with people and confusion. we first of all had to refuel, especially the teenager in our midst. at the table next to where we ate sat a tableful of young women wearing short plaid skirts. took a few grinds of the gears before I realized that they were part of the show. we entered this show past an irritable gatekeeper who forthrightly advised exiters that they were using enterer's space. the tractor beam caught Erin immediately, and he disappeared into the crowd, tho he waited long enough to hear where we would meet eventually. the rest of us tepidly tiptoed in. it was loud as a throb, music and crowd noise. I was immediately overwhelmed, and like the rest, tired as tired (lack of sleep the night before). it was all just a trade show. as such, it really lacked. it mostly preyed on those wishing to be informed, or who wanted to buy something right away. the young women in plaid were a counter revolution. as were the 3rd echelon girl group (I think I'd heard their name before) who sat charmingly (or beseechingly) at one booth and signed autographs. they almost exuded glamour. I mean it wasn't like meeting Kevin Federline's wife but people seemed to be queuing up for something. there was a Miss Napster in attendence, and some other merchant had young women with purple hair performing something on the half hour, tho I never witnessed it. mostly us older generation just sat and rested our weary. several overheard conversations rested upon how the Mets and Cards played close friday then suddenly the Mets handed the game over. ten years ago, this show would have attracted 99% techo-geeks. now, it was a full cross section. 3/4 of the space was given over to gaming. the rest was for people into pictures, movies, phones, whatever. Microsoft, and supposedly so was Vista, was there but Macroapple wasn't. I was struck how toothsome a display of sleek colourful phones was. not for me, because I hardy do phones and aint looking for new ways to spend money, not to say music downloads and all the other etc aint got appeal. people looked and drooled. one site had karaoke. I saw 3 white guys doing "Insane in the Membrane", which seems like the dumbest of singalongs. "you must be insane / aint got no brain". rap, from my uncultured viewpoint, possesses a rhythm and touch that gets murdered by amateurs. what got me was seeing the man doing the boards for the performance singing along with the 3 guys. everybody now, "insane in the membrane / insane in the brain..." I also watched the tail end of a Dance Dance Revolution contest. a monitor flashes where to place your feet and you try to keep up. my only swag came from Verizon, a keychain with light and 2 cds with games. finally, we got Erin out, and headed for dinner. we found a shuttle bus, which dropped us at Penn Station. next door to Stage Door Deli was Tir na nOg, ah, land of the young. an Arsh pub. well, Arsh enough. I told the hostess a party of 4. she said 15 minutes. a waitress immediately came along and whisked Erin away (Beth and her mother trailed us). I looked at the hostess then followed. so we had a leisurely dinner. a couple of British pints under the belt. I knew Shanna Compton and Mike Magee were reading at the Bowery Poetry Club that day, and if I could have gotten there, I woulda. New York, New York!!! the bit about finding out where your train leaves 10 minutes before it leaves is nervous making, tho common. Beth asked an information person, who troubled to look up and tell us, before it was even posted on the board, which track we could find our train at. seemed like secret info. so we entrained and made it home. tra la. I love trains. my trip to Cambridge passes Walden Pond, and that thrills me every time. now today, we made it home.

I'm enjoying Stephanie Young's Telling the Future Off. the felicities are in the class of the best New York poets with surprising yet not jarring leaps. the humour doesn't romp (try David Larsen for rompishness) but lends a hand of warmth. the poems are sweet and serious without those qualities being at odds. there's also a generous sense of space, an openness that can be tender, angry, sad. very fine work.

both Blogger and Hello have given me crap whilst trying to upload pictures so now I try my friend flickr.

quickly to note Stephanie Young's use of 1st person plural. I use it a lot as well. for me, it avoids that maelstrom of 'I'. 1st person singular tempts a certain dull storytelling urge. which is not to say many fine poems aren't writ in it, you just have to watch the potholes. furthermore, there's a warmth to 1st person plural that I aspire to. and Young has that warmth. mixed with the subtle skew of her imagination and humour, her poems reveal an intimacy that doesn't carry intimations of secretiveness.

we gave Erin a sample of the CLEP test for English and he didn't do well. CLEP = College Level Entrance Program and is a way for homeschoolers to get credits. Erin writes really well, naturally. I mean he has a distinctive, direct voice and ease. he complaiend that the test didn't make sense. Erin hasn't taken a lot of tests, and that can be telling. I decided t try the same test. the test was confusing. quite a few qustions offered 5 choices of which none seemed ossibly right. I missed 25 out of a 100 questions. I wonder about the whizbangs who create these tests. I don't pretend to be grammatical brilliant, tho most of my non-standard usage is intentional and I know what I am doing. but I take the matter of writing seriously, and have studied it and practiced it. I try to use English in an adventuresome way, as does Erin, as do many (not all) writers. such adventure seems antithetical to what CLEP's program is. yet CLEP doesn't seem to be aiming for clarity. poop on them.

we watched a show on Isaac Newton last week, made us want to get Principia. Erin's a bit more scientifically minded than Beth or me but we all three have interest in that direction. Barnes & Noble let us down concerning Principia (we didn't want to pay text book prices, yikes), and Opticks as well, so I tried Amazon. both books were available in their used book round up. I dunno what up with B&N regarding Newton, because it turns out that Principia is published by Dover in an inexpensive edition and I've gotten several books by the cheapo pub dom publisher that published Opticks. both copies were in new condition, too. anyway, I took advantage of this raid on Amazon to get Telling the Future Off by Stephanie Young (Tougher Disguises 2005). I'm pretty sure she's the real thing. I mean I've gotten away from excoriating what aint so real--let it moulder, sez I--but the urge to go ahem and point out a leaning towards tripe does build up at times. I trust Young, and I don't say that lightly or often. so I look forward to reading a full book by her. tra la.

The Difficulties, edited by Tom Beckett, was one of the best guerilla press pubs that I ran into in the 80s. Tom has issues of the David Bromige issue available which I heartily recommend. doesn't get old.

Best American Poetry 2005 isn't the type of anthology I like. one poem per poet doesn't work for me. I would prefer depth over breadth. BAP is not, Pinksy's blurb to the contrary, a comprehensive overview of contemporary poetry, the context is too blurry. this anthology makes me feel rushed, try this try this try this. Bay Poetics doesn't feel so, partly, I think, because of the local connection, it does feel like one gets a glimpse of the scene out west. plus most of the poets represented have several poems included. it's kinda weird with BAP that 30% of the book isn't poetry, it's all the back matter/front matter stuff. I know I'm late to the party in bashing BAP, I don't really mean to bash. I can see reading the book straight thru, make an evening of it. there are writers I like here, and forgetable writers (mostly the latter). I haven't looked at America A Prophecy, edited by some combination of George Quasha, Armand Schwerner and Jerome Rothenberg, in some time but I consider that a pretty good model for an anthology. much more adventuresome. that's true of all the anthologies I've seen the above involved with. overview anthologies are always going to have huge holes in them, they just gotta. another saving grace of Bay Poetics is Stephanie Young's aesthetics. definitely she makes Bay Poetics. this BAP, and I'll bet the rest too, has a middle of the road dynamic that doesn't inspire me. with such small sampling from each writer, stylistic differences diminish. the poems start to sound the same. but wait, check out this sentence from the blurb to Mark Doty's book:

"In a style chastened by loss into plainness but still capable of unforgettable lyricism, Doty searches for affirmation in the midst of suffering while at the same time refusing the cheap solace of any affirmation that would diminish the irreplaceable value of those we love."

must credit Alan Shapiro as the perp who wrote that nuggest, which caught my eye as I bethought BAP. it's such a preposterously fluffed up hopefulness on display, that poetry could get involved with solace and affirmation. I believe in that solace and affirmation, but it doesn't come out of a machine. I mean, is James Tate excited when he writes another poem? poem, that is, that is little different from previous and to come. I assume someone handed Doty a list of adjecives and urged him, perhaps on pain of death (!!!) to use them all. what bothers me with the poetry here, Doty and BAP, is that the skill set for writing it is pretty vague and unconditioned. I enjoyed some poems in BAP, not yet with Doty, but I don't get an idea from either as to what a good poem might be or entail. it is hard to say what makes these works poems. what the hell is a poem? it's not so much the point to answer that question, perhaps it shouldn't even be answered. but the question should be pondered headlong by anyone trying to write one. let's say that the question of what a poem is should be implicit in every poem. it doesn't wash to say a poem is a poem because it sounds like one, uses poem language, agrees exactingly with models of yore, etc. complacent acceptance of the norm aint poetry. it aint interesting either.