Book Review
I came across an interesting book review last week that touched on some relevant topics, especially coming into an election year. The book is The Bluest State: How Democrats Created the Massachusetts Blueprint for American Political Disaster, by John Keller and it was reviewed by Chuck Leddy for the Boston Globe.
Keller raised an interesting premises about how liberalism has been hijacked and used against the democratic party and about Massachusetts' role in this:
Keller's contention is that Massachusetts politics is both disproportionately influential within the national Democratic Party and also uniquely dysfunctional, leading the national party into the proverbial ditch.
Leddy then references some of Keller's colorful quotes:
He refers to the Bay State's brand of liberalism as "impotent snake oil that doesn't deliver relief for the working-class people it purports to help the most."
Keller accuses liberals, especially Kerry ("a prototype of the spoiled boomer, free to indulge his narcissism at every turn") and the Kennedy clan, of an elitism that antagonizes working-class folks both locally and nationally. Keller says the soaring cost of housing is pushing working families out of Massachusetts, as are growing crime and tax rates.And while Keller feels pocketbook and safety issues go woefully unaddressed, he points to gay marriage and abortion as central items on the state's political agenda, triggering ferocious, scorched-earth battles over issues that rarely affect working-class voters directly.
Is Keller on to something here? Democrats have been losing party membership and voters for years allowing the Republican party to set the agenda for the nation. Liberalism and political correctness run amok?
Click the link to read the Globe review: Taking some swipes at Massachusetts Democrats
or continue reading below.
Taking some swipes at Massachusetts Democrats
By Chuck Leddy | October 6, 2007
The 1991 comedy "Naked Gun 2 1/2" contains one of the funniest visual jokes in recent film history. A despondent Lieutenant Frank Drebin (played with bumbling genius by Leslie Nielsen) visits a depressing bar called The Blue Note to get drunk alone. The camera pans across the bar's bleak walls, where framed photographs show the burning Hindenburg, the sinking "Titanic," and finally a portrait of failed presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis.
In Jon Keller's "The Bluest State," the liberal politicians of Massachusetts, especially losers at the national level like Dukakis (1988) and John Kerry (2004), remain a running joke. Keller's contention is that Massachusetts politics is both disproportionately influential within the national Democratic Party and also uniquely dysfunctional, leading the national party into the proverbial ditch. A television and radio commentator on local politics, Keller isn't one to pull his punches. He refers to the Bay State's brand of liberalism as "impotent snake oil that doesn't deliver relief for the working-class people it purports to help the most."
Keller accuses liberals, especially Kerry ("a prototype of the spoiled boomer, free to indulge his narcissism at every turn") and the Kennedy clan, of an elitism that antagonizes working-class folks both locally and nationally. Keller says the soaring cost of housing is pushing working families out of Massachusetts, as are growing crime and tax rates.
And while Keller feels pocketbook and safety issues go woefully unaddressed, he points to gay marriage and abortion as central items on the state's political agenda, triggering ferocious, scorched-earth battles over issues that rarely affect working-class voters directly.
Keller argues that Shannon O'Brien's loss to Mitt Romney in the 2002 gubernatorial race was due to O'Brien's kowtowing to prochoice advocates, thus conceding the large political center on abortion to Romney. Keller also highlights the Rev. Eugene Rivers and his faith-based initiatives to quell gang violence in Boston. While Rivers's efforts have won plaudits nationally, their religious nature has "alarmed" many local liberals, notes Keller.
Keller collects all the usual suspects for his assault on the state's liberal political establishment, including the corrupt, mismanaged Big Dig, political correctness, rampant identity politics, and the hypocrisy of those who advocate loudly for fair housing and equal educational opportunity while living in affluent, lily-white suburbs with overwhelmingly white, well-financed school systems. Keller approvingly cites Boston Mayor Thomas Menino's humble salary, modest rhetorical skills, and willingness to put his home number in the phone book. Most shockingly, notes Keller, Menino refuses to view his current job as a stepping-stone to national political stardom.
Some of Keller's contentions seem over the top, as when he depicts Romney as some beleaguered Don Quixote fighting for the average Joe against the entrenched powers of Beacon Hill. But most of his barbs are well directed. Keller exposes the gaping hypocrisy between soaring, Kennedy-esque political ideals and the state's harsher realities, which are far removed from Camelot. Referring to himself as "a liberal who's been mugged," Keller calls for an end to "the silly, arrogant affectation that PC represents," and suggests that liberals drop into a Dunkin' Donuts or "hang out on the subway" on occasion to see how working-class people actually live.
"The Bluest State" argues that there is a growing alienation between the Democratic Party and working-class voters, a rift the Republicans have exploited for years. Keller hopes that Massachusetts Democrats will choose to look in the mirror and attend to the state's squeezed working-class families.
Posted at 05:09 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Seasonal Cuisine
If nature blessed you with an abundant garden crop of fresh basil then you, my friend, are in Fat City, for late summer, early autumn marks the perfect time to make pesto with all that garden fresh Basil. If you’re not a gardener most markets stock plenty of fresh basil at this time of year at reasonable prices.
Presto Pesto -- Basil Pesto with dry, chilled Rose wine
Mixed Green Magic
Here is what you’ll need for ingredients:
½ cup pine nuts
2 big bunches fresh basil, trim stems (I don’t like stems)
2 cloves garlic, crushed & quartered ( I prefer big ones)
½ teaspoon salt, (or more if you’re like me)
½ cup olive oil (or more as some of us less calorie conscious like it swimming in good extra virgin olive oil -- and then some of us (no names here) like to dilute the oil with water for fewer calories.)
¼ cup grated Parmesan Reggiano (or to taste - more oil, more cheese)
¼ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese (the pecorino has a bit more bite than the Parmesan – I sometimes use a ½ cup of Parmesan Reggiano and no Romano – it’s ok to play around with basic recipes)
Putting it all together:
Heat oven to 350. Toast the pine nuts on a lined baking sheet watching them very, very closely until they are very lightly browned – this should take 7 to ten minutes. I use a toaster oven and watch them like a hawk because they are no good if they brown too much.
In a food processor (a blender will do if you’re careful and light on the pulse) combine these ingredients: basil, garlic, salt, and pine nuts. Pulse the mixture until it is finely chopped.
Now the tricky part, with a light, steady touch and the processor running pour the oil in to the feed tube or blender in a steady stream till the mixture becomes a paste.
Presto! Transfer the pesto to a bowl using a soft spatula. Stir in the Parmesan and pecorino, serve hot over pasta or refrigerate and serve cold or at room temperature.
The pesto in the picture is served over Ronzoni # 10 Spaghetti which is the best dried pasta I’ve found. It has a good tooth cooked al dente 8 to 12 minutes depending on it’s mood or the weather -- taste at 8 minutes then cook to your liking.
Mixed Green Magic
Mixed Baby Mesclun Greens with sliced avocado, diced tomatoes, and chopped scallions with Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing.
Balsamic Vinaigrette
1 Tblspn Dijon mustard
2 Tblspn Balsamic vinegar
1 tspn maple syrup
Whisk together with salt and pepper to taste with a pinch of garlic powder until the mixture is emulsified.
4 Tblspn extra virgin olive oil drizzled in slowly and whisked maintaining the emulsified consistency.
Drizzle over individual salad plates to taste.
Now, plate it up, and break off a chunk of that Parmesan Reggiano to grate over your pesto, salt and ground pepper from the mill to taste, now pour a glass of cold Rose. Enjoy.
Viola. Bon Appetite.
Posted at 10:31 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poetry Feature
Dream
I woke from a dream that ended with me or Bob Dylan physically embracing a huge crowd of people below a staircase in a museum in Budapest or some old, historical, ornate palace somewhere on the European continent, and me or Bob had been chased into the only exit, the entry way, and this crowd of people, who looked like old friends and who were dressed in black trousers and white shirts with black suspenders, blocked our way, were trying to hold me or Bob back, trying to prevent us from escaping, and they were all extending house keys toward me or Bob, the keys jagged edges threatening me or Bob like brutal, ragged knives, and this crowd implored me or Bob, “Don’t break our hearts.” And I, or was it Bob, answered, “All hearts get broken in the end.”
John Twomey
Posted at 12:03 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
1 1/2 & Hellhounds on Our Trail
No reason for panic, Red Sox fans. Just because the Yanks are now only 1 ½ games behind us with 11 games to go, just because they are peaking while the Sox are sliding, just because injuries have some good Sox bats out of the Sox lineup and fatigue has overtaken our pitching staff.
Youk says "Ouch" as does the Nation
You don’t want to back into the post season, you want to go into the post season with momentum. The Sox have precious little time to generate any momentum, only 11 games.
The magic number to make the playoffs is 3, but the magic number to win the division is 9: that’s combination of wins and loses for the Sox and Yanks.
Manny’s stubborn oblique injury still keeps him out of the lineup. Youk’s sore hand and swollen thumb is keeping him out. And Coco Crisp’s cranky back is keeping him out.
Our pitching staff is tired, especially the Japanese contingent, Dice-K and Oki. Our storied trade deadline acquisition, reliever Eric Gagne, has been a complete bust.
The biggest disappoint of the season: the trade of Trot Nixon for J.D. Drew and his 6 year 60 million contract. What were they thinking? I’d rather have Trot hitting .260 any day than Drew and for a third of the money. Trot bleed red and was a certified Yankee killer; this Drew seems to have no fire in his belly, no personality and has not earned his salary this year. Bad trade.
Julio Lugo. Not as bad as Drew, at least he plays the game with passion, but com’on he’s hitting .249. To his credit he’s stolen around 30 bases and driven in 71 runs, but how many victories have they contributed to. We let Alex Gonzales go, the best defensive shortstop in the game because he hit .250. Bad trade.
Coco Crisp. It’s been a pleasure to watch him patrol center field and make spectacular play after spectacular play. And he’s finally got his batting average up to the .270s. But we expected that great defense and a .300 BA to go along with it. Tell you one thing, he’s no Johnny Damon. Bad trade.
I love to watch Youk and Lowell play the game. Youk is a quintessential Red Sox playah (like Trot Nixon). I’m happy that Mike Lowell is having a career year with a .329 average and 108 RBIs, especially going into a contract year with free agency looming. How does that work anyway, a lot of guys have great years when playing for a new contract.
Mike Lowell
And Papi, for Christ’s sake people refer to him as having an off year when his BA is around .320 with 30 homers, 104 RBIs and 45 doubles. Only in Red Sox Nation can that be considered an off season. Plus he’s been playing with a balky shoulder and a knee that will require surgery at season’s end.
Tell ya the truth, I never thought this Red Sox team was that good, even when they were 14 games ahead of the Yankees. Trouble is, nobody else is that good either. No team is dominant this year, being strong up the middle with great pitching 1 to 5.
Honestly, this is a difficult Red Sox team for me to love. For the most part they seem to be a little bloodless.
Let the Kids Play
One bright spot has been the play of the kids they brought up from Pawtucket, especially Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchhloz, and John Lester.
Jacoby Ellsbury
Bad News
As I write this, Timlin came in in relief in the bottom of the 8th against Toronto and loaded the bases, then Papelbon came in and gave up a grand slam home run. The sox lose 6 to 1. The Yankees are winning.
The Sox may go deep into the playoffs, they may even win it all, but it will not be something that I hold dear to my heart. Not this team.
Posted at 10:29 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Hellhound on my Trail
Hellhound on my TrailI got to keep movin',
I've got to keep movin'
Blues fallin' down like hail,
(Blues fallin' down like hail)Umm mmm mmm mmm
Blues fallin' down like hail,
(Blues fallin' down like hail)And the days keeps on mindin' me,
there's a Hellhound on my trail,(Hellhound on my trail),
Hellhound on my trail.
So sang Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues, in 1937. Arguably, the most influential and the greatest of all Blues singers and composers, Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil in return for his uncanny ability to play and sing the blues, and this transaction supposedly took place down at a rural crossroads, a site Johnson memorialized in the song Crossroads, famously covered by Eric Clapton’s band Cream around 1969, which some critics claim contains the best electric rock guitar solo ever recorded. Until recently, no photographs of Robert Johnson were known to exist, (he died at the age of 27 -- poisoned in a juke joint by a jealous lover), but relentless researchers have now turned up two photographs.
In one photo Robert is all dandified up:
Robert Johnson
But in the other he looks more like a devil driven Blues Man.
Robert Johnson
NPR named the Robert Johnson song quoted above, Hellhound on my Trail to their list of the top 100 most important American songs of all time. The songs are listed in alphabetical order, not numbered and if you click this link Hellhound on my Trail you can listen to an audio file (provided you have the RealPlayer download), from NPR’s All Things Considered a well written essay about Johnson by Peter Breslow (if you can stand his voice – do they teach that treacle intonation at places like Brown?) that has clips of both songs, Hellhound and Crossroads. But the essay ends up being more about Breslow than about Johnson, but good nevertheless.
The New Republic reviews three recent books about Robert Johnson and you can read the review by clicking this link: Love in Vain then choosing the Google link Love in Vain by Mark Pollizzoti that will get around subscription requirements.
But that is not what this is about
But this blog-entry is not about Robert Johnson, that is just deep background: this post is about the Red Sox, because just like ol’ Robert Johnson, the Red Sox feel something creeping up behind them, and their personal Hellhounds pound up the trail dressed in pinstripes -- the Yankees, as in New York, New York! From 14 games behind the Red Sox at one point in the season, the Yanks are now only 4 ½ games back.
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Hellhound Pettitte
Hellhound A-Rod
Hellhound Posada
Hellhound Jeter
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I got to keep movin',
I've got to keep movin'
Blues fallin' down like hail,
(Blues fallin' down like hail)And the days keeps on mindin' me,
there's a Hellhound on my trail,
Posted at 07:00 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Two Poems by Nadezhda Petrovic
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high noon on Camp Street
bang.
noonlight on the corner
buckled pavement, splintered fence
bang.
cars with shaded windows slow
to tango with do-ragged youth hanging
half-assed stumble strut
hands in pockets, holding
bang.
goods white goods white wealth
runners in sunlight blue
police heavy-bellied Big Macs
bang.
ass shot at brightnoon
on Camp Street, on the corner
next to the puked up French fries
and the syringe
under a cypress tree
in the red blue of a strolling siren
bang.
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Nadezhda Petrovic
2007
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low night on Camp Street
low in dark light
i am quiet
so small, a crumble
of thought, senses dusted
by the sax wail somewhere down the street
the ladies strut. their giggle wiggle
registers middle in my ear canal
input important not
night dance
smoky laughing mixed with
rats sniffing garbage
recycle
headlines and beer bottles
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Nadezhda Petrovic
2007
Posted at 07:58 PM | The Arts | Comments (2)
Moby Dick: A Review
On Deck
Action, stage right
I attended a performance of the Mixed Magic Theatre’s production of Moby Dick: Then and Now Friday night at the Wickford Town Beach. Live theater on the beach with sails in the sunset and a calm surf serenading the theater goers. An incongruous, peaceful scene for this jarring setting of Melville’s great novel Moby Dick adapted for the stage by the Mixed Magic Theatre’s Ricardo Pitts-Riley.
Pitts-Riley’s production, Moby Dick: Then and Now contains a play within a play where the crew of the good ship Pequod is juxtaposed with the crew of an inner city gang of minority youth doing battle with their own Great White.
The young actors playing the inner city gang put in a phenomenal performance. In fact all the actors put in strong performances. The action moves back and forth between the crew of the whaling ship and the young gang crew.
Ostensibly a symbol of cocaine, heroin, and the drug culture, the sub-text of the Great White these young gang members hunt for revenge could also be read as "White Culture", which holds out the promise of wealth, status, fame and fortune, and the American Dream, only to pull it back just out of reach time and time again as their own narrow outlook and the moneyed, corporate interests co-opt their culture and keep them on the outside looking in.
Nowhere is this made more clear than the scene where the youngsters are stranded downtown (while havoc is being wreaked in their Hood by a rival gang) and various hucksters come on to them: a lawyer, a white rapper celeb, a shoe company exec, a police chief whose wife is a social worker, who all join in, in a chorus of something like “There’s big money in this Great White biz.”
Of course it is a mistake to characterize the predominant culture as White (as in race) when the predominant culture (the world over) has no color: the predominant culture is economic: the color of money.
Yet the point is well taken. A powerful message read both ways.
Mixed Magic Theater remains an under-recognized, under-appreciated local treasure. I learned about this theatre troupe by accident: a carpenter I work with in my business has a second life as a thespian. He likes to go by the moniker “Jim Dawg”, but I just know him as Jimmy. He appeared as an extra in Armistead and productions of TV shows like The Brotherhood, and he is a member of the actors union. But it was as a member of Mixed Magic Theatre, under the tutelage of Pitts-Riley, that he blossomed into an actor.
Last summer I watched their production of Shakespeare’s
The Taming of the Shrew, in Pawtucket -- it was wonderful.
Mixed Magic Theater is a non-profit arts organization well deserving of any grant money they receive: if you don’t believe me, go see these wonderful kids and their mentors act their coal black and lily white asses off.
Before you shell out $15 for that next, must have CD, think twice, and send that money to the Mixed Magic Theatre.
I’d like to bring the Mixed Magic Theatre’s production of Moby Dick: Then and Now to Billy Taylor Park courtesy of the Greater Camp Concerned Citizens. It’s time for a little community theatre. To do so we will need donations, for I will not ask them to perform for us for free. It costs money for lighting, staging, and other production costs.
We will be in touch for donations. Anyone interested in helping bring this about contact me through the website
JohnTwomey
Posted at 12:54 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Some Art if You Will?
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.
Fox Point Rendezvous
Under the Red Sky
A Fallen Lily
Ulysses & Sterling: A Cat and Dog Show
Sinead Says, Hey . . .
I Do Not Want What I Cannot Have.
Desk
Desk (Process 1)
Desk (Process 2)
Desk (Process 3)
Desk (Process 4)
Desk (Process 5)
Desk (Process 6)
Help yourself: all images not copyrighted by John Michael Twomey.
Posted at 02:30 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Are the Tigers the New Yankees?
Are the Tigers the New Yankees?
Hello, Mt. Hope contingent of RedSox Nation. Halfway through the season, the All Star Break behind us, the dog days of summer ahead, it is time to once again assess the health of the Nation and the state of our team, our very special Boys of Summer.
Going into the break the Sox got swept in a 3 game series in Detroit, and it seems to me that Jim Leyland (arguably the best manager in baseball) and his Tigers made a statement, and that statement was: the Tigers are the new Yankees!
Jim Leyland, Manager, Detroit Tigers
Let’s look at these Tigers and see what kind of teeth they have. Detroit stands 52 – 34 atop the American League Central. The tigers sent 6 guys to the All Star Game.
At the halfway mark, the heart of the Tigers batting order features Magglio Ordonez, batting a league leading .367, with 13 homers, and 70 rbi’s: Carlos Guillen batting .325, with 14, homers and 67, rbi’s: and Gary Sheffield batting .303, with14, homers and 58, rbi’s: add in Placido Polanco batting .335, with an astounding 111 hits at the break with the rest of the order, and the Tigers carry an incredible Team Batting Average of .290 into the second half of the season.
The Tigers pitching staff is once again looking good after suffering through some serious injury time off in the first half. Only two of their pitchers, Verlander, 10 -3, and Bonderman, 9 -1, two possible 20 game winners, have pitched 100 innings. Kenny Rodgers is now back, and they have some youg’uns stepping up into their roles.
The Tigers may indeed be the New Yankees, and the Red Sox may well be meeting these toothy tigers in the post season.
Excuse me, now, while I go check out the state of RedSox Nation.
Stay tuned. I’ll be back shortly.
Posted at 07:53 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poem of the Month
For years I’ve been working on a little book of poems about drinking, called Drinking Songs. I’ve written a number of poems for this book, but I may never finish, because I feel as if I may never know enough about the subject. So, I’m still engaged in active research.
This one poem, Let us go to drinking wine, was inspired by two other poems, one by Raymond Carver, about Alexander the Great, and the other by a Chinese poet whose name I can’t recall, about using your time wisely while young. But I wonder, are all these poems really about drinking or is drinking just an excuse for a poem, a jumping off point. Whatever.
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Let us go to drinking wine
“Alexander drank his fill and passed out.
He had to be carried to his tent. He had
to be lifted, to be put into his bed.”
Raymond Carver, Wine
I recall a poem, though I don’t recall the poet,
But I know he was a Chinese sage,
And a wise sage he must have been,
For I recall thus his poem:
─While you’re young and have wine,
Use it to get drunk:
There’ll be no second helpings
When you get to the Nine Springs.─
From another poem I remember
Alexander the Great as a wine drunk.
Perhaps the greatest wine drunk ever.
He went through a lot,
Conquering the world and all,
Destroying great cities,
Killing friends and foes alike.
Me, I been through a lot myself,
Though I’m not so great,
I’m just drunk.
And I don’t imagine that when I get to the Nine Springs,
I’ll be asking for any second helpings.
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John Twomey
Posted at 01:26 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Female Phallic -- The Lily?
Can't a Man Just Love a Lily?
The Lily: Female Phallic?
Some people always interpret a flower in bloom as being a female phallic symbol, as they always interpret an erupting volcano as a symbol of female orgasm.
Jeepers, creepers, what will they come up with next!
Oh, by the way, this is just to say: the Lilies are in bloom.
Posted at 11:26 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Poem of the Week
Roll Off
Roll off the side of the ship, and hook up the IV to the dead millionaire councilman down in dry dock whose mentally ill sister is stranded in a Des Moines state facility. I can’t accept your charity or your chance encounter with luck, besides, we bear no relation, one to the other or the ur-other. Why bother, brother, if all we can hope to achieve is the ambivalence of the obvious connection. To all of this, I say, the Sunoco sign just exploded, but we were out of gas anyway. Mom & Pop soda jerks and the old soft shoe left over by the arcade remain pure nostalgia for the general audience. All of this left over stuff----does the most relevant matter or not, and if not, why, and if so, why not, and when and if you decide, let me know. The most important thing is that you mutter. Can’t hear a thing? Join the crowd that left just after the last seventh inning stretch for the next to last mission. Impossible? Just say no to that so that we can or cannot understand. Know what I, it means? The last thing we ever wanted was for you to be confused about our intentions, which were for your own good, as if we could ever hope for anything else, being who we are and who you are and whom we all hope to become.
Posted at 11:46 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Daisuke Mania Manifest in Fenway
Yea, the Dice Man Cometh
Dice-K's Debut
Yesterday, 26 year old Daisuke Matsuzaka, now know as Dice-K to Red Sox Nation, pitched in his Fenway debut. Unfortunately, he lost. The spoiler, a young man named Hernandez usurped Dice-K's debut by throwing a one-hitter at the hapless Red Sox bats.
Number 18, Daisuke Matsuzaka
Matsuzaka is now 1 & 1 as a Red Sox pitcher, and although not as sharp as in his previous win in KC, he did pitch well enough to win most games, but his opponent pitched an incredible game by any standard, a stellar, outstanding performance by Hernandez who many believe, at the age of 21, is on his way to an All Star career. We hope the same is also true of Dice-K.
This should be an interesting season, as the Red Sox reloaded on pitching in the off season, and the Yankees also strengthened their ranks, but other teams too are much improved and are ready to challenge the big spending Sox and Yanks for the AL pennant.
The 103 Million Dollar Man
So, Mt. Hope contingent of Red Sox Nation, take a bow, and welcome in the Dice-K Era.
Posted at 08:00 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Things Fall Apart
Poem of the Week Feature
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
1920
William Butler Yeats
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
What I love about poetry is that the poet him or herself does not know when writing the poem what it really means or what import it may have in days to come. The poet merely writes from what he or she thinks of as truth and the best of it remains as such, or at least a harbinger of such.
Take this poem for instance, written in 1920, could it have been
written yesterday about our sorry situation in Iraq. Absolutely! Our Post Modern and post-avant poets cannot write so succinctly lest they be called modernist, meaning old fashioned or worse yet, sentimental, as surely the avant garde in their day characterized Yeats in 1920.
It doesn't matter. Poetry reflects the times in which we live. The more complex our lives, the more complex our poetry. I wish roses were still red and violets were still blue, but, alas, that is no longer true.
What is true is that corporations rule.
Accept that as a given and proceed from there whenever you think of freedom or democracy.
Think about the so called facts that have been shoved down your throats.
Think about all the distractions that have been tossed your way to distract you from your own self interest.
Religion? Gay Marriage? Abortion? Gun Control? Morality? Family Values? Racism? Immigration?
Who cares?
What about taxes, jobs, health care, an honest voting system?
Have we been distracted from focusing on these important issues?
But I digress, what has all this to do with poetry?
Posted at 04:31 AM | The Arts | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Two Poems of Lucille Clifton
The Poem of the Week Feature
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the message of crazy horse
i would sit in the center of the world,
the Black Hills hooped around me and
dream of my dancing horse. my wife
was Black Shawl who gave me the daughter
i called They Are Afraid Of Her.
i was afraid of nothing
except Black Buffalo Woman.
my love for her i wore
instead of feathers. i did not dance
i dreamed. i am dreaming now
across the worlds. my medicine is strong.
my medicine is strong in the Black basket
of these fingers. i come again through this
Black Buffalo woman. hear me;
the hoop of the world is breaking.
fire burns in the four directions.
the dreamers are running away from the hills.
i have seen it. i am crazy horse.
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Poem in praise of menstruation
if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta if there
is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain if there is
a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel if there is in
the universe such a river if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave
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Lucille Clifton
Posted at 01:17 AM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A Death in the Global Village
Jean Baudrillard
Philosopher Jean Baudrillard died Tuesday. A Frenchman, Baudrillard, wrote many books, among them Simulacra and Simulation.
As a thinker, he pioneered the concepts of "hyperreality" and "simulation." a change in our post modern culture where simulated experiences and feelings replace authentic feeling and experience.
The Matrix series of movies were partially based on a flawed understanding of Baudrillard's thought and contained references to his philosophy.
In recent work Baudrillard dealt with terrorism: from the New York Times obituary:
“The Spirit of Terrorism: And Requiem for the Twin Towers” was published just a year after 9/11. In it, he argued that Islamic fundamentalists tried to create their own reality; the resulting media spectacle would give the impression that the West was constantly under threat of terrorist attack.
The current American invasion of Iraq is an effort to “put the rest of the world into simulation, so all the world becomes total artifice and then we are all-powerful,” he told The Times. “It’s a game.”
Posted at 05:21 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Poem of the Week
the proud
thin
dying
I saw old people on pensions in the
supermarkets and they are thin and they are
proud and they are dying
they are starving on their feet and saying
nothing. long ago, among other lies,
they were taught that silence was
bravery, now, having worked a lifetime,
inflation has trapped them. they look around
steal a grape
chew on it. finally they make a tiny
purchase, a day's worth.
another lie they were taught:
thou shalt not steal.
they'd rather starve than steal
(one grape won't save them)
and in tiny rooms
while reading the market ads
they'll starve
they'll die without a sound
pulled out of roominghouses
by young blond boys with long hair
who'll slide them in
and pull away from the curb, these
boys
handsome of eye
thinking of vegas and pussy and
victory.
it's the order of things: each one
gets a taste of honey
then the knife.
Charles Bukowski
An outsider artist, self-proclaimed "dirty old man" and reprobate, Charles (Hank) Bukowski lived and loved, most of his life, in Los Angeles. He began drinking around the age of ten and began writing poetry at the age of 35. He drank heavily his whole life and was legendary for it, but alcohol could not kill him and he finally died of leukemia at the age of 73.
A longtime friend of Raymond Carver, Bukowski is considered one of the first of the "Dirty Realists" a literary school of which Carver became the best known.
I know of 4 films about Bukowski, a television documentary in the 60's, the movie "Barfly" starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway, another documentary in 2004, "Bukowski: Born Into This," and a 2005 film, Factotum, starring Matt Dillon.
Many rock bands and artists draw inspiration from Buk's work, taking band names and song titles from his poems, novels and stories. The Americana singer and songwriter, Tom Russell, created a musical setting of Bukowski's great poem, Crucifix in a Death Hand, on his Grammy winning album, Modern Art.
Posted at 04:19 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poem of the Week
Wanting
Let me sleep with you
And touch your soul
while you dream
your dream of sleep
without stress
or waking before
dawn,
and I will love you
in a manner both profound
and profane,
sustained by nothing
but sheer physicality
and nearness,
earnest love,
hard by your legs
and crevices,
even your toes
arousing in me the desire
to engulf you,
to enflame you
with heat
and with a wetness
unknown by rain,
unseen by light,
but better,
better yet
than that solitary sun,
which burns not just
our souls
but our hearts
and leaves us wanting.
-
-
John Twomey
Posted at 04:05 AM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Poem of the Week
It
How will I know any of it,
The long and the short of it,
The end of it,
Or the beginning of it?
The crux of it?
Birth?
Death?
Ah, the in-between of it.
Instinct;
I guessed it:
Knowing that it is all
Shit,
Acknowledging it
deep in the gut,
Feeling it,
kneeling,
Kowtowing to it,
And reading it,
Writ large on the brain.
How do you know any of it?
Do you know any of it?
Does any of it make any sense to you?
Don’t tell me.
I don’t want to hear it.
-
-
John Twomey
Posted at 02:05 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May We Have Flowers?
A really good sign in Mt. Hope and everywhere. Hope springs eternal.
May Flowers
Posted at 04:31 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Poem of the Week
A Hill
In Italy, where this sort of thing can occur,
I had a vision once - though you understand
It was nothing at all like Dante's, or the visions of saints,
And perhaps not a vision at all. I was with some friends,
Picking my way through a warm sunlit piazza
In the early morning. A clear fretwork of shadows
From huge umbrellas littered the pavement and made
A sort of lucent shallows in which was moored
A small navy of carts. Books, coins, old maps,
Cheap landscapes and ugly religious prints
Were all on sale. The colors and noise
Like the flying hands were gestures of exultation,
So that even the bargaining
Rose to the ear like a voluble godliness.
And then, where it happened, the noises suddenly stopped,
And it got darker; pushcarts and people dissolved
And even the great Farnese Palace itself
Was gone, for all its marble; in its place
Was a hill, mole-colored and bare. It was very cold,
Close to freezing, with a promise of snow.
The trees were like old ironwork gathered for scrap
Outside a factory wall. There was no wind,
And the only sound for a while was the little click
Of ice as it broke in the mud under my feet.
I saw a piece of ribbon snagged on a hedge,
But no other sign of life. And then I heard
What seemed the crack of a rifle. A hunter, I guessed;
At least I was not alone. But just after that
Came the soft and papery crash
Of a great branch somewhere unseen falling to earth.
And that was all, except for the cold and silence
That promised to last forever, like the hill.
Then prices came through, and fingers, and I was restored
To the sunlight and my friends. But for more than a week
I was scared by the plain bitterness of what I had seen.
All this happened about ten years ago,
And it hasn't troubled me since, but at last, today,
I remembered that hill; it lies just to the left
Of the road north of Poughkeepsie; and as a boy
I stood before it for hours in wintertime.
Anthony Hecht
Posted at 04:22 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March Snow
Maybe the last snow, who knows.
Posted at 04:13 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Poem of the Week
Swifter, Sharper, Simpler
“I am so rich that I must give myself away”
Egon Schiele
According to local philosophy
Everything that I want to call divine
They call obscene.
I want to burn myself up
And shine like a light:
You allege mean things,
Grease and oil on the water:
All disguises go for naught
In the dark eternities of the night.
What I recognize in decay
Breathes forth stronger and stronger;
Perceived existence transposed --
The distant ones, the farthest away,
As far as love,
Lead me to this:
A great recognition of the world.
John Twomey
Note:
Egon Schiele (a great artist of the Austrian school, known for his landscapes, portraits, and for his sensual drawings) was a master of line. Schiele died at the age of 28, shortly after his wife, in the tragic Bird-Flu pandemic of 1918. He was once imprisoned for a short time because of the erotic nature of his drawings.
Posted at 08:57 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Snow Man
Poem of the Week
-
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
-
Wallace Stevens
-
-
One of the great modernist poets, Wallace Stevens spent his entire working life as an insurance executive in Hartford, Connecticut. As much a competitor as a colleague to his renowned contemporaries Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams, rumor has it that he once broke his hand on Ernest Hemingway’s jaw in a fight down in Key West.
Some of his best known poems include Sunday Morning, The Idea of Order in Key West, The Emperor of Ice Cream, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself, but my favorite remains Snowman.
This seemingly simple poem in five, three line stanzas can leave a reader shaking his head after the last stanza;
“nothing himself”, “nothing that is not there”, “the nothing that is”?
But the poem encompasses an entire, accurate philosophy.
Although the poem consists of five stanzas, it also consists of only one sentence. Written in prose it would read thus:
One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine-trees crusted with snow; and have been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun; and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place for the listener, who listens in the snow, and, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Anyone who is familiar with existential thought or Buddhist concepts will grasp what Stevens conveys in his poem; but you don’t need to know any of that—simply by reading and contemplating the words of the poem you will inevitably arrive at the same conclusion.
Posted at 05:50 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Weekly Poetry Feature
Going for the over/under
When I love a thing
I really love with gusto-–
G’bye, guy.
I pour out of a ladle:
the full, rich measure of my large devotion
kills me, ladyfinger.
My dewlap waggles
and tickles your downy hairs.
I entertain you with desperation―-
enter you with a destination in mind.
An hunger for an exit wound.
To fill up the helm with gasoline.
Who resides within our residence
―a home out of all determination―
destroyer of melt, anchor of flame,
expose of sultry ridicule.
You guessed the ultimate frivolity:
jeremiad and querulous for the occasion.
Friends don’t let laughs die without enemies.
A song in a paper bag next to a bottle―-reaching
out with quash to catch rain in your mouth,
you lent out the luck you could no longer afford.
A boiler takes kerosene to the ultimate.
G’bye, guy―
I really love with gusto
when I love a thing.
Sparse and Redeye blink washes
of ambulance
giving off disdain to interns
riddled with guilt,
the guilt of defeated nations,
who furtively chew their cheeks and spit blood.
I’ve already moved on to histrionics―paginate my immense soul.
Too much of these good things leave us asking for more.
But I’ve revealed too much already, I’m afraid.
Posted at 10:01 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Winter Wonderland!
The Beauty of Winter
Snow on Branches with Colors
JT
Posted at 08:16 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Art Exhibit (Digitally Altered Photo)
What's on your TV?
Immigrant Studies
Posted at 12:15 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poem of the Week
How I made my Fortune
Just a simple walk down the street,
if anything simple can be authorized,
but no, too easy, the crashing down
around noise leaving nothing to be desired.
Green and blue the breezes waft through
your lover’s hair, and she turns to you and says:
“My father left me a fortune but told me
to absentmindedly invest it in circus stock.”
Tears are not for the terrified of loss management:
a philosophy born of the sovereignty of a soon to
be extinct class of paramours, righteous ones all,
masturbating under the banner of a corrupt non-profit.
An automobile hums a lonely tune out of key and
maneuvers you into a corner where an attorney
stuffs his card into your pocket in case you ever need
representation, but you feel outré, a bit cramped by style.
At the zoo you bet on the animals, especially the snakes,
the stripped ones, the ones hanging from branches.
Afterwards, you kiss and make up with your stranger,
who pushes you into the path of a rogue city bus.
Back at home you wonder where you are and drink poison
because it tastes so good, so godly. You genuflect to your
ancestors then swing from a chandelier, but your weight
is too much for it, and it rips from its anchor bolts in the ceiling.
How much of all this is authorized is classified, as if you care.
Fortune’s good, made to crash through complex desires; nothing’s
too easy: you understand how to out-maneuver your own philosophy
during a simple walk down the street, the kiss still on your lips.
Posted at 12:12 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
The Good News
Set in Granite
Jennifer & Jovani
Posted at 12:02 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Two Poems -- Living Poets
To Live by
Work from the original toward
the beautiful,
unless the latter comes first
in which case
reverse your efforts to find
a model worthy of such
inane desire.
Even the mouth’s being
divided into lips is
not enough to make words
equal themselves.
Eavesdroppers fear
the hermit’s soliloquy.
Wake up, wound, the knife said.
-
-
Bill Knott
-
-
Winter Daydreams
On the boulevard I passed a giant squid.
It manifested but a puny interest in me
or its surroundings, though one suction cup
thoughtfully grazed a ring of spikes around a boulevard tree
like a monocle one puts down absentmindedly
on the page of a newspaper and words like
worker ants quickly spring into action:
“it was not the FIRST TIME THE accused has been so solicited.
By his OWN ADMISsion four other rumpuses were given rise to
After that first YEar . . .”
I was almost home then, by subterfuge or sheer pluck.
In the underbrush a walrus crows,
all decency shed, or shredded.
Little wonder that home is a bright place to be
If living’s your thing.
-
-
John Ashbery
Two living poets, Knott, born 1940, and Ashbery, born 1927, both considered “difficult” poets. Difficult, I guess, in the sense, that their poems don’t make sense to some people, I guess, in the same sense that, for instance, Jackson Pollack’s, or Robert Motherwell's, or Larry River's paintings don’t make sense to some people. Difficult? I don’t think so. Except in a nonsensical sense. Like beauty, difficulty is in the eye of the beholder.
When Bill Knott, who first published in the 60's, could not find a publisher for his poems in the 80's, he stapled together sheaths of poems and mailed them to everyone he knew: they are highly collected now and worth much money, though not to Bill Knott. To Live By is from his 2004, book The Unsubscriber.
John Ashbery, noted art critic for Art News, published Winter Daydreams in his book Chinese Whispers in 2001, when he was 74, and has published several books of poems and of poetic theory since. Ashbery's books first appeared in the 1950's.
Posted at 12:08 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Free Art
FYI
Anyone wishing to view fine art in Providence needn't worry about paying a hefty price for admission to museums and galleries: opportunities abound to look at fine art for free.
Detail from Pillar of Salt JMT
The RISD Museum features free admission every Friday between 12 pm and 1:30 pm and every Sunday between 10 am and 1:30 pm. Their current exhibit features textiles in contemporary art and their recent acquisitions of contemporary art, as well as an Edgar Degas exhibit, and an exhibit of Japanese ink prints and books. The RISD permanent collection remains always a pleasure to explore.
Also free are two Galleries at Brown, the David Winton Bell Gallery, List Art Center, 64 College Street, 11 to 4 Monday to Friday, 1 - 4 Saturday and Sunday and the Sarah Doyle Gallery, 26 Benevolant Street, 9 - 5 Monday to Friday.
So there is no monetary reason not to get out and enjoy a litttle cultcha!
Posted at 12:43 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
THE NAKED AND THE NUDE
Poem of the Week Feature
Two poems: Graves and Carver
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-
THE NAKED AND THE NUDE
For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness anatomy;
And naked shines the goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.
The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showmans’s trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.
The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometimes nude!
Robert Graves
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-
Bonnard’s Nudes
His wife. Forty years he painted her.
Again and again. The nude in the last painting
the same young nude as the first. His wife
As he remembered her young. As she was young.
His wife in her bath. At her dressing table
in front of the mirror. Undressed.
His wife with her hands under her breasts
looking out on the garden.
The sun bestowing warmth and color.
Every living thing in bloom there.
She young and tremulous and most desirable.
When she died, he painted a while longer.
A few landscapes. Then he died.
And was put down next to her.
His young wife.
Raymond Carver
Posted at 12:04 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
I believe in patronizing a lot of live music, and one of my favorite venues is The Narrows in Fall River. A non-profit, they feature local art & crafts, theatre and American roots music.
Two upcoming shows of note are the legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band, from down the Big Easy and for blues afficiandos, from the younger generation of African American bluesmen (he's in his 30's), Alvin Youngblood Hart.
From the Narrows press release: www.ncfta
This Friday we are proud/pleased to welcome back the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Direct from New Orleans, Louisiana, these boys will be bringing the party to the Narrows. These guys have been through a lot this year, let's give them a warm welcome from a capacity crowd.
Friday, November 18
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
What band has played on recordings by Dave Matthews, Modest Mouse, David Bowie (!), Elvis Costello, Dr. John and the Black Crowes? The Dirty Dozen Brass Band! They're based in New Orleans, but have been bringing their mix of brass, funk, r & b, rock etc. around the world for many years. Learn about 'em at www.dirtydozenbrass.com
Doors 7:00 Show 8:00. Admission: $20 advance, $23 day of show
Thursday, December 1
Alvin Youngblood Hart's Muscle Theory
Guitar fans, especially Blues guitar fans, TAKE NOTE!! Alvin Youngblood Hart is coming to the Narrows and he's bringing his hot guitar and band. He received the 1997 W.C. Handy award for Best New Artist and he's strummed with the likes of the Allman Brothers, Los Lobos, Neil Young, Gatemouth Brown and Buddy Guy! Learn more at www.mojomusic.com/alvin/
Doors 7:00 Show 8:00. Admission: $15 advance, $17 day of show
Narrows Center for the Arts
16 Anawan St.
Fall River, MA. 02722
(508) 324-1926/www.ncfta
Posted at 10:53 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Po Chu-I - 772 -- 846 C.E.
Poem of the Week
5 Poems
-
HARD TIMES
Watch morning rise into heaven
And evening suns sinking into earth
And you don’t notice it in the bright
mirror: but here I am, suddenly 34.
Don’t say this body of mine isn’t old.
It’s getting there slowly, bit by bit,
and if white hair hasn’t grown in yet,
that young face has begun giving way.
However long this life may endure,
I’ll never be more than a visitor here:
though we’re promised seventy years,
not one or two in ten lives them out,
so why always on my way somewhere
and always finding myself nowhere
near awakened? This inch-wide heart
is a treasure-hoard of boundless ch-i.
It’s true poverty is a wretched thing,
but mastering Tao you abide in Tao,
and it’s true wealth is a joyous thing,
but if it comes it comes when it will.
Whatever brings deep wisdom to mind,
it’s here in these things nowhere else:
just sip a nice wine, and by day’s end,
a little drunk, you’re perfectly happy.
These words bear better than gold or jade.
Try them on and you’ll never lose them.
-
-
ON MY DAUGHTER’S FIRST BIRTHDAY
Finally, after almost forty years of life,
I have a girl. We named her Golden-Bells,
and it’s been a year since she was born.
Saying nothing, she studies sitting now,
but it seems I’m no sage-master at heart.
I can’t get free of this trifling affection:
I know it’s only a tangle of appearance,
but however empty, it’s bliss to see her.
I’ll worry about her dying. Spared that,
I’ll worry about finding a good husband.
All those plans to find a mountain home:
I guess they’ll wait another 15 years.
-
-
IN SICKNESS MISSING GOLDEN BELLS
What can I do? So sick, and your life
cut so short pitching me into such grief:
it startles me from sleep. I get up and try
lamplight for comfort against these tears,
but a daughter’s an absolute tangle of love,
and without a son the sorrow’s inescapable.
After three full years of nurture and care,
a sickness barely lasting ten quick days:
such things tear at the heart long after
tears follow the last cries of grief away.
Little robes still hung on dressing racks,
the useless medicines there at your pillow,
we send you off in this deep village lane,
then watch earth fill your tiny grave over.
Don’t say you’re hardly a mile away here:
this is farewell to the very ends of heaven.
-
-
THE GRAIN TAX
An officer came pounding on their gate
In the night, shouting, demanding taxes.
They didn’t wait for morning. Hurrying
out to their granary, candles and lamps
alight, they winnowed grain till it shone
pure as pearls: one cart, thirty bushels.
Still they worried it wasn’t fine enough,
that they’d be whipped like sorry slaves.
I once took office, a fool devoting myself
utterly, regretting my meager talents.
Paid for sitting ten years like a corpse,
I served in four different departments
and often heard old hands proclaiming
gain and loss─it all comes round again.
If your sage hearts are so sweet and true,
why not send back a little imperial grain?
-
-
FORTY FIVE
I’ve lived through forty-five years now.
My temples half way into grizzled gray.
I’m all skin and bone and song-seized,
wine-wild and each year more abandoned
still to the inevitable unfolding of things.
Anywhere tranquil is my old home now,
and I think my thatch hut may be ready
next spring up there beside Lu Mountain.
Po Chu-I
Translation: David Hinton -- New Directions
Posted at 06:26 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Desolation Row
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row
Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hose
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row
Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"
Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
About the time the door knob broke
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
Poem of the week: Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) (for James)
Posted at 09:52 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poem of the Week
I Begin to Resemble an Old Man
Eggs shelled into a bowel.
The fork then enters the yolk
And swirls them (the eggs),
Incorporating the yellow into the white,
And these will be scrambled
In butter, in a cast iron pan,
Over low heat,
And the light, fluffy, perfect curds
Will be served, heaped onto warm china
And garnished with thin, sliced scallions,
Curled, on top.
Now, I like things, just so.
But it was not too long ago
That I was too fast
To go too slow.
I got so caught up
In the 6/8 jam.
But now I am beginning to resemble
That which I am becoming.
Damn!
John Michael Twomey, 10/16/05
Posted at 12:01 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
A Passage to Lisbon . . .
For a long time now, my daughter and I had planned to visit Europe together. When we finally decided to do it this summer, we set our eyes on Italy or Spain. My travel agent gently suggested that a trip to any of those countries in July would be “crazy!” and would we consider Portugal? I had never been to Portugal and said “why not”? It turned out to be one of the best trips we have ever taken. I not only recommended it to everyone, but I also plan to return to Portugal soon. These are some of what Lisbon has to offer:
A Lisbon Cityscape
Set across a series of hills overlooking the broad Rio Tejo (River Tagus), the city is rich in history, architecture, and offers a warm, welcoming atmosphere. The population is around 2 million but with the laid back energy that makes you forget you are in a large city. Comfortably warm from April to October, cool Atlantic breezes make it more enjoyable than other cities with the same altitude. Lisbon once controlled a maritime empire that stretched from Brazil to Macau. The Great Earthquake of 1755 destroyed much of the city, and today’s buildings date to the late 18th and 19th century.
Lisbon Street
Another Street Scene
The outdoor cafés along cobblestone streets, and a buoyant nightlife offering a range of music from traditional fado to jazz to African and Brazilian beats make this one of the most fun cities I have visited. The people are friendly, and besides Portuguese, most of them speak English as well as French.
Peasant Dance
As for the food, you can never get enough of the rich tasting coffee, the fabulous pastries, or the delicious fish and steaks.
Lisbon is divided into several districts, each with its own rich history. Baixa is filled with cafes and shops, and it is the hub of daytime activity. Alfama is the oldest, traditional district rich in art and pottery, with the St. George castles overlooking its winding streets. Chiado and Cais do Sodre offer elegant shopping. Bairro Alto has some of the best restaurants and night clubs, as well as the cities’ funicular railways, called elevadores. Belem, a historic district along the river, is where the old maritime explorers set sail, and holds the Torre de Belem, Lisbon’s most recognizable landmark. You can get around easily in Lisbon through public transit which includes buses, trains, and the subway.
Castle
chapel
When you take in enough of the city life, you can take the train out to the beautiful coast. Make sure you stop in Estoril, where the largest casino in Europe resides, and in Cascais, with its beautiful beaches and many restaurants. And last but not least, the town of Sintra, home of the historic castles and mansions of the once rich and famous.
Shrine
This was all we could accomplish in a week’s time, but it is a place I highly recommend to anyone planning to get away to a beautiful, friendly and relatively inexpensive city in Europe.
Shabnam Hashemi
Posted at 08:21 PM | The Arts | Comments (5)
1937, Leningrad, . . .
1937, Leningrad, Before the Snow
She looks like Rita Hayworth,
Eyes wide open, the colour of Swiss lakes.
Caught, with a wrinkled collar, her blond hair escaping its bun,
She inclines toward her calm yet dispossessed husband,
Half of her arriving, half of her fleeing,
She feels what is days away.
Her face frozen in the moment,
This is the one image that survives.
“Lenochka, let us make a photograph.” He knows too.
He pulls her into the studio and assumes
The stylized pose of redundant gentry.
He leans protectively toward his wife.
1937, Leningrad, before the snows come, this day an outing,
Fur coats, felt boots: “Let me buy you silk under-things, stockings,
Perhaps a little something for Nanny.”
“You old fool,” she says. “We have no money.”
They stare at the black draped box and
The instant approaches that will haunt forever.
The Rita Hayworth eyes flinch as the light and the lens point.
So close. So precise. On target. Her lips are parted.
“We have to go. We have to leave now.” She smells gunpowder.
There is a reflection in those open grey eyes, not of flashbulb,
But of men and big black cars in the dark of night,
The calm of her husband, the stillness of death.
He lies on a dirt floor, one of millions who no longer look ahead.
But she will never hear of this, even though she feels something.
She must look into the camera and not him. If they look into each other,
They will recognize terror, and it will thwart their last outing.
Hands held tight and silk stockings purchased,
He smooths the unruliness of her collar. She straightens his tie.
For Yevgenia Fredrichovna Kaminowa
Nadezhda Petrovic
Posted at 12:30 PM | The Arts | Comments (6)
A Red Sox Story
DATELINE: RedSox Nation, September 28, 2005
by Jen Bakios
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A Night in the Life of the Littlest Red Sox Fan: A Heartwarming Tale of Childhood Generosity
Big Papi at bat
One morning several weeks ago, my six year old daughter and I were listening to the radio while driving. A Boston radio station was soliciting donations for the American Red Cross for the Hurricane Katrina victims in return for song requests and my daughter asked if she could call so that they would play her favorite song. I explained what they were trying to do, that you needed to donate money, and she asked if she could give her $2 weekly allowance. I dialed the cell phone for her and handed it over, thinking she wouldn't get through and that was the going to be the end of it. When I heard her trying to spell her name and address, I knew this was going to be trouble.
After many repeated, loud attempts to tell the poor woman her address, my daughter finally asked her if she thought her mom could help and handed the phone over to me. Laughing, I explained what she had wanted to do, gave her our information and, when I found out a credit card was required decided to contribute a bit more than the $2. We reached our destination and, although she never heard her song, she felt good about donating her allowance to charity.
That evening, as we were driving home, my cell phone rang. It was the DJ from the radio station, telling me that he had heard my daughter wanted to donate her allowance. I went through the whole story on-air for him and he thanked us and played her song. She was absolutely thrilled and called everyone we knew to tell them she was famous. We thought it ended there...
My cell phone rang at 7:00 am the next morning. It was the DJ from the radio station again, telling me that we were finalists for Red Sox tickets. Red Sox tickets??? I figured it must have been a mistake. Apparently, and somehow we missed this, they chose people who had participated in the radio-a-thon at random to receive Red Sox tickets. The phone rang fifteen minutes later, confirming that we did, indeed, win the tickets. I hadn't told my daughter about the possibility, but when the delay caught up to the radio in the kitchen and she, who was eating breakfast before her first day of school, heard what had happened she became hysterical until all you could hear on the air was high-pitched, girly squeals, my laughing, a dog barking, and the beeping of the bark collar. Have I told you that she is a bigger Red Sox fan than I?
Fast forward to September 27: My daughter's first game at Fenway. Before even entering the park, she could barely contain her excitement. When we entered the gate and showed the ushers our tickets, we kept repeatedly being told "Go down", "Go down." When we finally entered our section, just above the Red Sox dugout, we were in absolute awe to find out our seats were two rows behind the team.
The team applauds as Johnny Pesky is introduced on his 84th
birthday
Although the Sox lost, in a painful disintegration of their pitching, the game was fantastic. She cheered her little heart out until she lost her voice and was rewarded by a wave from Trot Nixon, David Ortiz, Terry Francona, and Theo Epstein. Kevin Millar threw her a ball
Kevin Millar and Edgar Renteria warm up
and Manny, being Manny, aimed a trademark double-fingered point in her direction. Even her hero, Johnny Damon, known for not paying attention to the fans during games couldn't help but smile at her as she cheered for his every move (including standing in the outfield!). As I tucked her in bed late, late last night,clutching a laminated photo of Johnny Damon and a game ball, cracker jack crumbs stuck to her cheek, waiting for the tooth fairy, she said, "This is the best day of my life." That's pretty hard to disagree with.
Posted at 04:11 PM | The Arts | Comments (2)
Poems Before Rita
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost
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- -
The Book of Wisdom
I met a seer.
He held a book in his hands,
The book of wisdom.
“Sir,” I asked him,
“Let me read.”
“Child--” he began.
“Sir,” I said,
“Think not of me as a child,
For already I know much
Of that which you hold;
Aye, much.”
He smiled.
Then he opened the book
And held it before me.
Strange that I should have grown
So suddenly blind.
Stephan Crane
--
--
An Elegy Is Preparing Itself
There are pines that are tall enough
Already in the distance,
The whining of saws; and needles,
Silently slipping through the chosen cloth.
The stone, then as now, unfelt,
Perfectly weightless. And certain words,
That will come together to mourn,
Waiting, in their dark clothes, apart.
Donald Justice
Posted at 12:01 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
From The Cure at Troy
Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.
History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
Seamus Heaney
From, The Cure at Troy
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A Refusal to Mourn . . .
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness
And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn
The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.
Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.
Dylan Thomas
Posted at 11:39 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
The last Week in August's Poems
Happiness
So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
Raymond Carver
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- -
I Stop Writing the Poem
to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I'm still a woman.
I'll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I'll get back
to the poem. I'll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there's a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it's done.
Tess Gallagher
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- -
Raymond Carver and Tess Gallagher married, after living and working together for ten years, in June, 1988, just months before Raymond Carver died of cancer, that August, at the age of fifty. Theirs was a great love story.
Considered one of the greatest short story writers of all time, some refer to Raymond Carver as the American Chekhov. Anton Chekhov, a Russian doctor and writer, originated the modern short story in the 1880s. Raymond Carver mastered the form and after a hard drinking, hard scrabble existence, won wide recognition late in his writing life. Not widely known as a poet during his lifetime, his poems seem to have a long half-life and are beginning to be considered equal to the great, evocative fiction he wrote.
Tess Gallagher, who studied under renowned poet Theodore Roethke, earned critical acclaim for her poetry before meeting Raymond Carver, and she continues to write poetry and now, fiction. She designed and built a famous house in Washington state, where she lives and works, known as "Sky House".
Posted at 12:01 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Art Exhibit
Not for the literally minded
For those Drinking Bitter Brew
Original Digitally Altered Photographs
A Bitter Second Draught
Posted at 12:02 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poems for this Week
Hook
I was only a young man
In those days. On that evening
The cold was so God damned
Bitter there was nothing.
Nothing. I was in trouble
With a woman, and there was nothing
There but me and dead snow.
I stood on the street corner
In Minneapolis, lashed
This way and that.
Wind rose from some pit,
Hunting me.
Another bus to Saint Paul
Would arrive in three hours,
If I was lucky.
Then the young Sioux
Loomed beside me, his scars
Were just my age.
Ain't got no bus here
A long time, he said.
You got enough money
To get home on?
What did they do
To your hand? I answered.
He raised up his hook into the terrible starlight
And slashed the wind.
Oh, that? he said.
I had a bad time with a woman. Here,
You take this.
Did you ever feel a man hold
Sixty-five cents
In a hook,
And place it
Gently
In your freezing hand?
I took it.
It wasn't the money I needed.
But I took it.
James Wright
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-
III
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
Stephan Crane
Posted at 12:01 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Poem of the Week
Tears of Rage
We carried you in our arms
On independence day,
And now you throw us all aside
And put us on our way.
Oh, what dear daughter, beneath the sun,
Could treat a father so,
To wait upon him hand and foot,
And always tell him no.
Tears of rage,
Tears of grief,
Why am I always the one
Who must
Be the thief?
Come to me now,
You know
We're so alone:
And life is brief.
It was all so very painless
When you went out to receive
All that false instruction,
Which we never could believe.
And now the heart is filled with gold,
As if it were a purse,
But, oh, what kind of love is this,
That goes from bad to worse.
Tears of rage,
Tears of grief,
Why am I always the one
Who must
Be the thief?
Come to me now,
You know
We're so alone:
And life is brief.
We pointed out the way to go
And scratched your name in sand,
Though you just thought that it was nothing more
Than a place for you to stand.
And I want you to know that while we waited
For you to discover that no one could be true,
That I, myself, was among the ones
Who thought it was just a childish thing to do.
Tears of rage,
Tears of grief,
Why am I always the one
Who must
Be the thief?
Come to me now,
You know
We're so alone:
And life is brief.
Bob Dylan & Richard Manuel
Posted at 11:45 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
In Memoriam -- Two Classics
Because it was this week in 1945, that we committed two of the most horrific acts of war in history, this weeks poetry selections deal with war and with loss.
We feature the poems, Naming of Parts, by Henry Reed and One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop.
NAMING OF PARTS
To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.
Henry Reed
Henry Reed’s poem, Naming of Parts, is the most anthologized poem of WWII. Henry, of Birmingham, England, was born in 1914, son of a master bricklayer, who was a renowned drinker and womanizer and whose other son, an illegitimate son, died in the war. Family legend had it that the Reeds were descended from the bastard son of an 18th century Earl of Dudley.
Henry Reed attended many schools as a young man and was once anointed as a mathematical genius, but he also had his first sexual, homosexual, experience when he was nineteen, and later had a tortuous affair with a boy who developed paranoia. He was asked to leave home. Henry was drafted into the army in 1941 and served in an ordinance company.
In his poem, Naming of Parts, he juxtaposes a garden landscape with the military training he is receiving, altering language and rhythm, and using irony and satire and double meanings to convey the point of the poem.
Read it again and again.
- -
- -
One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant