MORE JOHN BERGER ~

I N T E R V I E W

The dust jacket of my copy is murky compared to this example

shown above, but it's inside the cookie that counts

FELA KUTI ~

ROCK 'N' ROLL ~

Crown Archetype, 2016

By page 100 of this 500 page testimonial I knew it was about to go down as one of the finest books about rock 'n' roll ever written, lived through, and survived, since Robertson is now 73. Congratulations. Set this book right alongside Robertson's old buddy Levon Helm and his music memoir This Wheel's On Fire. Except Robertson's experience is a bit more literary, even expansive, whereas Helm's story is straight out of the Arkansas wilderness, and he was the early 'older brother' to the teenage runaway down-from-Canada Robertson. By the time we see both heroes in the film The Last Waltz (1976) both are freewheelin' storytellers trying to top the other. It's still going on in their respective books. And like their work together in the The Band — not a moment is wasted.
p.s. Don't expect any clarity on who-owns-what with The Band's
songs when it comes between Helm~Robertson.
The music is a dream.
Then there's the nitty gritty.

[ BA ]

STANDING ROCK PATRIOTS ~

S T A N D I N G     R O C K     S I O U X     P A T R I O T S

READ MORE

EVEN INSIDE ~

Even Inside

You were asleep

I blew out the lamp

Turned to you —

A firefly blinked

  

Summer Leaves

I listen

To all

Its length

Of a tall

Maple tree

In the rain

Duo

The same bird every night

In the same tree singing

The same song that does

The same very songful

Thing inside of me

  

It Is Now The Birds Settle

You would walk

Upstairs to our room

In the early evening

So warm

Undress, while looking to the woods

Lie down

Hours later

I would find you this way

Explaining To Carson

On the boat ride we saw

One town, one island,

Two motor boats, two

Kids swimming from a canoe,

A redtail hawk flew over

The mountain, a blue 

Heron flapped around the bend

___________________________

Bob Arnold

Once In Vermont

Gnomon

PEDRO LUIS FERRER ~

KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN 1955-56 ~

NONSTOP ~

The University of Chicago Press, 2016

B O O K     R E V I E W

GENUINE ~

There is no one like Ursula K. Le Guin, no one, when it

comes to the enthusiastic and conversational book reviewer,

the love of reading, the writers, the readers and the

freedom of speaking one's mind.

She advocates all of this.

She practices.

Read her.

Published by a brave press 

from Easthampton, Massachusetts

S M A L L      B E E R      P R E S S

150 Pleasant Street

01027

smallbeerpress.com

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE ~

"The Friends of Eddie Coyle is the most powerful

and frightening crime novel that I have read this

year. It will be remembered long after the year is

over, as marking the debut of a fine original talent."

R O S S     M A C D O N A L D

My copy of this great yarn with its kick in the head dialogue throughout is this cheap-o book club edition long after my original

copy was lent out and never returned and then my dog-eared paperback that was obviously enjoyed by many readers or one dog of a reader before me, and if the book isn't enough to satisfy your lust, do go to the film version starring a terrific and rumpled cast including Robert Mitchum as Eddie Coyle. Who else could have been "Eddie fingers?!" No one, not even close.

The director of the film, Peter Yates, British-born with a keen eye and ear to bloody America, made Bullitt in 1968 with this equal masterpiece in 1973. 

THE UNKNOWN KEROUAC ~

The Library of America 2016

E S Q U I R E

"More than a rock in my belly, I have a waterfall in my brain;
a rose in my eye, a beautiful eye; and what's in my heart but a
mountainside, and what's in my skull; a light. And in my throat
a bird. And I have in my soul, in my arm, in my mind, in my
blood, in my bean a grindstone of plaints which grinds rock
into water, and the water is warmed by fires, and sweetened by
elixirs, and becomes the pool of contemplation of the dearness
of life. In my mind I cry. In my heart I think. In my eye I love.
In my breast I see. In my soul I become. In my shroud I will
die. In my grave I will change."

J A C K      K E R O U A C
1950 "Private Philologies"

TREASURE ~

Solo

I find

New stars —

New designs —

Without the

Chart in

My hands

Vow

                                          You can think there is

                                          But there is nothing

                                          Quite like you undressing

                                          Me who has undressed you

Treasure

it’s snow

falling

into her

hair

pail of

grain

pinning

onto a

heavy

wool

shirt

walking

back from

the hen

house

eggs

inside her

mittens

Thread

Take a blanket of red wool

Fold it into a cushion square

Beside flames of the wood fire

Where lamplight of the room

Falls the best, and right there

In the heat, away from winter

With your loom of sanded birch

I’ll watch you weave the moon

Stars, river and mountains

From a trail we’re on of thread

                   ———————————

Bob Arnold

Once In Vermont

Gnomon

        "Bride"

photo ~ bob arnold

BE THERE ~

FULL CURTIS MAYFIELD ~

ABBOTT HANDERSON THAYER ~

A B B O T T     H A N D E R S O N     T H A Y E R

Abbott Handerson Thayer as a boy, ca. 1861 / Buckingham's Inc., photographer. Abbott Handerson Thayer and Thayer family papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Kevin M. Murphy

Williams College Museum of Art

2016

more ~

  

A B B O T T     H A N D E R S O N     T H A Y E R

ROOTS TO THE EARTH ~

C O U N T E R P O I N T      P R E S S

A SMALL PORCH ~

Wendell Berry with horses on his farm

Courtesy of Platform Media Group




VIII.

A SMALL PORCH IN THE WOODS


9.


To care for what we know requires

care for what we don't, the world's lives

dark in the soil, dark in the dark.



Forbearance is the first care we give

to what we do not know. We live

by lives we don't intend, lives

that exceed our thoughts and needs, outlast

our designs, staying by passing through,

surviving again and again the risky passages

from ice to warmth, dark to light.



Rightness of scale is our second care:

the willingness to think and work

within the limits of our competence

to do no permanent wrong to anything

of permanent worth to the earth's life,

known or unknown, now or ever, never

destroying by knowledge, unknowingly,

what we do not know, so that the world

in its mystery, the known unknown world,

will live and thrive while we live.


                     .    .    .


And our competence to do no

permanent wrong to the land

is limited by the land's competence

to suffer our ignorance, our errors,

and — provided the scale

is right — to recover, to be made whole.



_________________

WENDELL BERRY

A Small Porch

Sabbath Poems 2014 and 2015

together with 

"The Presence of Nature in the Natural World:

A Long Conversation"

C O U N T E R P O I N T, 2016