POSTCARD 25 ~

photo : ralph eugene meatyard
lucybelle crater and her close friend lucybelle crater
in the grape arbor
1971

DAVID SPEAR IN HAVANA ~

Ten Days in Havana
David M. Spear
Gnomon Press
P.O. Box 475
Frankfort, Kentucky
40602-0475

JO ANN KELLY ~

Jo Ann Kelly's Birthday!
(5 January 1944 — 21 October 1990)

Gone over twenty years ago now and remaining one of the finest bluesmakers there was

KISSING ~

“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss — you can’t do it alone.” 

J o h n   C h e e v e r

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/opinion/sunday/the-loneliness-of-the-long-distance-reader.html?hp&rref=opinion

JOHN CAGE'S ROARATORIO ~

Performers ~

John Cage, Voice

Joe Heaney, Singer

Seamus Ennis, Uillean pipes

Paddy Glackin, Fiddle

Matt Malloy, Flute

Peadher Mercier, Mell Mercier,

Bodhran

http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/music/cage_roaratorio.html

to peter garland

SNOW, SNOW

photo © bob arnold

NEARLY JACK LONDON ~

"A Speck in the Sea"

by Paul Tough

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/magazine/a-speck-in-the-sea.html?pagewanted=1&hp

photo : daniel shea

J.D. WHITNEY ~

A Two-Booklet-in-One publication

designed as two way traffic on the foldout page

J.D. Whitney gives us poems that match and pair and touch one another

what the poet terms "dually" in the best sense of the word

 

 a sample of one section of the booklet

copyright J.D. Whitney

Use Paypal? Order now with free shipping ~ $12!

A NEW YEAR KINDA GUY ~

Townes Van Zandt

(2013)


All tracks previously unissued
Omnivore Recordings
Produced for release by Cheryl Pawelski
Liner notes Colin Escott

TVZ
(March 7, 1944 – January 1, 1997)

POSTCARD 24 ~

Chic Johnson in "Sons of Fun", 1941
photograph by W. Eugene Smith

BE MY HUSBAND ~

ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS










Antony Hegarty was born in Chichester, West Sussex, England, UK, in 1971.

Block out all knowledge — in other words go blank and float — and receive the sounds of Antony:
 an aura who seems vocally out of Pavarotti and whales calling.
 No judgements. No conclusions. Allowance.


songs compiled by BA from recordings below

ALBUMS



Antony and the Johnsons, 1998
I am a Bird Now, 2005
The Crying Light, 2009
Swanlights, 2010

(Live recordings)

Live at St. Olave's, 2003
Cut the World, 2012
Del suo veloce volo, 2012
(w/ Franco Battiato)

SOON ~

~ for Edie & Kathy ~

ODE ~

Pablo Neruda

Ode to the First Day of the Year
Oda al Primer dia del ano



We identify it
as if
it were
a wooden horse
different from
all horses.
We adorn
its forehead
with a ribbon,
we hang
on its neck colorful rattles,
and at midnight
we get ready to receive it
as if it were
an explorer descending from a star.

The way bread resembles
yesterday's bread,
a ring all rings:
the days
blink
clearly, jingling, fleetingly,
and lie down in the dark night.

I see the last
day
of this
year
on a train, toward the rains
of a distant purple archipelago,
and the man
on the machine,
complicated like a clock from heaven,
lowering his eyes
to the infinite
ruler of the rails,
to the shining handles,
to the nimble bonds of fire.

Of conductor of trains
accelerating
toward the black
stations of the night,
this end
of the year,
without wife or children,
is it not the same for the one gone, the one coming?
From the roads
and workshops,
the first day, the first dawn
of the starting year,
has the same rusty
color as the iron train:
and people along the way
greet it,
cows, villages,
the vapor of the first light of day,
without knowing
it is
the year's door,
a day
heralded
by bells,
adorned with plumes and carnations.

The earth
does not
know it:
it will receive
that golden
day, gray, heavenly,
it will extend it over hills,
it will wet it with
arrows
of translucent
rain,
and then
it will curl it
in a tube,
will store it in the shadows.
It is thus, but
a small
door of hope,
new year's day,
although you are
like the bread
of all breads,
we will live you in a different way,
we will eat you, flower you,
wait for you.
We will place you
like a cake
in our lives,
we will light you
like candelabra,
we will drink you
as if
you were a topaz.
New
Year's
Day,
electric day, fresh,
all the leaves
emerge green
from
the trunk of time.

Crown us
with
water,
with open
jasmine,
with all the aromas
deployed,
yes,
even though
you're
only
a day,
a poor
human day,
your halo
beats
over so many
tired
hearts,
and you are,
oh new
day,
oh forthcoming cloud,
bread unseen before,
permanent
tower!


P A B L O   N E R U D A
translated by Ilan Stavans



____________________

All the Odes
Pablo Neruda
edited by Ilan Stavans
Farrar 2013

POSTCARD 23 ~

odilon redon
"sita", 1893

BASIA BULAT ~

On the music scene since 2004 as vocalist and playing guitar, autoharp, hammered dulcimer, piano, ukelele, charango, Basia Bulat grew up in Etobicoke, Ontario where her mother was a music teacher who taught piano and guitar. She is an honorary member of Ontario's "Polonia" Polish community.

selections compiled by bob arnold from the albums below

Studio Albums

_______________________

Oh, My Darling (2007)
  Heart of My Own (2010

Tall Shadow (2013)

http://basiabulat.com/

POSTCARD 22 ~

photo : lisa law
janis joplin
big brother & the holding company
1967

A DAY LATER ~

drawing © bob arnold

BIRDHOUSE ~

photo © bob arnold

RURAL LIGHTS ~

photo © bob arnold

s t a y   w e l l

LATER THE SAME DAY ~

slight chance of snow