ART OF BEING TUAREG, SAHARA NOMADS~

Art of Being Tuareg
Sahara Nomads in a Modern World
Cantor Center for Visual Arts
2006

KEHINDE WILEY ~

Kehinde Wiley

The World Stage Jamaica

Ekow Eshun

Stephen Friedman Gallery

2013

Three Boys 

 2013

http://kehindewiley.com/

EDWARD O. WILSON ~

Traditional turf cottage

Iceland

What will continue to evolve and diversify indefinitely are the humanities. If our species can be said to have a soul, it lives in the humanities.

Yet this great branch of learning, including the creative arts and their scholarly criticism, is still hampered by the severe and widely unappreciated limitations of the sensory world in which the human mind exists. We are primarily audiovisual and unaware of the world of taste and smell in which most of the millions of other species exist. We are entirely oblivious to the electrical and magnetic fields used by a few animals for orientation and communication. Even in our own world of sight and sound we are relatively close to blind and deaf, able to perceive directly no more than minute segments of the electromagnetic spectrum, nor the full range of compression frequencies that surge past us through earth, air, and water.

And that is just the start. Although the details of the creative arts are potentially infinite, the archetypes and instinct they are designed to exemplify are in reality very few. The ensemble of emotions that produce them, even the most powerful, are sparse — fewer in number than, say, the instruments of a full orchestra. Creative artists and humanities scholars by and large have little grasp of the otherwise continuum of space-time on Earth, in both its living and nonliving parts, and still less in the Solar System and the Universe beyond.  They have the correct perception of Homo sapiens as a very distinctive species, but spend little time wondering what that means or why it is so.

Science and the humanities, it is true, are fundamentally different from each other in what they say and do. But they are complementary to each other in origin, and they rise from the same creative processes in the human brain. If the heuristic and analytic power of science can be joined with the introspective creativity of the humanities, human existence will rise to an infinitely more productive and interesting meaning.

E D W A R D   O   W I L S O N

The Meaning of Human Existence

Norton 2014

SEEING IS BELIEVING ~

Eric Garner in the deadly choke hold by #99

Officer Daniel Pantaleo

July 17, 2014 New York City

http://time.com/3016326/eric-garner-video-police-chokehold-death/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/opinion/eric-garner-daniel-pantaleo-and-lethal-police-tactics.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/opinion/we-must-stop-police-abuse-of-black-men.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0

photo ~ Time Magazine

HELEN VAN DONGEN ~

Helen van Dongen

I never had the pleasure to meet Helen van Dongen, though I used to see her making the rounds of Brattleboro, Vermont on foot, well into her 80s. She lived to be 97. Ever quiet. Humble. She couldn't hide the beauty nor that certain dignity. Over the years, as a book scout, I have come across many of the books from her private library, each one a corker. Dongen was married to leftist and John Reed friend, Kenneth Durant, who had been married to the poet Genvieve Taggard. Much of all their best work was done while in Vermont.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/nov/10/guardianobituaries.obituaries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_van_Dongen

LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF ~

Los Angeles Plays Itself

Directed by Thom Andersen

2003

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-on-film-copyright-protection-movies-20140727-story.html

BOLANO INTERVIEWS ~

Roberto Bolaño
a biography in conversations
Monica Maristain
Melville House, 2014



http://www.mhpbooks.com/books/bolano/ 
 

http://www.sampsoniaway.org/blog/2013/01/17/translating-bolano-an-interview-with-natasha-wimmer/

JAMES KOLLER UPDATE ~

Further Update 2 December 2014:


The Jim Koller family now have a blog of their own, and Bert Koller has sent a message. Please tie into this link for the family news on Jim.

"Please visit http://crowstalktohim.blogspot.com/ to join James Koller on his most recent journey.

Thank you so much.

Love, Bert"





Up Date on Jim Koller from his family — 2 December 2014 —

   
"Dear all,

   Thank you for your thoughts and prayers and concern.

   Jim remains unconscious. MRI imagery shows the severity of the damage to his brain from the stroke. Our observations are that Jim has almost no ability to move the right side of his body & has demonstrated almost no responsiveness. Doctors warn us that his ability to both speak & to process language is likely substantially impaired, and that he may have problems with vision & the ability to protect his airway. Pneumonia and his existing Parkinson's disease complicate the picture.


  Jim's children and Maggie are either here or closely involved. He's well cared for and surrounded by love and kind attention. We're grateful in some way to find ourselves centrally located in the country, between Maine and California, Illinois and Arizona, and to have been on the road in a place with competent, compassionate, and kind medical professionals readily available.

  Within the next few days we hope to create a blog on which to post  further updates.

  With love from Joplin, Missouri"

James Koller with his children
Thea, Ida Rose & Bert
circa 1988
w/ Carson Arnold
Vermont

_________________________

We just had word while coming in the door from a day away, no lights on yet, getting the wood fire re-lit, that old friend of the family Jim Koller had a massive stroke Friday night in Joplin, Missouri.

His son Bert Koller sent us the news from Maine, where Jim had left a few days earlier for the midwest to be with family members before heading to the southwest where there is more family, and wanting to be way west in California for even more family somewhere down the road this winter.

Jim has lots of family — children, grandchildren, and so many friends.

It's time to put head, hands and hearts together and send the man we love some of that love. Even if you don't know Jim you may one day know his poetry, Teton Sioux translations, stories, songs, chants, and charms.

The editor of Coyote's Journal is somewhere on the cusp tonight.

In the territory where Jesse and Frank James called home.

[BA]

29 Nov '14

photo 1988 © bob & susan arnold

"I'm writing you all to let you know that Jim had a stroke last night in Joplin, Missouri. He was also diagnosed with pneumonia. He is currently unable to communicate & the prognosis is not great, but his vitals are fine for the time being. If he does pull through he may need full time care. . ."

— Bert Koller, 29 November 2014

MARINA TSVETAEVA ~

Moscow in the Plague Year

Marina Tsvetaeva

translated by Christoper Whyte

Archipelago Books, 2014

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/marina-tsvetaeva

COLD TURKEY PRESS 2014 ~

Recent Cold Turkey Press publications came by the other day,

 sat down for a visit.

SNOWSHOE ~

FAIR IS FAIR

__________________________






      After breaking in


        the snowshoe trail


 the deer use it

___________________

Bob Arnold

DANNY LYON, LIKE A THIEF'S DREAM ~

"Like a Thief's Dream, the first full-length nonfiction book from photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon, presents the story of James Ray Renton — thief, counterfeiter, and bank robber — who became one of America's Ten Most Wanted Men when he was charged with murdering a young Arkansas policeman, John Hussey, in 1976, and then one of the Fifteen Most Wanted after a daring escape."

Danny Lyon

Like A Thief's Dream

powerHouse Books

2007

http://rogallery.com/Lyon_Danny/lyon-biography.html

TOUCHING JAMES KOLLER ~

James Koller with his children
Thea, Ida Rose & Bert
circa 1988
w/ Carson Arnold
Vermont

_________________________

We just had word while coming in the door from a day away, no lights on yet, getting the wood fire re-lit, that old friend of the family Jim Koller had a massive stroke Friday night in Joplin, Missouri.

His son Bert Koller sent us the news from Maine, where Jim had left a few days earlier for the midwest to be with family members before heading to the southwest where there is more family, and wanting to be way west in California for even more family somewhere down the road this winter.

Jim has lots of family — children, grandchildren, and so many friends.

It's time to put head, hands and hearts together and send the man we love some of that love. Even if you don't know Jim you may one day know his poetry, Teton Sioux translations, stories, songs, chants, and charms.

The editor of Coyote's Journal is somewhere on the cusp tonight.

In the territory where Jesse and Frank James called home.

[BA]

photo 1988 © bob & susan arnold

"I'm writing you all to let you know that Jim had a stroke last night in Joplin, Missouri. He was also diagnosed with pneumonia. He is currently unable to communicate & the prognosis is not great, but his vitals are fine for the time being. If he does pull through he may need full time care. . ."

— Bert Koller, 29 November 2014

DUDLEY LAUFMAN ( ISLANDIAN POEMS ) ~

NEW!  from  L O N G H O U S E

The Islandian Poems & Fables 
 Dudley Laufman

Longhouse 2015

72 pages, perfect bound, 5.5 x 6.25 inches

ISBN 978-1-929048-25-0

$12

order here through Paypal, plus $2.00 s/h (US shipping only)

Choose US order or International order

US Orders, postpaid $14.00 USD     International  postpaid $22.00 USD

_____________________

Fable of the Dancing Trees

A man ran up a snow hill.  From the top he could look out over much of the Islandian highlands to the south and the sloping mountains north of Morono.  He could see a train on the monorail to Islandian's northernmost village.  Running up the trail below him were some evergreen trees dashing rapidly out of sight below him and then climbing towards him.  They surrounded him and started pushing him down the hill, their needles were sharp.  He pushed some roughly away, but after some persuasive struggle they got him down the hill and over to a beautiful tree woman.  She had a little tuft of needles under her lower lip, and earrings on her branches like the decorations that American John Lang talks about in their holidays they have.  The man said Oh I am sorry to have pushed you, I hope I didn't hurt you.  But why have you captured me?  She said, I need a partner for our dance and I want you, will you please be my partner?  Oh yes, he cried. Yes, I will.  She took his hand and led him into a dance in the high forest of Morono.  Her needles were soft.

http://www.laufman.org/

BRAVE URSULA K LE GUIN ~

Ursula K Le Guin
National Book Award
Lifetime Achievement Award

 

http://www.ursulakleguin.com/

AS IT SNOWS JUKEBOX ~

as it snows jukebox

music compiled by bob arnold

thanksgiving 2014

JOHN BRANDI ~

John Brandi
Back Road Chalkies
November 2014

back road chalkies  photo  2014  © bob  arnold

 

 

 

JAMES LAUGHLIN ~

EXPERIENCE OF BLOOD



I never knew there was so much blood
in a man until my son killed himself


he did it with a kitchen knife stab-
bing himself all over and cutting his


wrists     then he got into the bathtub
and died there in the water     that's


where we found him     but could he have
changed his mind for a moment     the floor


was a carpet of blood & blood was spat-
tered on the walls the basin was cov-


ered with blood     did he stand there
looking at himself in the mirror still


wondering who he really was and then
went on with it     I had to wipe away the


blood     it took me four hours to do it
but I couldn't have asked anyone else


because after all it was my blood too.





THE CAVE



Leaning over me her hair
makes a cave around her


face a darkness where her
eyes are hardly seen she


tells me she is a cat she
says she hates me because


I make her show her pleas-
ure she makes a cat-hate


sound and then ever so
tenderly hands under my


head raises my mouth into
the dark cave of her love.

The Collected Poems of

James Laughlin

New Directions 2013

edited by Peter Glassgold

THE DAZE OF LOVE

Comes sometimes from

the blaze of light

when an asteroid

passes us too near.

There is also

the softer radiance

when we are separated

and sink into sleep

thinking of each other.




 A LONG NIGHT OF DREAMING



and when I finally awoke
from it we seemed to be


back where we'd left off
some thirty years before


in the compartment of a
wagon-lit somewhere in


Italy loving and arguing
soft words and then hard


words over where we'd go
next to Venice or Rome or


better to split again you
back to him I back to her.




SO MUCH DEPENDS

             For William Carlos Williams


Bill on the way you saw
the way your heart saw


what your your eyes saw not
just the way you saw a


wheelbarrow or the falls
or the blossoms of the


shad tree or Floss in a
rose and 100 other flow-


ers your patients & the
babies and the measure


of your lines in Brueg-
hel's painting of that


dance so many things the
rest of us would never


have seen except for you.




TOUCHING



I want to touch you
in beautiful places


places that no one
else has ever found

places we found to-
gether when we were

in Otherwhere such
beautiful places.


J A M E S   L A U G H L I N

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/james-laughlin


http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3039/the-art-of-publishing-no-1-part-1-james-laughlin

IF THERE'S HELL BELOW ~

compiled by BA the night of ferguson, mo. grand jury release
disbelief disbelief disbelief
 chose not to indict
 Darren Wilson
 in the fatal shooting
 of Michael Brown
even after all these years
of knowing better
naturally
a verdict
for  us &
Thanksgiving

Mamie Till, summer 1955                                               Michael Brown Sr, summer 2014

Photograph: Chicago Sun-Times via AP                                                      Richard Perry / AFP / Getty      

___________________


If the white man has inflicted the wound of racism upon black men, the cost has been that he would receive the mirror image of that wound into himself.

W E N D E L L   B E R RY
The Hidden Wound
1970




NEW YORK TIMES ~

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/26/opinion/the-meaning-of-the-ferguson-riots.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region



http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ferguson-wasnt-black-rage-against-copsit-was-white-rage-against-progress/2014/08/29/3055e3f4-2d75-11e4-bb9b-997ae96fad33_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

BOB ARNOLD ~

 
On Building A Stonewalk In November




This river drifts the land,

In the long air of pines

I smell spring.

Down here, don’t wear gloves,

Don’t wear boots with leaks,

Stay working, and of course

Use the flat stones —

All the things

One learns

In a first year —

The boots take awhile, I know.

But come to you water gentle,

Very clear

Draw strong

Carry the river home to bathe.

It is November / wide open / colding

There is ice you shouldn’t trust.





Bob Arnold


_____________



Where Rivers Meet
Mad River Press, 1989

photo 2012  © bob arnold