ELENI SIKELIANOS ~

 

R E A D   M E

   City Lights Books

    2026

WITOLD WIRPSZA ~

 

Tenderly

It is so hard to dance on a frozen

Surface in alternating flashes of red,

Yellow, and green, after a night out, in new

Shoes with slippery soles; alone with the ghosts

Of run-over midgets, in Berlin,

Moscow, Paris, or Philadelphia.  With their small hands

The midget souls grab my laces: come

To us, they say pulling to every side

Of the world in every degree

Of the compass:  now green, now yellow, now

Red.  They are not dancing.  Not

They:  they are just pulling

My laces tenderly, as if they wanted to untie

Every step, minute, and second.

But they are just ghosts of midgets.  There are

No midgets.  The slippery shoes are what counts,

And the frozen surface of the street gone mad.

Numbers

A child is dying: two-years old,

Seven-years old, eighteen,

Twenty, forty-something,

Let us say seventy —

It is always a child

Dying, numbers don't matter,

It is just the magic of numbers.

___________________

Apotheosis of Music

translated by Frank L. Vigoda

World Poetry 2025

BERLIOZ FANTASTIC TONIGHT ~

"The story of the Symphonie fantastique is thinly disguised autobiography — Berlioz had become infatuated with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson (1800-54) after seeing her Ophelia in performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet on 11 September 1827. Berlioz pursued her for years, bombarding her with love letters, but she refused to meet him. Eventually, however, she would attend a performance of a revised version of the Symphonie fantastique in 1832, and the two would marry the following year. Leonard Bernstein considered the symphony, with its hallucinations and dream images, to be the first piece of psychedelic music. "Berlioz tells it like it is," he said, "You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral."

The Madman's Orchestra, Edward Brooke-Hitching (Chronicle Books, 2025)

 

The Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Myung-Whun Chung performs Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique”. Live recording on September 13th 2013 at the Salle Pleyel (Paris) 00:35 1st movement: Rêveries – Passions. Largo – Allegro agitato e appassionato assai – Religiosamente 15:08 2nd movement: Un bal (A Ball) . Valse. Allegro non troppo 22:09 3rd movement: Scène aux champs. Adagio 39:53 4th movement: Marche au supplice. Allegretto non troppo 00:00 5th movement: Songe d’une nuit de sabbat. Larghetto – Allegro

STEPHEN KING ~

 

Monsters in the Archives

my year of fear with Stephen King

Caroline Bicks

Hogarth 2026

A.S. HAMRAH FILM WRITING 2019-2025 ~

 

R E A D   H I M

(he's got it)

      n + 1 books

      2025

FLYBOY IN THE BUTTERMILK (REISSUED) ~

 

R E A D   M E

(2016)

  AUWA Books

  2026

HERMANOS GUTIERREZ TONIGHT ~

 

In June 2024 Latin instrumental band Hermanos Gutiérrez joined Gilles Peterson for a live session. Brothers Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez played three tracks from their album Sonido Cósmico. Track list 1. Sonido Cosmico 2. Until We Meet Again 2. Low Sun 

Sound by Sam Stewart Directed by Nathan Webber

A FUGITIVE FAMILY ~

 

Zayd Ayers Dohn (center), with his parents Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers and younger brother Malik while living underground

R E A D   M E

    Norton 2026

THIS IS IT ~

 

       Anne Applebaum

MARY ANN CAWS ~

 

  R E A D   M E

Reaktion Books, 2024