NEIL YOUNG TONIGHT ~

 

1974-1977

    Reprise Records

REMEMBERING VINOD KUMAR SHUKLA ~

 

Dear Bob,

News came in the afternoon that Vinod Kumar Shukla passed after a brief illness. Pneumonia and complications. He was 89 and was writing stories and poems to the end. I'd admired him ever since I came across the first line of one of his early poems. It began "That man put on a new woolen coat and went away like a thought." A new woolen coat is not something you would see Shukla in. It would probably be a coat neither old nor new; it would be too nondescript to be either. He was nondescript looking himself. He would give long interviews but without, I think, saying very much. He never commented on other writers. Never did reviews. Had none of the trappings of the "literary" life. For a living he taught agricultural extension in a remote city in central India. It was in the country's tribal belt and he saw the destruction of the forest first hand. In one poem he spoke of people from the villages leaving their homes and coming to the city. He watched men, women, children passing him in the street. Then one year he saw men and women -- but few children. Was the tribe dying out?   

Love

~ Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

BELA TARR ~

Mr. Tarr, right, received the Grand Jury Prize in 2011 at the Berlin International Film Festival from a jury member, Guy Maddin. The award was for Mr. Tarr’s final feature film, “The Turin Horse.”Credit...

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

B E L A    T A R R

 

DAN FOX ~ LIMBO ~

 

   R E A D   M E

Fitzcarraldo Editions

2021

FIVE POEMS OF YAKAMOCHI~

 

Though it is destined

to come but to this,

my wife and I trusted in life

as if it would last

                a thousand years.  

My wife departed from our home.

I could not hold her back

so I have hidden her

        in the mountain,

and my heart has lost its bearing.

Though my mind knows

that life never comes

                but to this,

how I cannot bear

these painful feelings!

Each time I see the mist

trailing on Saho Mountain,

I remember my wife —

            there is no day

when I do not weep.

In the past

I glanced at it casually,

but now that I realize

my wife's grave is there,

how beloved is Saho Mountain.

_______________________

from The Ten Thousand Leaves

Poems from the Man'yoshu

translated by Ian Hideo Levy

NYRB, 2025

            

ANNIE LENNOX ALL DAY ~

 

         Universal Island, 2010

GASTON FERNANDEZ ~

 

Apparent Breviary

2

Every time I see the sun I believe in

an opposite. Necessarily

the true absence    that extreme

liberty

                my hands, they reply: blood doesn't kill.

It remains the same tiger,

who trembles          again

in my hands

27

Desire is no one's

lip worn like

memory

eyes

death       ahead

without will

without dilemma

without air

39

To the place

from before

44

To know     then

Perhaps because two spaces

is

many

and two times     now

(perhaps,

   if a single time         is already

   memory

52

Must say                      something

Flee from the other's word

Without laughing.        The word's

capacity

as water                         A balance.

The ordering of air

65

Never        man

Only

one

78

To look,

without distracted eye

To not look                Only there the center will be

a pall

nameless place           speech,

so the body                 remains

without distress

without aura                

93

The living.

Light expels travelers    permanence

has no edge

like hair

does not wound,

does not present

place incarnates,

in intution

without edges

___________________________________

Gaston Fernandez

Apparent Breviary

translated from the Spanish by KM Cascia

World Poetry 2025

NEIGE SINNO ~

 

R E A D   M E

        Seven Stories Press, 2025

WEAVING AT BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Black Mountain College

     Museum Arts Center

     2023

HEATHER CHRISTLE ~

 

Advent

It's hopeless, the stars, the books

about stars, they can't help themselves

and how could you not love them for it

here in the new week with animals

burying food and everything outlined

in cold and even friends, it's hopeless,

this mess, this season, all that

is lost and tickets and strangers,

what can I say, only sitting here

on this dark bench waiting for what

I don't know, I want this world

to remain with me, this holy tumult,

which does not know it loves me

and you, friends, spectacular driveways,

an orange, the vanishing year.

______________________________

Heather Christle

Paper Crown

Wesleyan University Press, 2025

BUDDY KNOX TONIGHT! ~

 

O A R (full album) ALL DAY ~

 

Oar is the only studio album by American singer-songwriter Alexander "Skip" Spence, released on May 19, 1969, by Columbia Records. It was recorded over seven days in December 1968 in Nashville, and features Spence on all of the instruments.

GERTRUDE ABERCROMBIE ~

 

R E A D   M E

Gertrude Abercrombie

  "The Whole World is a Mystery"

STEREOLAB (BRAKHAGE) ~

 

BRIGITTE BARDOT ~

 

Ms. Bardot in a scene from “La Vérité,” Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Oscar-nominated 1960 crime drama. She called it the only good film she ever made.Credit...Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

B R I G I T T E   B A R D O T

1934 ~ 2025

STAN BRAKHAGE (stick with it) ~

 

          Window Water Baby Moving

      1959

ANDREW HILL TONIGHT ~

 

   Joe Henderson

   Roy Haynes

   Richard Davis

   Andrew Hill

THE NIGHTMARE SEQUENCE ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Nightboat Books

     2025

ARCHIVE: GRACE HARTIGAN'S JOURNALS ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Syracuse University Press

    2009

NEW YORKER CARTOONS ~

 

LAUGH  WITH  ME

      St. Martin's, 2024