A Longhouse Birdhouse

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM ~

Imogen Cunningham and Twinka (Thiebaud) at Yosemite (1974)
photo : Judy Dater

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Born in Portland, Oregon in 1883, Imogen Cunningham bought her first camera when she was eighteen years old — a 4 x 5 inch view finder — although she lost interest with her first fling as a photographer, she picked the camera up again in 1906 after an encounter with the work of Gertrude Kasebier. By the next year she was working with ethnologist and photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis in his Seattle studio. A life of photography ensued — brilliant botanical pieces, nudes, portraits, wild and industrial landscapes. A fascinating long life, the photographer passed away in San Francisco in 1973.

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Ansel Adams, Yosemite Valley 1953

Edward Weston and Charis Wilson Weston at Point Lobos, 1945

Self-portrait in 1863 Costume, 1909

Black and white lilies 2, 1920s

Callas, 1925

Dream Walking, 1968

Frida Kahlo Rivera, 1931

Kenneth Rexroth, Poet, and Mariana Rexroth, 1953

Martha Graham 2, 1931

Cary Grant, Actor, 1932

Evan Connell, Writer, 1956

Imogen!

Ruth Asawa, Sculptor, 1963

Self-Portrait With Grandchildren in Funhouse, 1955

Sherwood Anderson and Elizabeth Prall, about 1923

The Poet and His Alter Ego, 1962

(james broughton)

Zebra, about 1921

My Father at Ninety, 1956

Navaho Rug, 1968

Self-Portrait With Morris Graves 1, 1973

The Dream, 1910

Tree at Donner Pass, 1925

Wynn Bullock, Photographer, 1966

http://www.imogencunningham.com/

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

GIOVANNA SANDRI ~

Giovanna Sandri
only fragments found
selected poems 1969~1998

www.otis.edu/graduate-writing/seismicity-editions

Monday, February 17, 2014

CID CORMAN ~

I would always rather support and boost a work of poetry — lord knows it's tough enough out there between the posers and the professionals — and I'm always on the outlook for that riveting collection of haiku poems in English — but this isn't it, although it takes a fair shot at it. Half the poems are deadwood, so be warned, and the other half are good lumber. Deeply grained. Many of the poets in the anthology who should have had multiple poems (while the editors themselves should have had less of their poems) unfortunately didn't happen. There are strong showings by Cid Corman, Gary Hotham, John Martone, Penny Harter, Vincent Tripi, Peter Yovu . . . and poets that normally kill me on the spot: Steve Sanfield, John Brandi, Thomas C. Clark, John Phillips, Ronald Baatz, have only one poem each. It hurts to watch. Joseph Massey may have the best poem in the whole book. And who is missing will make you shudder and hear an echo.

Harvard contacted here a year ago to receive permission to release this outstanding reading by Cid in 1961. I was all ears. "By all means." I asked someone there to make contact when the site would be available and this must have slipped someone's mind, but then a poet friend knew best and sent the link. It's the wonderful patchwork quilting of the poetry trade.

On this recording Cid speaks his own early poems, as well as breathes life into Louis Zukofsky —
it's not to be missed.

http://hcl.harvard.edu/poetryroom/listeningbooth/poets/corman.cfm

Haiku in English
edited by Jim Kacian, Philip Rowland, Allan Burns
Norton 2013

Sunday, February 16, 2014

HUSH ~

a quiet morning recently
at 20 below zero

photo © bob arnold

Friday, February 14, 2014

BE MY VALENTINE ~

be my valentine compilation
by bob arnold
2/14/14
vermont

for susan

Thursday, February 13, 2014

LOVE ~

Translators

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DEBEN BHATTACHARYA,

ROBERT BLY,

DILIP CHITRE,

ANANDA COOMARASWAMY,

VIDYA DEHEJIA,

HANK HEIFETZ AND V. NARAYANA RAO,

LINDA HESS AND SHUKDEO SINGH,

JANE HIRSHFIELD,

ARUN KOLATKAR,

DENISE LEVERTOV AND EDWARD C. DIMOCK JR.,

ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA,

W.S. MERWIN AND J. MOUSSAIEFF MASSON,

LEONARD NATHAN AND CLINTON SEELY,

GIEVE PATEL,

EZRA POUND,

A.K. RAMANUJAN,

ANDREW SCHELLING,

GARY SNYDER,

CHASE TWICHELL AND TONY K. STEWART

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Love and the Turning Seasons

India's Poetry of Spiritual & Erotic Longing

edited by Andrew Schelling

Introduction by Eliot Weinberger

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

2014

we're pleased to announce
many of the poems in this captivating collection
first appeared as booklets from Longhouse

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

FILM ARCHIVE ~

(1985)

Not at all for public eyes, and simply how I've filed away films the past year, I thought I'd share this list for friends of the Birdhouse. Again, none of this is for the public, so imagine you are not.

When I scan over various lists year after year, of films or books or music, most seem built to either impress the reader or to make some statement. No statement here. It's the way the chips fall. It's how films came to me, and often via the satellite dish reception, which is out there in the woods and snow. Or what I still glean from town libraries, but I'm doing much less of that these days. I can now pull almost all Criterion films right off my Roku contraption. An old friend, long gone, who used to assist us on retrieving such things over the Internet, the 'sky', or far towns, will get a kick out of knowing we're still keeping-on and finding good stuff.

Curiously, not many foreign films are listed here, which I watch regularly, although the first film noted is top shelf Europa. Many of these films came off the Turner Classic Movies station c/o Robert Osborne which is like a nice little neighborhood bakery you can't do without. Everyone mentions greater and grander bakeries and dishes and sweets, but here you are sticking to your faithful and tiny shop — Osborne's — day after day. A little bell on the door as you walk in.

The films are noted in no order of importance. It's how each film was registered, others erased, others kept and re-watched many times.

I do consider Claude Lanzmann's Shoah the greatest film ever made. Five minutes, heck, five seconds of Shoah equals all of Citizen Kane. The camera work alone is incredible. The commentary overwhelming. The portraits unforgettable . . . no matter what else comes your way. I watched the film when it was first released and recently watched it again, all six discs, because Sweetheart had never seen it. A masterpiece nine and a half hours long (shaved down from 350 hours of footage). You'll want someone sitting with you.

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SHOAH

BLACK NARCISSUS

HAROLD AND MAUDE

PARIS, TEXAS

THE GAME

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

THE KILLING (Kubrick)

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

THE WILD BUNCH

REAR WINDOW

NORTH BY NORTHWEST

A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE

DR. STRANGELOVE

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

THE GRADUATE

RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE

CAPE FEAR (original)

TWO-LANE BLACKTOP

EYES WITHOUT A FACE

WITHNAIL AND I

CITY LIGHTS

WHERE DANGER LIVES

DIABOLIQUE (original)

NIAGARA

GUN CRAZY

LADY IN THE LAKE

BADLANDS

BONNIE AND CLYDE

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS

POINT BLANK

YOJIMBO

ANGEL FACE

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

KISS ME DEADLY

NOTORIOUS

THE VIRGIN SPRING

WE OWN THE NIGHT

A PLACE IN THE SUN

TENSION

PAYBACK

INDIA: MATRI BHUMI

LOUIS C.K. OH MY GOD

HIGH SIERRA

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

OUT OF THE PAST

DARK PASSAGE

SEVEN SAMURAI

LE SAUVAGE

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

VERTIGO

IN A LONELY PLACE

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

ANDREI RUBLEV

FUNNY GAMES (original)

THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY

AU HASARD BALTHAZAR

That's enough.

Oh! ALL the films of BUSTER KEATON. Place them, respectfully, right next to SHOAH.

Again, this is not a favorite films list — though many of my favorites are here — it's films that came to me the past year and I kept awhile in an archive to watch, and watch again.

Sweetheart and I now laugh when we think how when in our woods cabin on Saturday night, circa 1974, deep in snow piles and no tv in our midst for the next ten years, how we often dreamt on those nights how nice it would be to sit with a film. So far from town, no one it seemed for miles around, just the river and the stars and the silence. Just.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

LOW ON THE TOTEMPOLE ~

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/sports/olympics/sochi-got-the-gold-bypassed-village-got-dust.html?hp

POSTCARD 26 ~

century studio, 1930

Monday, February 10, 2014

DROP OUTS ~

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BAGHDAD — A group of Sunni militants attending a suicide bombing training class at a camp north of Baghdad were killed on Monday when their commander unwittingly conducted a demonstration with a belt that was packed with explosives, army and police officials said.

The militants belonged to a group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, which is fighting the Shiite-dominated army of the Iraqi government, mostly in Anbar Province. But they are also linked to bomb attacks elsewhere and other fighting that has thrown Iraq deeper into sectarian violence.

Twenty-two ISIS members were killed, and 15 were wounded, in the explosion at the camp, which is in a farming area in the northeastern province of Samara, according to the police and army officials. Stores of other explosive devices and heavy weapons were also kept there, the officials said.

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nytimes

10 Feb 14

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/world/middleeast/suicide-bomb-instructor-accidentally-kills-iraqi-pupils.html?hp

ROBERT BRESSON ~

Donald Richie

(17 April 1924 – 19 February 2013)

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2418-sight-sound-poll-2012-au-hasard-balthazar

Au Hasard Balthazar:
(dir: Robert Bresson)
"The world in an hour and a half"
Jean-Luc Godard

Sunday, February 9, 2014

HAL ASHBY ~

The great Ruth Gordon standing beside the great Hal Ashby

director on the set of the film Harold and Maude

Ashby passed away at age 59 after a tumultuous career in Hollywood

releasing at least six classic films beginning with his first film The Landlord (1970),

followed by Harold and Maude (1971), The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975),

Bound For Glory (1976), Coming Home (1978), Being There (1979) and his documentary of the Stones tour Let's Spend the Night Together (1983).

Every single independent film director today owes a debt to this ground breaker.

Some have, thankfully, said so.
I'm sure the late Philip Seymour Hoffman would have been one of them.

Go read more about Hal Ashby in Al Kooper's marauding music memoir Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards (the updated version from Backbeat Books, 2008). Kooper made his musical score debut with Ashby's cinematic debut The Landlord (shown, in full, below).