Sunday, May 25, 2014

SO YOU THINK YOU HAD A BAD DAY ~

JOHN ALL
Mountain climber, scientist

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/24/injured-climber-films-life-or-death-climb-out-of-nepal-crevasse

Saturday, May 24, 2014

LEGENDS ~

drawings © bob arnold

But where are the snows of yester-year? — François Villon

Let's talk a moment about this last long winter. There are a few things to be said.

I was recently in attendance at an early morning book sale in a small Vermont town. Geraniums nodding out in the front of the building with the sun, not selling and maybe too expensive, but it was a plant sale nonetheless and the mainly elderly women who were working well at it had modest hopes everything would go well. If I wanted to contribute to that thought, I was welcome.

But how long was the winter we had all just passed through?

I heard it spelled out by three old women talking as they rustled books for the sale onto a table with one already lamenting, "I have so little time to read. When do you both have the time?"

One woman stayed silent while the other jumped on her high horse. "My goodness, after this past winter and how looonngg it was, it was the perfect time to read books. And I did. Plenty!"

That pretty much buttoned up and nailed down the thought, constant on the country dweller's mind, of 'where is the time?'

The New York Times, and our governor, tell us that there is so much time and so much boredom and so much unemployment in the back hills of Vermont that the only remedy amongst the constituents is to get yourself addicted to heroin. Forget books. Trees. Cows. Fields. Mountains and rivers without end. Become a junkie.

Our old ladies weren't part of this. That was another Vermont. But it could easily be their neighbors.

By the way, where are the young women, never mind the young men and the young people in general at these plant and book sales? Are there no longer mothers and grandmothers nabbing their grandchildren by the ear lobes and dragging them at the crack of dawn to work over these grand socialist community events? Books for a dollar or so, plants all bright and rain revived, packed into the school where they went to school. It all seems part and parcel to how one should grow up. Assist where you have been. Assist what once assisted you.

For a short piece of our long winter we did watch, like clockwork, each Sunday, our fill of cherry pie "Downton Abbey". We enjoyed it while watching, and even talked it up after each episode with two neighbors we would meet on our daily hikes in the woods along the river, but overall this past year's series was uneventful. Forgettable. Dry toast. No pie.

Which then got us hooked into the legend of "Game of Thrones." One should have an opposite of the Downton cycle just for measuring the imagination and the mind, keep the juices flowing, enjoy some spunk. Not quite resorting to pornography, however "Game of Thrones" almost is. I like the dwarf Tyrion (the most expressive face) and I like the Hound (another face) and I didn't like at all Ned Stark losing his head since he remains the only champion in all the lot, but then there's Jamie, who is cute (until he cut off all his hair) and it doesn't seem to matter that he had his good sword hand chopped off — remember, he's cute. And how in the world I returned to even having any care for the guy after he pushed the little kid out of the tower window — yes, yes, I realize Jamie was in the throes of sexual orgasm with his sister when the little kid stuck his face into the room, but still, a little kid? pushing him to his death? Except the kid didn't die since we're in a fantasy, and in a fantasy you can get away with any damn thing you please. It isn't a book sale where 50% of the books are junk and heading to the dump. The real life dump.

I also like the very tall and noble and hair cropped blond knight in shining armor who I've never paid attention to get the name of. For me she's the-tall-tall-woman-good-with-a-sword. Who bonded with Jamie, and she's the next best thing to Ned Stark when it comes to honor and grace. She better not lose her head.

Today honor loses its head. We fail to realize and understand that we are, often against our best intentions, becoming the very worst of our abilities because of the company we keep. The company that has been given to us. The company we have accepted. The company we've even rejected. The company we have become. Be careful when watching any t.v. And the very best portion of a book is you can talk back to the book, close it up and put it down and take a walk, there's a reflective depth and quiet between you both as you make your rounds. You know the book is set on the table waiting for you to return. You can see it. There is a still life resonance. A book on a screen is just another t.v. Try to make your encounters reciprocal. Nice try creators of the fine film "Her" — but a girl in the hand isn't better than one in the bush.

As Sweetheart says about "Game of Thrones" television creators — not to be confused with the old fart in New Mexico stirring up in his cauldron the big, fat books the television show pulls its magic from — "It's 20 and 30 year olds writing this stuff, any thing goes."

Yes, while another Spring has come.

[ BA ]

A once upon a time book sale crew

Friday, May 23, 2014

STEVE SANFIELD ~

Back Road Chalkies
Steve Sanfield

may 2014
photo © bob arnold

Thursday, May 22, 2014

MANNY FARBER ~

The longer he is gone and the longer we have to endure film critics who have none of the independence and verve of a Manny Farber, the longer we miss his good eye and writing and the longer we return to his books. I like to find mine as I go along, adding them to my short shelf Manny Farber library.

Negative Space
Manny Farber on the Movies
expanded edition
Da Capo Press 1998

ALAN LAU ~

Alan Lau

Happy New Year of the Horse!

mail art we have been receiving from Alan and Kazuko for decades!

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

RAY BRADBURY'S HOME ~

http://roryposin.com/property-details.php?property_ID=95

W.S. MERWIN, PETER GIZZI ~

A Black Kite

These long cool days at the end of spring

begin with a soundless blaze at sunrise

above the distant rim of the valley

all day clouds gather and clear again

as I remember other cold springtimes here

through the coming and going of years

the losses the changes the long love come to at last

with the river down there flowing through it all

under the clear moment that never changed

in all that time not asking for anything

still the wren sings and the oriole remembers

and every evening now a black kite

glides low overhead coming from the upland

alone not climbing the thermals not hunting

not calling not busy about anything

wings and tail scarcely moving as he

slips out above the open valley

filled with the long gold light before sunset

sailing into it only to be there

________________________

W.S. Merwin
The Moon Before Morning
Copper Canyon Press, 2014

Speck

Single the sky, pulled taut above earth

single the sky, above water. Bound

to bark and leaves. You are solo.

Blended into paint and forced into color

the song of a man in his bed at dusk

the sparrows lighting outside his window.

________________

Peter Gizzi
In Defense of Nothing
Selected Poems 1987-2011
Wesleyan, 2014

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

POSTCARD 39 ~

Photograph: Anonyme

According to the liner notes of his first (self-titled) album, musician Bob Dylan dedicated the first song he ever wrote to Bardot.

HEY NEIGHBOR ~

Here we have 250 letters between two poet friends

~ 1973 to 2013 ~

spanning from the Sierra Foothills to a Kentucky hillside farm

Distant Neighbors

The selected letters of

Wendell Berry & Gary Snyder

edited by Chad Wriglesworth

Counterpoint 2014

Monday, May 19, 2014

THE BLOUSE ~

The Blouse

 

The sound of waves came in at the open door; the smell of the sea
and of the sun-warmed earth came in too. It was expected that very
soon death would enter. A row of women sat outside the hut--they
were waiting to mourn and howl when death came.

The huddle of bones and withered skin on the mattress inside the
hut knew death was coming. Although the woman was childless and
had no husband, she knew that the women of her tribe would make
sorrow-noise for her when death came.

The eyes of the dying woman were glassy and half closed. I knelt
beside her and put my hand over her cold bony one. My blouse touched
her and she opened her eyes wide. Turning her hand, she feebly
clutched the silk of my sleeve.

"Is there something you want, Mary?"

"Good," she whispered, still clutching the sleeve.

I thought that she was dead, holding my sleeve in a death grip.
One of the women came in and tried to free me. Mary's eyes opened
and she spoke in Indian.

"Mary wants your blouse," said the stooping woman to me.

"Wants my blouse?"

"Uh huh--wants for grave."

"To be buried in?"

"No, for grave-house."

I understood. Mary had not many things now but she had been important
once. They would build a little wooden room with a show window in
it over her grave. Here they would display her few poor possessions,
the few hoarded trifles of her strong days. My blouse would be an
addition.

The dying woman's eyes were on my face.

I scrambled out of the blouse and into my jacket. I laid the blouse
across Mary. She died with her hands upon it.

 ____________

Emily Carr

Klee Wyck

the artist and author's first book, published in 1941

Douglas & McIntyre, 2003

Sunday, May 18, 2014

JONSERED ~

drawing © bob arnold

CAT ALMOST . . . ~

drawing © bob arnold

Saturday, May 17, 2014

DISCREET ~

"I was trying to make a piece that could be listened to and yet could be ignored."

BRIAN ENO

"In January this year (1975) I had an accident. I was not seriously hurt, but I was confined to bed in a stiff and static position. My friend Judy Nylon visited me and brought me a record of 18th century harp music. After she had gone, and with some considerable difficulty, I put on the record. Having laid down, I realized that the amplifier was set at an extremely low level, and that one channel of the stereo had failed completely. Since I hadn't the energy to get up and improve matters, the record played on almost inaudibly. This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music — as part of the ambience of the environment just as the colour of the light and the sound of the rain were parts of the ambience. It is for this reason that I suggested listening to the piece at comparatively low levels, even to the extent that it frequently falls below the threshold of audibility."

BRIAN ENO

Discreet Music ~ Brian Eno
Obscure Records 1975

Friday, May 16, 2014

THE BLACK BARTS OF THE WORLD ~

Philip Whalen (seated) and Gary Snyder

photograph by Harry Redl

http://thenewblackbartpoetrysociety.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/a-diamond-wired-for-sound-2/

Thursday, May 15, 2014

TUCKED IN ~

Here's a little treasure we are tucking into mail and book order shipments from time to time —
no charge, on the whim, by the day, no requests, you already deserve it

john martone

"nest"

dogwood & honeysuckle

illinois, 2000

STONER ~

This excellent essay by Steve Almond:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/magazine/you-should-seriously-read-stoner-right-now.html?ref=books

and

http://libinfo.uark.edu/specialcollections/findingaids/williamsje.html

Stoner
John Williams
New York Review of Books Classics, 2003
Viking Press, 1965

THE DYLANOLOGISTS ~

FAN

"You don't know who I am, but I know who you are."

BOB DYLAN

"Let's keep it that way."

A curiously thin volume under 250 pages that balances between a well wrought biography of the

musician — and the freaks, crazies and devoted who make him their own.

David Kinney

The Dylanologists
Adventures in the Land of Bob

Simon & Schuster 2014

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA ~

No-Good Blues

1

I try to hide in Proust,
Mallarme, & Camus,
but the no-good blues
come looking for me. Yeah,
come sliding in like good love
on a tongue of grease & sham,
built up from the ground.
I used to think a super-8 gearbox
did the job, that a five-hundred-dollar suit
would keep me out of Robert Johnson's
shoes. I rhyme Baudelaire
with Apollinaire, hurting
to get beyond crossroads & goofer
dust, outrunning a twelve-bar
pulsebeat. But I pick up
a hitchhiker outside Jackson.
Tasseled boots & skin-tight
jeans. You know the rest.

2

I spend winter days
with Monet, seduced
by his light. But the no-good
blues come looking for me.
It takes at least a year
to erase a scar
on a man's heart. I come home nights
drunk, the couple next door
to keep me company, their voices
undulating through my bedroom wall.
One evening I turn a corner
& step inside Bearden's Uptown Sunday Night Session. Faces
Armstrong blew from his horn
still hang around the Royal Gardens—all
in a few strokes, & she suddenly leans out of
a candy-apple green door & says,
Are you from Tougaloo?

3

At the Napoleon House
Beethoven's Fifth draws shadows
from the walls, & the no-good blues
come looking for me. She's here,
her left hand on my knee.
I notice a big sign
across the street that says
The Slave Exchange.
She scoots her chair closer.
I can't see betrayal
& arsenic in Napoleon's hair—
they wanted their dying emperor
under the Crescent City's
Double Scorpio. But nothing
can subdue these African voices
between the building's false floors,
this secret song from the soil
left hidden under my skin.

4

Working swing shift at McGraw-
Edison, I shoot screws
into cooler cabinets as if I were born
to do it. But the no-good blues come
looking for me. She's from Veracruz,
& never wears dead colors of the factory,
still in Frida Kahlo's world of monkeys.
She's a bird in the caged air.
The machines are bolted down
to the concrete floor,
everything moves with the same big
rhythm Mingus could get out of
a group. Humming the syncopation
of punch presses & conveyor belts,
work grows into our dance
when the foreman
hits the speed-up button
for a one-dollar bonus.

5

My hands are white
with chalk at The Emporium
in Colorado Springs, but the no-good
blues come looking for me. I miscue
when I look up & see sunlight
slanting through her dress
at the back door. That shot
costs me fifty bucks.
I let the stick glide along the V
of two fingers, knowing men who
wager their first born to conquer
snowy roller coasters & myths.
I look up, just when
the faith drains out of
my right hand. It isn't
a loose rack. But more like—
well, I know I'm in trouble
when she sinks her first ball.

6

I'm cornered at Birdland
like a two-headed man hexing
himself. But the no-good blues
coming looking for me. A prayer
holds me in place,
balancing this sequined
constellation. I've hopped boxcars
& thirteen state lines to where
she stands like Ma Rainey.
Gold tooth & satin. Rotgut
& God Almighty. Moonlight
wrestling a Texas-jack.
A meteor of desire burns
my last plea to ash. Blues
don't care how many tribulations
you lay at my feet, I'll go
with you if you promise
to bring me home to Mercy.