FLIGHT O'ER YOSEMITE ~

 

Christopher Carrillo

HARRIET TUBMAN ~

 

R E A D   M E

Penguin 2024

WILLIE NELSON ~

                                              BA C K R O A D   C H A L K I E

D E C E M B E R     2 0 2 4

Willie Nelson long ago speaking about

a way of music, and music is often

applied many ways

NANCY SINATRA ~

 

Nancy Sinatra /Lee Hazelwood

   1966

DUBRAVKA UGRESIC (AGAIN) ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Dalkey Archive

     2003

MORE DORIANNE LAUX ~

 

The Optimism of French Toast

No matter how many years since

the first bite passed my lips, that business

of eggs and day-old bread, ribbon of syrup,

fireflies of butter sparking my tongue's buds,

I think of my Arcadian ancestors

landing on the shores of Nova Scotia, dragging

logs from the deep woods, fashioning windows,

hanging laundry from two oars dug into sand —

the flags of domesticity flayed by the wind.

I see the fruits of their labor rise up

from the marshes: beets, parsnips, cabbages

and corn, and the wheat they ground

to powder and baked into bread.

And the chicken shook out egg after egg

we broke into shallow bowls, beat

with a spoon, each thick slice dipped

into that loom of albumen, chalazae and yolk,

then laid on a scrim of grease in the pan

where it sizzled its solitary song.

How could these French be

considered a scrouge, their houses

burned to the ground they had worked,

forced to take the tangled circuity

of dirt roads with nothing but what

they could carry on their backs? No time

for funerals, no place to go. And yet

here I am at my kitchen table listening

to Clifton Chenier on the radio, daughter

of a people who refused to die: sacks

of wheat on their shoulders, spoon

in a belt loop, sugar sprinkled in a pant cuff,

a sleeping chicken hidden under a coat.

____________________

Dorianne Laux

Life on Earth

Norton, 2024

VLADIMIR SOROKIN ~

R E A D    M E

New York Review of Books

2024

THE BLACK UTOPIANS ~

 

R E A D   M E

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

2024

PSALMS 104 SUNG IN ANCIENT HEBREW ~

 

lyrics: 𝑷𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒎 104 (𝑪𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆 𝑷𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒎) composition: 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑱𝒆𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒃𝒂𝒃𝒚𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒂𝒏 arrangement: 𝒀𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒆 (𝑱𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏) 𝑫𝒓𝒐𝒓

CHARLES MINGUS SEXTET (1964) ~

 

The band: Eric Dolphy (Alto Saxophone, Bass Clarinet, Flute) Charles Mingus (Bass) Dannie Richmond (Drums) Jaki Byard (Piano) Clifford Jordan (Tenor Saxophone) Johnny Coles (Trumpet)

LUCINDA WILLIAMS ~

 

THE EDITOR, JUDITH JONES ~

 

R E A D   M E

The longtime Knopf editor Judith Jones in her Manhattan apartment in 2007.

Credit...

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

ALICE COLTRANE THE CARNEGIE HALL CONCERT ~

 

  Impulse 2024

NOW ~

 

Meet One of Hong Kong’s Last Remaining Pro-Democracy Activists

For Chan Po-ying, a labor rights leader, life is one of constant police surveillance, even on hikes. But she finds solace from tiny gestures of support.

R E A D   M E

Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

PHOEBE GIANNISI ~

 

Flutes

in a time of idleness,

when the tender breeze

Zephyr

blows and caresses

their cheeks,

they sit in the thick shade

of a rock.

drinking milk

or wine.

lulled by the rustle

of leaves

and the tiny song of the cicada.

carving wood

or whistling.

but the best flute

isn't made of wood

but from the bones

of an eagle.

to make this music

you first needed to learn

how to fly.

_______________________

Phoebe Giannisi

Chimera

New Directions 2024

FREE LEONARD PELTIER ~

 

      Democracy Now!

EDWIDGE DANTICAT ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Graywolf 2024

LEAD BELLY ~

 

R E A D   M E

Cambridge University Press

2024

ALICE BROCK ~

 

A L I C E   B R O C K

1941 ~ 2024 

INGRAM MARSHALL (FLOW) ~

 

     John Adams

OSCAR GARCIA SIERRA ~

 

Birthday

first it was the train tracks,

then telecommunications

and now parties until the break of day.

i'm fucked

and everyone i know

is fucked.

and i guess everyone

i don't know

is also fucked,

and i guess that's why

i'm not interested

in getting to know new people,

and i guess that's why

no one else is

interested in getting to know me.

________________________

Oscar Garcia Sierra

Houston, I'm the Problem

World Poetry, 2023

translated from the Spanish by

Carmen Yus Quintero

CORKY LEE'S ASIAN AMERICANS ~

 

R E A D   M E

M O R E

        Clarkson Potter, 2024

THINGS TO LOVE ABOUT THE SMALL PRESS ~

 

R E A D   M E

Wakefield Press

2024

FOREVER ELAINE MAY ~

R E A D   M E

     St. Martin's Press

     2024

JESSE ED DAVIS ~

 

J E S S E   E D   D A V I S

          Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

DRAWN TESTIMONY ~

 

Ghislaine Maxwell, seated second from right, was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021 after a monthlong trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.Credit...Jane Rosenberg

R E A D   M E

     Drawing & riveting

[ BA ]

      HANOVER SQUARE, 2024

RESIDENCE ~

 

I HEREBY

 ANNOUNCE

(and I am Nobody)

 that the

47th Presidency

of 2025

in true FLUXUS

 Manner,

will be owned, lived,

 suffered

by all of us —

 residents of the

 

USA and the rest of

 the World

the EARTH

as our combined and

 self-fulfilled

ART WORK. Not

 politics,

 

not geography, not

 anyones,

ALL OF OURS. We

 will rejoice

and suffer together.

 Those who

voted for, voted

 against, didn’t

vote, couldn’t vote,

 never will

VOTE. Here we are,

 all together,

in our ART WORK.

FEEL IT.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THIS IS THE BEST ARTICLE YOU WILL

READ TODAY ABOUT THE STATE OF AMERICA —

 POLITICS, PEOPLE, YOU, ME

GOSPEL HARMONETTES ~

 

Slavoj Źiźek ~

 

    M O R E !

SONGS OF MIRABAI ~

 

Some Songs of Mirabai

           ________________________

paga bandha ghumgharyam nacyari

Binding my ankles with silver

I danced —

people in town called me crazy.

She'll run the clan

said my mother-in-law,

and the prince

had a cup ofvenom delivered.

I laughed as I drank it.

Can't they see?

Body and mind aren't something to lose,

the Dark One's already seized them.

Mira's lord can lift mountains,

he is her refuge.

mhare dere ajyo

Come to my bedroom,

I've scattered fresh buds on the couch,

perfumed my body.

Birth after birth I am your servant,

sleep only with you.

Mira's lord does not perish —

one glimpse of the Dark One is all she requests.

jagamam jivana thora

Life on this planet is fragile,

why take up a burden?

From mother and father

come birth,

but from the font of creation comes karma.

People waste life,

heaping up merit like they're buying and selling —

it's pointless.

I sing out the raptures

of Hari, go into passions with sadhus,

nothing disturbs me.

Mira says — it's your power Dark One,

but it's me who crosses

the limits.

nenam lobham atakam

Wolfish eyes fixed on the Dark One,

hungry, restless,

scouring every inch of his body.

When he came into view

smiling faintly,

lit up with moonlight.

I nearly collapsed by the door.

My family speaks of their plans

to restrain me

but my eyes flash through every obstruction.

Don't they know somebody's claimed me?

I lift to my forehead

every word uttered,

some ugly, some tender —

without the Dark one's approval

nothing survives.

kina sang khelum holi

Terrible solitude

festival day

now that he's gone.

Damn these rubies and pearls,

I'll string devotional beads

at my throat.

And here's an old hermit cloak —

now that fod and house

are distasteful

it matches my feelings.

What makes me like this?

It's a riddle.

You take me to bed

then go off and fuck

some other girl.

Does she have you under her spell

that you can't even write me?

Mira's bundle of nerves in your absence.

Look at her,

an unwatered weed when the

Dark One's away, 

            she wilts in the rubble.

______________________

Songs of Mirabai

translated by Andrew Schelling

White Pine Press, 2024

COMPANION FOR THE JOURNEY VOLUME 31

THE STAX SONGWRITER DEMOS ~

 

   PLAY  ME  ALL  DAY  &  NIGHT

      Stax Records