Inspired by Hayley over at Le Monochrome, I thought I'd give you a little video mix of tunes that have defined September.
"Sea Talk" | Zola Jesus
"Instruct Me"| The Drums
"Mountain" | Heartless Bastards (sorry, the graphics are awful on this video - was the best sound quality I found
"Flirted With You All My Life" | Vic Chestnutt
Also, my dear Anna Vogelzang has a new EP, "Secret Cedar Room," coming out this Saturday. I got a sneak peek & have been singing along ever since. She has some beautiful original songs, but she also covers Ace of Base's "The Sign," as first seen in this video (in which she and Joe and quite drunk, apparently, & which makes me laugh & laugh):
Chins up & eyes open, chickadees.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Strip Malls & Sombreros
In the early dark of Saturday morning, D & I were lost, looping along the neon strip malls, somewhere between Eastwood & the Heights, between the thick heat of Star Bar & the stumbling party of Dane's house, between what's possible and desired, what's seen and remains unseen, what's historical & what we do to fill in the story's blanks. Then, two days of odd sleep, rain and stomachaches, less to do with hunger and more to do with time. A sad movie & a Mexican breakfast, stray dogs always on the street. "I love you for shattering," says Dean Young, in his poem "Commencement Address,""Someone has to."
When I am done speaking to one parent, they give a long holler to the other, on a different floor of the house, to pick up the phone. We learned the long holler, from the first floor to the third, to stand at the foot of the steps and push a long sound up, to let the vowel echo outwards in Mooooooooom(Paaaaam), in Daaaaaaad(Daaaavid), in Beeeeeen in Sooooophiiieee. My mother tells me again that her whole life has been framed by her father's early death, that she grew up with a paralyzing fear of sickness. I grew up feeling that I could do anything I wanted, for better or worse, but that I would always be sick. Now my mother & I send comic strips in the mail, speak in child-memory & babble, speak from our affinity for the tiny & strange. My father is watching the football game. They say, "You are the only child who calls us." I sit in my little wishing room & wish.
"I love you for shattering. / Someone has to."
"Don't write a poem about this," says D, "Don't, like seriously don't. Okay? Okay, cuz I'm serious. Don't write about me." I tell him that I won't, that I wouldn't and this is a lie, and of course I will and the air between us sometimes like a spring. "I won't write about this. I mean, I'll write about this," he says, "but it will be like not even here at all. Not like this, no. No, no." And so on ; my empathy makes a little boat, carries into evening.
So what? So now it's Sunday. Clean-up, have some coffee, see the white spaces arranged around text in a way that pushes meaning. Get up, go on, go.
When I am done speaking to one parent, they give a long holler to the other, on a different floor of the house, to pick up the phone. We learned the long holler, from the first floor to the third, to stand at the foot of the steps and push a long sound up, to let the vowel echo outwards in Mooooooooom(Paaaaam), in Daaaaaaad(Daaaavid), in Beeeeeen in Sooooophiiieee. My mother tells me again that her whole life has been framed by her father's early death, that she grew up with a paralyzing fear of sickness. I grew up feeling that I could do anything I wanted, for better or worse, but that I would always be sick. Now my mother & I send comic strips in the mail, speak in child-memory & babble, speak from our affinity for the tiny & strange. My father is watching the football game. They say, "You are the only child who calls us." I sit in my little wishing room & wish.
"I love you for shattering. / Someone has to."
"Don't write a poem about this," says D, "Don't, like seriously don't. Okay? Okay, cuz I'm serious. Don't write about me." I tell him that I won't, that I wouldn't and this is a lie, and of course I will and the air between us sometimes like a spring. "I won't write about this. I mean, I'll write about this," he says, "but it will be like not even here at all. Not like this, no. No, no." And so on ; my empathy makes a little boat, carries into evening.
So what? So now it's Sunday. Clean-up, have some coffee, see the white spaces arranged around text in a way that pushes meaning. Get up, go on, go.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
I am looking for the trail
The Testing-Tree
by Stanley Kunitz
1
On my way home from school
up tribal Providence Hill
past the Academy ballpark
where I could never hope to play
I scuffed in the drainage ditch
among the sodden seethe of leaves
hunting for perfect stones
rolled out of glacial time
into my pitcher's hand;
then sprinted lickety-
split on my magic Keds
from a crouching start,
scarcely touching the ground
with my flying skin
as I poured it on
for the prize of the mastery
over that stretch of road,
with no one no where to deny
when I flung myself down
that on the given course
I was the world's fastest human.
2
Around the bend
that tried to loop me home
dawdling came natural
across a nettled field
riddled with rabbit-life
where the bees sank sugar-wells
in the trunks of the maples
and a stringy old lilac
more than two stories tall
blazing with mildew
remembered a door in the
long teeth of the woods.
All of it happened slow:
brushing the stickseed off,
wading through jewelweed
strangled by angel's hair,
spotting the print of the deer
and the red fox's scats.
Once I owned the key
to an umbrageous trail
thickened with mosses
where flickering presences
gave me right of passage
as I followed in the steps
of straight-backed Massassoit
soundlessly heel-and-toe
practicing my Indian walk.
3
Past the abandoned quarry
where the pale sun bobbed
in the sump of the granite,
past copperhead ledge,
where the ferns gave foothold,
I walked, deliberate,
on to the clearing,
with the stones in my pocket
changing to oracles
and my coiled ear tuned
to the slightest leaf-stir.
I had kept my appointment.
There I stood in the shadow,
at fifty measured paces,
of the inexhaustible oak,
tyrant and target,
Jehovah of acorns,
watchtower of the thunders,
that locked King Philip's War
in its annulated core
under the cut of my name.
Father wherever you are
I have only three throws
bless my good right arm.
In the haze of afternoon,
while the air flowed saffron,
I played my game for keeps--
for love, for poetry,
and for eternal life--
after the trials of summer.
4
In the recurring dream
my mother stands
in her bridal gown
under the burning lilac,
with Bernard Shaw and Bertie
Russell kissing her hands;
the house behind her is in ruins;
she is wearing an owl's face
and makes barking noises.
Her minatory finger points.
I pass through the cardboard doorway
askew in the field
and peer down a well
where an albino walrus huffs.
He has the gentlest eyes.
If the dirt keeps sifting in,
staining the water yellow,
why should I be blamed?
Never try to explain.
That single Model A
sputtering up the grade
unfurled a highway behind
where the tanks maneuver,
revolving their turrets.
In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go
through dark and deeper dark
and not to turn.
I am looking for the trail.
Where is my testing-tree?
Give me back my stones!
by Stanley Kunitz
1
On my way home from school
up tribal Providence Hill
past the Academy ballpark
where I could never hope to play
I scuffed in the drainage ditch
among the sodden seethe of leaves
hunting for perfect stones
rolled out of glacial time
into my pitcher's hand;
then sprinted lickety-
split on my magic Keds
from a crouching start,
scarcely touching the ground
with my flying skin
as I poured it on
for the prize of the mastery
over that stretch of road,
with no one no where to deny
when I flung myself down
that on the given course
I was the world's fastest human.
2
Around the bend
that tried to loop me home
dawdling came natural
across a nettled field
riddled with rabbit-life
where the bees sank sugar-wells
in the trunks of the maples
and a stringy old lilac
more than two stories tall
blazing with mildew
remembered a door in the
long teeth of the woods.
All of it happened slow:
brushing the stickseed off,
wading through jewelweed
strangled by angel's hair,
spotting the print of the deer
and the red fox's scats.
Once I owned the key
to an umbrageous trail
thickened with mosses
where flickering presences
gave me right of passage
as I followed in the steps
of straight-backed Massassoit
soundlessly heel-and-toe
practicing my Indian walk.
3
Past the abandoned quarry
where the pale sun bobbed
in the sump of the granite,
past copperhead ledge,
where the ferns gave foothold,
I walked, deliberate,
on to the clearing,
with the stones in my pocket
changing to oracles
and my coiled ear tuned
to the slightest leaf-stir.
I had kept my appointment.
There I stood in the shadow,
at fifty measured paces,
of the inexhaustible oak,
tyrant and target,
Jehovah of acorns,
watchtower of the thunders,
that locked King Philip's War
in its annulated core
under the cut of my name.
Father wherever you are
I have only three throws
bless my good right arm.
In the haze of afternoon,
while the air flowed saffron,
I played my game for keeps--
for love, for poetry,
and for eternal life--
after the trials of summer.
4
In the recurring dream
my mother stands
in her bridal gown
under the burning lilac,
with Bernard Shaw and Bertie
Russell kissing her hands;
the house behind her is in ruins;
she is wearing an owl's face
and makes barking noises.
Her minatory finger points.
I pass through the cardboard doorway
askew in the field
and peer down a well
where an albino walrus huffs.
He has the gentlest eyes.
If the dirt keeps sifting in,
staining the water yellow,
why should I be blamed?
Never try to explain.
That single Model A
sputtering up the grade
unfurled a highway behind
where the tanks maneuver,
revolving their turrets.
In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go
through dark and deeper dark
and not to turn.
I am looking for the trail.
Where is my testing-tree?
Give me back my stones!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
i take my waking slow
on shuffle, Placebo's cover of Kate Bush's Runnin'Up that Hill came right before Iron & Wine's "Lion's Mane."
I have been (gasp) social this weekend, as I was already coaxed out of my hermit hole for a Gulf Coast staff meeting. We start reading slush next weekend - entirely excited to be involved with a publication of this scale. A little bird tells me that a Gulf Coast blog will be live on October 2, so keep an eye out.
Meanwhile, in the shining world of Gigantic Sequins, our editor is reading over the proof for 2.1 while we do a bit of fund-raising. We're having (don't laugh) a raffle, which I am calling Raffle Me Baffle Me!, which is to say we are happily baffled and entirely pleased by the array of donations — from the likes of ModCloth,Tao Lin, and Wave Books - arriving for our up-coming raffle. Thanks for those who have donated so far! If you, your press, your band, or your craft, would like to be a part of our fund-raising raffle, or want to know more, please contact GIGANTICMAGAZINE@gmail.com, or comment here with your email address and I will send you our editor-in-chief's mailing address.
And so, nous finissons, chickadees. Tune in next time.
I have been (gasp) social this weekend, as I was already coaxed out of my hermit hole for a Gulf Coast staff meeting. We start reading slush next weekend - entirely excited to be involved with a publication of this scale. A little bird tells me that a Gulf Coast blog will be live on October 2, so keep an eye out.
Meanwhile, in the shining world of Gigantic Sequins, our editor is reading over the proof for 2.1 while we do a bit of fund-raising. We're having (don't laugh) a raffle, which I am calling Raffle Me Baffle Me!, which is to say we are happily baffled and entirely pleased by the array of donations — from the likes of ModCloth,Tao Lin, and Wave Books - arriving for our up-coming raffle. Thanks for those who have donated so far! If you, your press, your band, or your craft, would like to be a part of our fund-raising raffle, or want to know more, please contact GIGANTICMAGAZINE@gmail.com, or comment here with your email address and I will send you our editor-in-chief's mailing address.
And so, nous finissons, chickadees. Tune in next time.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Nous sommes ambitieux, mais nous sommes aussi fatigues.
In Texas, I am more aware of my silence. Some days I speak to nothing but the cat, move my voice around little spaces of song. Because I am learning French, learning to read French more than learning to speak, my old audition standard "Chanson" (from The Baker's Wife), is on a loop through my head. It begins,
Chaque jour est un jour,
comme les autres doux jour -
le potage, l'ouvrage,
peut-etre l'amour,
le soleil, il voyage
le monde fait un tour,
ansi c'est tourjours le meme...
Mostly I speak on the phone those far away, California or Pennsylvania, Massachusetts or New York or Wisconsin. It's not bad. There's a flurry of writing, flurry of sound.
Two poems from my odd collection of angels. One from Jim Daniels' Places/Everyone , and one from Nick Flynn's Some Ether. Both of these poems contain a type of silence, a type of refusal. It has to do with what we can stand, what we can't turn away from, what we must watch, what we must allow, what we allowed - thinking it wouldn't, couldn't last - within us taking root. What was torn into us, & changed sight... the writing I love best - it's always desire, wound, scar or balm.. or something in between..
March 17, 1972
by Jim Daniels
I stood for a long time
watching lights smear the wet street.
My feet planted themselves in mud.
Police radios squawked against each other.
The pint in one pocket
tugged down my jacket.
I felt its weight
cold in my hands.
Ambulances took away two injured,
one dead. Friends. Five men pushed
the crushed car back on its wheels.
A wrecker hauled it away
Show's over, boy, a cop said.
I yanked my feet out and turned
away. I can tell you this
years later. You've probably
been there:
on Alvina, the sharp curve
by the Dairy Queen, the stump
next to the ditch.
An older brother's i.d.
Someone's father's car.
Maybe you walked home
a different way. Maybe
you didn't stop to sit
on a swing behind the grade school.
Maybe the rain stopped
on your night.
Me, I banged myself
against a cyclone fence.
I finished my bottle
and fingered old stitches.
I wouldn't be smart again
for years.
Emptying Town
by Nick Flynn
I want to erase your footprints
from my walls. Each pillow
is thick with your reasons. Omens
fill the sidewalk below my window: a woman
in a party hat, clinging
to a tin-foil balloon. Shadows
creep slowly across the tar, someone yells, "Stop!"
and I close my eyes. I can't watch
as this town slowly empties, leaving me
strung between bon-voyages, like so many clothes
on a line, the white handkerchief
stuck in my throat. You know the way Jesus
rips open his shirt
to show us his heart, all flaming and thorny,
the way he points to it. I'm afraid
the way I'll miss you will be this obvious.
I have a friend who everyone warns me
is dangerous, he hides
bloody images of Jesus
around my house, for me to find
when I come home; Jesus
behind the cupboard door, Jesus tucked
into the mirror. He wants to save me
but we disagree from what. My version of hell
is someone ripping open his shirt
and saying, Look what I did for you. . .
Chaque jour est un jour,
comme les autres doux jour -
le potage, l'ouvrage,
peut-etre l'amour,
le soleil, il voyage
le monde fait un tour,
ansi c'est tourjours le meme...
Mostly I speak on the phone those far away, California or Pennsylvania, Massachusetts or New York or Wisconsin. It's not bad. There's a flurry of writing, flurry of sound.
Two poems from my odd collection of angels. One from Jim Daniels' Places/Everyone , and one from Nick Flynn's Some Ether. Both of these poems contain a type of silence, a type of refusal. It has to do with what we can stand, what we can't turn away from, what we must watch, what we must allow, what we allowed - thinking it wouldn't, couldn't last - within us taking root. What was torn into us, & changed sight... the writing I love best - it's always desire, wound, scar or balm.. or something in between..
March 17, 1972
by Jim Daniels
I stood for a long time
watching lights smear the wet street.
My feet planted themselves in mud.
Police radios squawked against each other.
The pint in one pocket
tugged down my jacket.
I felt its weight
cold in my hands.
Ambulances took away two injured,
one dead. Friends. Five men pushed
the crushed car back on its wheels.
A wrecker hauled it away
Show's over, boy, a cop said.
I yanked my feet out and turned
away. I can tell you this
years later. You've probably
been there:
on Alvina, the sharp curve
by the Dairy Queen, the stump
next to the ditch.
An older brother's i.d.
Someone's father's car.
Maybe you walked home
a different way. Maybe
you didn't stop to sit
on a swing behind the grade school.
Maybe the rain stopped
on your night.
Me, I banged myself
against a cyclone fence.
I finished my bottle
and fingered old stitches.
I wouldn't be smart again
for years.
Emptying Town
by Nick Flynn
I want to erase your footprints
from my walls. Each pillow
is thick with your reasons. Omens
fill the sidewalk below my window: a woman
in a party hat, clinging
to a tin-foil balloon. Shadows
creep slowly across the tar, someone yells, "Stop!"
and I close my eyes. I can't watch
as this town slowly empties, leaving me
strung between bon-voyages, like so many clothes
on a line, the white handkerchief
stuck in my throat. You know the way Jesus
rips open his shirt
to show us his heart, all flaming and thorny,
the way he points to it. I'm afraid
the way I'll miss you will be this obvious.
I have a friend who everyone warns me
is dangerous, he hides
bloody images of Jesus
around my house, for me to find
when I come home; Jesus
behind the cupboard door, Jesus tucked
into the mirror. He wants to save me
but we disagree from what. My version of hell
is someone ripping open his shirt
and saying, Look what I did for you. . .
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