http://www.newsweek.com/id/73896
There’s an article in the print edition of Newsweek this week that explores the idea that the quest for happiness is overrated. It draws an important distinction between depression and sadness, too…but it speaks to something I’ve felt in my gut for a long time.
This online version isn’t as comprehensive, so I recommend the print version if you want the full story.
Go ahead…flame away.
After a couple of months of using Facebook, I’ve decided it’s pretty much a timesuck and I’m going to dump it. I’ve already got a Livejournal, a Myspace, and my work at Gotpoetry.com and FB just takes up time without having much appreciable benefit.
At heart, I find I’m just not the pure social networking type, and FB — with its endless spam — is just not for me. I use the other spaces more for blogging and art and promotion; just not finding a useful purpose there.
So…adios to that, gang. I’ll be getting rid of it later tonight after a lot of folks have seen the notice I placed there.
Too much going on, and spending a lot of time working on stuff old and new…little time to post. The new project with Faro is taking a lot of my creative juice, hence the short poems I’m posting here are pretty much respites from that.
Tonight is Gotpoetry Live, our monthly new poem night. Read something new! C’mon down, dammit.
Last night was fun — javabill and I went out to Hampshire College and did a workshop for the gang out there. Lots of fun and good stuff emerging from everyone in the writing exercises. Cool night.
See you tonight, I trust; if not, see you around…
Highbrow was sorely vexed
when (while riding into town
upon his tall horse) he spied
Middlebrow crouching on the roadside
waiting to fawn all over him
or bite his ankles, perhaps at
the same time.
Middlebrow, seeing only that something fast and lovely
saw the world from a different level,
just knew he wanted some of that,
was set on getting some
whether it be by wooing or attack.
Meanwhile, Lowbrow
loved both of them not. But
both of them noticed him there on the porch
with his bluff shoulders and fat lip, his eyes
sexy and dull, his ever-chewing mouth loud
with a cheap song they could believe in,
and they dreamed of catching his eye.
Busy as hell, but thought I’d pass this along:
the new Zero Point Zero is up.
The Zero Point Zero Regular Column!
Very much more than Nothing!
Faro’s coming. I’ll bring a guitar and maybe more. Bring your own instruments, too. Songs are OK tonight, too.
Please come. The holidays are over and it’s time to come back out and play.
7:30, Reflections Cafe, corner of Governor and Wickenden, Providence, RI.
Been gone all day, so this is the post about the Provincetown gig.
drgeorge and I headed out to P-Town mid afternoon, made decent time, grabbed pizza before the gig. Met with our fellow poets back at the lovely little Provinetown Theater around 6:30 or so.
We each (there were six of us) did about ten minutes each, followed by the headliners, “The Bitter Poet” and “Howlin’ Vic.” More about them in a minute…the six of us were:
Terry Rozo, who read a well-written monologue about heroin addiction;
me
Skip (lj user=”drgeorge”> who did the “Artist’s Statement” from his book;
Jose Gouveia who read three excellent poems;
Chase, a 17 year old from Orleans who is someone to watch;
and a guy who walked in off the street and asked to read.
It was Bobby Miller.
Some of you may recognize that name from such places as “The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry” and “Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe.” This guy was doing performance poetry before anyone had coined the name — frequently funny, often poignant, and always sharp work from the fastlane 70s punk and disco scenes in NYC. He’s been living a reclusive life in P-Town for the last seven years, working on a couple of books, and hasn’t been to a reading in a while. He’s still got it. It was a treat to hear it.
The headliners were hysterical. “The Bitter Poet” is a performance artist/actor who’s developed an act around a character called the Bitter Poet — a rock star-ish turn with funny poem-songs about relationships, many costume changes, and his own Les Paul providing back up music. Skip described it as Jack Black meets Steve Martin — good description. “Howlin’ Vic” is a burlesque performer who killed me with some great routines — highly recommend the striptease to “All Of Me” (think bloodstained lingerie and jumping rope with intestines) and the outstanding, deliberately bad routine to “Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These.” I ’bout died. Not at all what I was expecting but a good time anyway.
They’re trying to establish this as a regular series – will be putting in a bid for a Duende headlining spot. I think this is a good thing.
It’s late and it’s been a long day. See you later — probably at Regie Gibson’s show at the Q tonight.
That’s the North Star, he tells himself
as he turns from the window. That’s
the way to go.
He’s wrong.
It’s Betelgeuse, but it doesn’t matter because
he’ll never get to share the thought,
and no one will get to correct him.
Then, there’s one final act
of tragedy:
it comes unexpectedly to him
that her hands
on his forehead feel false, as if
her compassion includes some measure
of contempt. He grasps at the hope
that he’s wrong,
but it eludes him
as she shuts his eyes.
I’ll be performing — solo, not a Duende gig — as part of an evening of poetry out at the Provincetown Theater, along with two NYC poets named The Bitter Poet and Howlin’ Vic. Show starts at 7 PM.
This is a very last minute gig, so anyone who could possibly make it is enthusiastically encouraged to attend.
By the way — anybody know these guys?
loudpoet‘s rolling launch of the excellent e-zine continues. Already one of my favorite e-zines, it explores various facets of life in NYC.
I’ve got two poems up in the joint: “First Letter Home” was in the soft launch back in December, and now “Light and Glass,” one of the very few poems I’ve written about 9/11, is up this week. I’m proud to have it there, a little humbled to be sure…
Worth checking out across the board, and bookmarking for future reading. This promises to be a Web highlight for hose (and others) seeking excellent work in all genres.
There are six billion people on the Earth.
Only seventeen of them
have ever seen a real UFO, only six have seen
a ghost, and only thirty-seven have seen
a yeti.
All of them keep quiet because
they have rationalized their experiences thus:
“it was lightning…”
“it was a trick of weak light…”
“it was my eyes making dumb sense of odd shadows on the underbrush…”
and so on. This is the way truth is made.
What they saw is a matter of fact, how they explain it
is a matter of faith. Sixty separate miracles
are filed sadly away as bad angles, old vision, and
unremarkable moments in unremarkable lives…
so how can you say
you are sure
you don’t love me?
If you heard sirens this morning, that was probably me. I brought the old factory wheel from the back corner of the yard to the middle and doused it with gasoline, then lit it.
I ran inside to get the guitars and the books but someone saw it and before I could get them out to what I believed would be a pyre I heard the sirens so I stayed inside and called into 911 myself. Quick thinking.
I hurried back outside and picked up the gas can so I had an excuse for the smell on my hands. I told the firefighters it must have been a neighborhood prank. I don’t think they bought it, but I’m still home because no one can prove otherwise.
Right now, I’m out of cigarettes but feel a little nervous about going outside in case someone’s watching to see if I do try again. I’m waiting to see what the ravens say before I decide, but according to whatbird.com, there are very few ravens around here. It may be a long wait.
So I’d love it if someone would bring me some American Spirit cigarettes. I like mine blue, thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everybody, relax, ok? It’s a poem.
Dark Matter 