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.
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Everybody, relax, ok? It’s a poem.
Small crowd, good performance.
Set list:
Maps (new piece)
Las Lloronas
Do You Know What It Means
Americanized
Thumbs Up (solo by Faro; check out his Myspace to hear it — http://www.myspace.com/downtheroadri )
Meditations on a Black Excursion
Mayans and Aztecs
Lesson: How To Be An Oppressor (new piece)
Where Do You Live?
OK merch sales; all in all a decent night.
No plans to record the new pieces just yet; if we do it’ll be likely be for the album AFTER the one we’re currently working on. We spent the afternoon working on sketches for that one, and looking at the possibility of adding some sampled and/or live beats to the production. Still undecided, and if we do, it likely won’t be on the whole album but used here and there.
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Tuesday night at Gotpoetry Live we’ve got a theme night — bring your own poems inspired by the theme of “Maps” and join the fun. 7:30, 8 Governor Street, Providence. 2.00 suggested donation. Love to see you.
Come see Duende tonight at Jester’s in Westfield, and you’ll hear us premiere not one but two new pieces.
You can tell everyone you were there, and make them jealous.
That’ll be cool.
Go to this convenient compilation site right here http://longboredsurfer.com/charts.php and find the five years you were in high school. For each year, admit to the song that was your favorite at the time, then decide which one you now generally consider to be the best song on the list. Lastly, pick the year’s worst song, snarking optional.
This also appears in ocvictor‘s comments…
When it comes to the Top 100, I believe my high school years (1974-1977) may be the worst in history.
I left out 1973 deliberately, though I loved a lot of pop music before that (the summer of 1972 was my favorite year for pop music ever, and I found it too hard to choose favorites).
1974:
Fav — Stevie Wonder’s “Livin in the City” then and now. I remember discovering the long version (what we used to call the album version) late one night and falling in love with how much he changed his voice.
Worst Song:
“A Very Special Love Song,” Charlie Rich. You’ve come a long way from the rockabilly, O Silver Fox, and it’s all been down hill…
1975:
Fav then: “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” — Freddy Fender. Um, drugs, anyone? It was our senior class song two years later.
Fav now: “Third Rate Romance” — The Amazing Rhythm Aces. I still play this song on guitar now and then. Great, unsparing look at a one night stand.
Worst: Oh, so many candidates! I’ll go with John Denver’s “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” because he’s not around to argue. Donny and Marie’s “Morning Side Of the Mountain” is right up there too.
1976:
Fav then: “Dream On,” Aerosmith. Coming from southern Worcester County where Joe Perry was from, this was all about local boys making good. They actually played teen dances at the Lakeview Ballroom on Satruday afternoons when I was 11-12; I recall going to one once because my parents heard it was sponsored by the local Catholic Youth Organization and they figured it was OK. If they only knew…
Fav now:”Tear the Roof Off The Sucker,” Parliament. I hadn’t discovered Parliament back then because local rock radio didn’t play it at all.
Worst: Can anything beat John Travolta’s “Let Her In?”
1977
Fav then: “Walk This Way,” Aerosmith. See 1976 for details. (Point: by the fall of 1977, I’d fully discovered punk and didn’t think about the Top 100 for years after that. Also, this was high time for Bruce, the Jukes, and this was also the year I discovered the Dead and chased them around a bit; was also listening to all sorts of other stuff that wasn’t charting, so this is definitely a default choice.)
Fav now: “Strawberry Letter 23” by the Brothers Johnson. Again, not getting much play on our local stations back then — what a great song. How much more would I have been into funk and related stuff if it had been available to us then?
Worst: I hated then and hate to this day “Stand Tall” by Burton Cummings, because I was a Guess Who fan and felt betrayed. (If “Nashville Sneakers” had charted, though, I might be putting that on the Fav list.)
Interesting. I’m struck by how much just focusing on the Top 100 limits my list — I was already listening to freeform radio by the time I was 14 so I knew and heard a LOT more music than just the chart hits — probably liked a lot of it a lot more than this stuff. Shit, I was a confirmed Robert Johnson fan by the time I was 15…
I got the laptop a much needed present last night — boosted the memory in anticipation of an eventual upgrade to Leopard. I still want to let more time go by before I do that, as I’m still checking out reviews of how it runs on G4s. I tend to be very conservative when it comes to op system upgrades — too many bad experiences back when I worked on Windows machines. I wasn’t having any dramatic trouble with it, but there were times when I was trying to do multi track recording stuff in Garageband and performance was slow — testing last night seemed to indicate that issue’s solved, and running multiple apps at the same time seems much smoother.
While installing the memory, I had the TV on and heard a commercial for “Futurama” that riffed on “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Shortly after that, my brain exploded.
Fighting a head cold, but otherwise I’m OK. Not writing much here lately, due to work on poems for the new Duende album which I’ll be keeping under wraps for the foreseeable future.
Will be hitting the Asylum tonight for javabill‘s feature; tomorrow night, Duende plays a show out at Jester’s Cafe in Westfield. You should come to both of them.
This meme is from “What Privileges Do You Have?”, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.
Bold all things that apply to you.
1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family
ETA: Here’s my take on this meme, as I originally posted it as comments on Karen G and Bill’s blogs.
I thought it was pretty interesting, and effective in a sneaky way.
I see this meme as being as much about what kind of disposable income the family had as it is about education — perhaps more so. This is why there aren’t questions about having a library card, participation in after school programs, etc.
I think if you asked people directly about the more frivolous aspects of disposable income — toys, games, pools, house size, etc. — they’d be more apt to shade the truth.
It also has something to do with where priorities were in the family regarding the maintenance of privilege and class. A lot of these things are about exposure to the trappings of privilege, in my opinion.
In general, though, it’s mostly just not complete — but it does make you think about where the sources of privilege, and of maintaining it, are based.
Some examples:
More than 500 books implies a larger home with space available for things beyond basic living space.
A car purchased for a kid implies that there was extra money for the more expensive insurance that attaches to underage drivers.
An extra phone line for a kid’s room is an expense that can be seen as being done as much for the parent’s convenience as it is for the kid.
There’s also a thing here about what kind of money us being spent to help assure that the privileges of the family are passed on to the next generation — SAT/ACT prep, multiple types of lessons, etc.
It’s actually a pretty good indicator of at least some of where the parents were putting extra cash — what were the priorities? Immediate gratification, or perpetuating and enhancing the class status of the offspring?
Just my take on it. I think it deliberately disguises its intent to get what was going on in the family. As such, I think it’s pretty effective, if incomplete.
Woke up this morning to an Internet station playing May Sarton, which reminded me of the best poetry reading I ever saw…Clark University, 1981 or so, with Gwendolyn Brooks, May Sarton, and Tillie Olson.
I had to think hard about that “best ever” designation, because I’ve seen some great ones…but I think it still stands out, even over all the great performance poets I’ve seen, even over folks like Robert Bly (sneer as you like, he’s frequently mesmerizing) and Etheridge Knight (who was intimidating as hell to a suburban 14 year old as I was at the time, but still incredibly influential).
What was the best poetry performance you ever saw?
Hey…is that…could it be…a new column???
The Zero Point Zero Regular Column!
Very much more than Nothing!
Yup.
And tonight at Gotpoetry Live, we’ve got old school in the house: Michael Mack. C’mon down.
EDIT TO ABOVE: Michael can’t make it — we’ll come up with something fun instead. C’mon down.
http://johnpowers.livejournal.com/226155.html
New feature at Gotpoetry. Check it out!
On the wall of the commune’s living room
someone’s pasted all the topographic maps
for the entire area, connected them carefully
and made sure that every contour line
matches its continuation on the next map.
Over time, you’ve put a pin into every place
you’ve been where something happened. You
define that broadly — place of the first
owl, the first slimemold, the orange shine
of the last place you fell and laughed about it
instead of cursing the ground itself for its treachery.
Red means good here, blue means bad, and everything
is based in silver sharp and true that leaves holes in the map
where you think you saw something meaningful once.
It’s not like there’s blood in there —
oh, there’s something seeping up from within,
but it’s clear. It’s like plasma —
there are things floating in it you can’t see, things
critical to life that are carried through you without you knowing
exactly where anything is at a given moment.
You are here. Here is
some mall, some array of
food courts and petty mayhem. You are
the man staring at the glass map
which is telling you that you are here,
but of course you knew that.
You imagine that the mall’s
on someone else’s map, a map
sitting on a lap in a Toyota
inching toward the place you are.
The Toyota’s slowing down and the driver
pitches a butt out the window to snuff it.
Heat gives way to snow-soaked cold just as
you’re losing your own fire to move —
where the hell is the bookstore in this place,
and now that you see how far it is
from here to there, do you really need
to read anything more
than you’ve already read?
Maybe you’re only here to be the vessel of frustration
for the ambiguity of red dots and yellow blocks
that promise destination, and another book
would just complicate matters.
Instead, you wish you were in
your own car and that you were passing that Toyota
going the other way, away from
your current location which is still
the place you were a minute ago.
Which way is the parking garage? You sink
back into the dots and blocks on the black glass.
You are here
and anyone who tells you
a map is not the territory is naive:
without this map would you be this antsy
that you’re not already somewhere else?
That’s a map for you: places with meaning
marked for your pleasure and convenience
with clear paths to the next place you want to be,
except that the cars on the road out there
are on different maps
and when you slump onto the hard slats
of the industrial benches before the glass
that holds you, tugged to immobility by that red dot,
you sense the number of journeys
you could be making, the number of maps
you could be looking at —
but you are here.
Dark Matter 