Disruptive Juxtaposition

Speak Yugoslavian?

2007-08-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

If you speak Yugoslavian and have any desire to help me out on a translation project, please let me know. I realize the small audience of this site might make the odds of your speaking Yugoslavian relatively small, but maybe your dad's friend's uncle's old roommate's lawyer's estranged son summered in I dunno Corfu or somewhere like.

What a musical return!

2007-06-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Who knew it would be Dan Deacon who would tempt me out of my blogging hiatus? I have to tell as many people as possible about this guy.

Also these chaps:

Enough.

2007-01-28T10:02:00.000-08:00

Mortar Strike Hits Girls' School in Baghdad.

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How (not) to Drive a Humvee in Baghdad.

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Vlogger Jimmy Burns in a very possible Baghdad.

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Baghdad goes global.

Results, jazz, results

2007-01-28T09:40:00.000-08:00

No dice on the Washington Square Summer 2007 Poetry Prize (although it's nice to be a finalist). Likewise on a Colorado Review submission. Cue up that Charlie Brown Christmas "Christmastime Is Here" jazz track used to such uproarious "woe-is-me" effect in Arrested Development. Just joking.

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Wynton Marsalis Septet, Blue Interlude. It's a concept disc about an extended love affair. Here's Wynton himself explaining it: "It's about two people becoming one - very delicious - slice of spirit."

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Wrote a poem this AM about a kid in college who, while brushing his teeth, leaned too hard on the sink fixture such that it, the sink fixture, broke away from the wall entirely, thereby unleashing this torrent of water into the bathroom. The rooms below the bathroom, unfortunately, belonged to two freshmen, and their material goods did not fare well in the deluge.

All-Cousin Holiday Soiree, 2007

2007-01-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

Mary and Elizabeth, sisters extraordinaire, neither one of whom has ever dropped me on my head, here reminisce about their SNES Super Ghouls'N'Ghosts skills circa 1992. Wait, no: that's me doing the reminiscing.

A veritable Who's Who of family. A shiny dime to the first one who finds Winston Churchill. Photo by Kristin (love you).

George listens skeptically to an explanation about the rudeness of pointing, indifferent to the courtesy I'm showing him by making my point without pointing. Plus, I seem to be boring even myself.

Jodi: "Oh, Edward."
Edward: "Oh, me."

This snapshot either preceded or followed a fantastic story involving a potential intruder, a set of footprints in the snow, a teenage peeping tom, a house full of lesbians hot-tubbing it in the moonlight, and Edward's unimpeachable morality. But I forget the details.

Up way too late, Max announces his intentions to rule the world Mussolini-style.

The next morning had a flurry of snow on it and on my car. Kris snapped this from the inside as Alec and I struggle to stay upright and clear the windshield in the gale-force 2 mph winds.

Max and Alec enjoy getting the obligatory manual-labor phase of life out of the way early.

No matter what his grin might imply, Max does not plan on running after the car as he unleashes a fusillade of snowballs.

Name that phrase

2006-12-06T19:53:00.000-08:00

Man does not live by bread alone.

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Bing Crosby, Merry Christmas.

Van Morrison, Into the Music.

Iron & Wine, Our Endless Numbered Days.

Mylo, Destroy Rock & Roll.

Through a pinhole

2006-12-03T17:32:00.000-08:00

Death Cab For Cutie, Transatlanticism.

Sigur Ros, Takk...

Debussy, Preludes Book I, Images Book I, Estampes.

Animal Collective, Feels.

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat.

Death Cab For Cutie, We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes.

Chet Baker, Chet Baker Sings "It Could Happen To You".

Death Cab For Cutie, Plans.

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Why all the Death Cab? Oh, just going to see them tonight at the Joint. Why the Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins? Oh, they'll be opening for Death Cab. Why the Animal Collective? Because it's awesome. Why the Chet Baker? Because I like to falsetto-sing along with him as I'm reading student papers. Obviously.

Columnated ruins domino

2006-11-29T20:28:00.000-08:00

Debussy, Melodies.

Debussy, Preludes Book I / Images Book I.

Lambchop, Is a Woman.

Brian Wilson, Smile.

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Happening this Saturday.

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Certain shirts I'd purloined from him show up in the tectonic bottom levels of my dresser drawers - stuff I don't often wear but which I "borrowed" and never returned. It's possible to do this sort of theft during the college years, when you're home on break and your sibling's not around to cry foul or sucker-punch you for taking what's theirs.

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"You'll grow old if you know too much." - Yevgeny Vassilovitch Bazarov

Wherever fortune flings it, it strikes root

2006-11-28T22:53:00.000-08:00

Neutral Milk Hotel, On Avery Island.

Danielson, Ships.

Joe Henry, Tiny Voices.

Sonny Rollins, The Bridge.

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"Like the rest, we shall go for our husks on Judgment Day,
but not that we may wear them, for it is not just
that a man be given what he has thrown away.

Here shall we drag them and in this mournful glade
our bodies will dangle to the end of time,
each on the thorns of its tormented shade."

~ Inferno, Canto XIII.

Get through your Sunday with these

2006-11-26T17:06:00.000-08:00

Stars, Set Yourself on Fire.

Fruit Bats, Spelled in Bones.

Wilco, Summerteeth.

Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.

M. Ward, Transistor Radio.

Bill Evans Trio, Sunday at the Village Vanguard.

It's comin' out!! It's comin' atchaaaaa!!

2006-11-25T10:08:00.000-08:00

Food Bed Gospel is, that is.

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Beethoven, String Quartets Ops 59 and 74 (perf. the Takacs Quartet).

Big Star, #1 Record.

Mitch Hedberg, Mitch All Together.

Phoenix, It's Never Been Like That.

Dr. Octagon, Dr. Octagonecologyst.

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Carved apart a turkey yesterday, yesterday being our actual Thanksgiving. The turkey I roasted turned out to be extra, and so I was able to practice carving it in edifying privacy. The experience turned out to be memorable, and put me in this frame of mind:

"A technique is a procedure that may be mastered, but the skill of the sage goes beyond this. One might say that it has become an 'art,' a dao. With Zhuangzi's conception, any physical activity, whether butchering a carcass, making wooden wheels, or carving beautiful ceremonial bell stands, becomes a dao when it is performed in a spiritual state of heightened awareness."

Presidential reading habits, maybe

2006-11-23T09:44:00.000-08:00

Camera Obscura, Let's Get Out of This Country

Luna, Rendezvous

Wayne Newton, Mr. Las Vegas

The Notorious Bettie Page, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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In the line at the bank yesterday, I was complimented for having the foresight to bring a book with me: Turgenev's Fathers & Sons. The complimenter was a Vegas-looking fellow, with brilliantined Lancelottish hair, black clothes, a light amt. of girth around his middle, black specs, and a reedy-but-big voice. I relayed to him the Matt Fitsko-derived fact - not since confirmed or denied - that Abraham Lincoln always carried a book with him, wherever he went. He enjoyed this possible fact. Then a young fellow with a British accent and a laddish mien interrupted him to ask what the date was. "It's November 22nd," Vegas Lancelot said, "tomorrow is the November 23rd, which is Thanksgiving." Which I took to be a surprising five seconds of harsh school and condescension for poor British Guy. American Hegemony at work within America itself, perhaps?

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Weird: the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on the tube over my shoulder right now happens to feature the fellows from Spamalot. Everything's connected today.

The core thaw

2006-11-21T21:06:00.000-08:00

Puccini, Tosca.

Animal Collective, Feels.

Ryan Adams, Demolition.

The Decemberists, Picaresque.

Rufus Wainwright, Want One.

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Inconspicuous Consumption.

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Lines, at last. Ahem:

Kids don't pick each other up
too frequently, I know you're after
all boys will be boys & it's something
to heft a person who's lived as long as you,
I would swim with Drew Marong
on my back & felt like Atlas: he'd
pretend to drown & so would become
the world to me.

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A turkey's in the sink, thawing. Will it be alright by Thanksgiving? Say I began the thaw this afternoon? I'm thinking about the innermost thaw. Also: thaw begins to look fascinating with enough consideration (and Scotch). I'd play this game with various words when I was younger. I would say Cheerio - as in the cereal O - until the word lost all associative meaning.

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Blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.

The charm offensive

2006-11-20T23:11:00.000-08:00

Otis Rush, All My Loving.

Shout Out Louds, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff.

Andrew Bird, Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs.

Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender.

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Sadly, there's been no time to read poems, write them, or run.

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This town darkens quickly. Valley life. I also suspect that the absence of material in the atmosphere means that light doesn't catch on anything. Ambient light levels stay low.

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I'm bringing back the use of "presently" for "right away" or "as soon as I can." Who's with me?

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Tonight's post title is brought to you by Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which deserves your patronage.

Current listening & more

2006-11-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

Beethoven, String Quartets Ops. 59 and 74.

Fiery Furnaces, Bitter Tea.

Portishead, Dummy.

Radiohead, Amnesiac.

Duncan Sheik, Phantom Moon.

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Now entering a thirteenth straight hour of work. Occasional stops for food don't count.

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Someone tell me how The Simpsons were tonight.

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"The reigning economic system is founded on isolation; at the same time it is a circular process designed to produce isolation. Isolation underpins technology, and technology isolates in its turn; all goods proposed by the spectacular system, from cars to television, also serve as weapons for that system as it strives to reinforce the isolation of 'the lonely crowd.' The spectacle is continually rediscovering its own basic assumptions - and each time in a more concrete manner." ~ Guy Debord

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"They are THE OPPORTUNISTS, those souls who in life were neither for good nor evil but who took no sides in the Rebellion of the Angels. They are neither in Hell nor out of it. Eternally unclassified, they race round and round pursuing a wavering banner that runs forever before them through the dirty air..." ~ John Ciardi

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Two contests to ready Food Bed Gospel for. Currently taking bets on how the MS will fare. The odds that it'll win the day are not in your favor - let's call them at 800 to 1 - but brother will they pay.

Happy birthday, Jon.

2006-11-09T19:07:00.000-08:00

Current listening

2006-10-08T23:08:00.000-07:00

The Decemberists, The Crane Wife.

Thievery Corporation, Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Summer in the Southeast.

Talking Heads, Talking Heads '77.

British Sea Power, Open Season.

Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos (The Prosthetic Cubans), self-titled.

Tortoise, self-titled.

The Thrills, So Much For the City.

Vashti Bunyan, Just Another Diamond Day.

Vashti Bunyan, Lookaftering.

Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, Under the Covers.

Neko Case, Blacklisted.

Tortoise and Bonnie "Prince" Billy, The Brave and the Bold.

First stanza of "Mark Twain's Burglars"

2006-10-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

bumbled & played an unplanned song of candleabra maraca,

arias of stubbed toes, comic opera sobbing when they were caught

in the lines of the broadsheet the Hannibal news drew up when

its best son & curmudgeon managed a laugh at his thieves' expense,

the notice to any subsequent burglar a helpful how-to - "The china's beside

that thing by the entryway, chiffonier I think they call it,

pergola or something like that" - as though he had affably

dealt with the theft of his mind, he gave crooks green lights

& couldn't find the right words - "Please don't make noise as you leave,

& help yourself to a kitten -

Yours sincerely,

M. Twain",

On rain in Vegas

2006-10-06T07:59:00.000-07:00

The land's so unaccustomed to rain that the jagged hills which hem in Vegas itself and its infinite suburbs are washed clean of months of dust. When a shower passes, the mountains hold forth with profound brick reds and deep purples everyone had forgotten were there. The smell of galoshes and puddles, which tended to be fleeting in my younger days (as though the darker the weather was back then, the more it tends to glow today), is everywhere: there's nowhere for the water to drain off to, and because the earth is always warm the rain, once it touches down, spreads that damp metallic scent all over the valley.

Yesterday: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, a cinnamon candle, and missing someone (you know who you are) all afternoon. The plan for today: the wonderful same.

Marketing isn't all bad

2006-10-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

The Hold Steady's new album Boys and Girls in America. The press this release is winning is legitimately won. Comparisons to Bruce Springsteen are apt. Piano sales floors are filling up with scruffy kids wearing thick-rimmed glasses and Chuck Taylors, all of them equal parts cynic and idealist.

Good Ground - Excerpt #2

2006-09-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

SGT. SAUSAGE-CASING TO THE RESCUE

by M. Darski
July 17th, 20__

Sgt. Eric Luchessi got his arms, head and torso through the window without much difficulty, but it took some maneuvering for the 5’ 7”, 400-pound Suffolk police sergeant to hoist his considerable midsection into the den of a Sag Harbor home burglarized last year.

A Suffolk jury watched Luchessi’s entry on a videotape played in court Friday. Police invited Sgt. Luchessi to perform the demonstration entry because of his size. According to prosecutors, his relative and eventual success proved that defendant David Flaim, who is an inch shorter and 100 pounds lighter, could have made the same type of entry with ease.

Flaim, 38, is charged with burglarizing the Sag Harbor home of next-door neighbors Sal and Bonnie Orzelak by hefting himself up through the Andersen casement window and leaving through the side door with assorted high-end electronic devices including a Hi-Def plasma-screen TV, five of seven surround-sound Bose speakers (w/ subwoofer), and approximately 700 DVDs.

Defense attorney Crisp O’Hara has suggested that the 305-lb Flaim would not have fit through the window opening. O’Hara said Friday that the video of Luchessi climbing into the house proved “precisely nada”, in part because Luchessi needed a ladder to reach the window 69 inches off the ground, and used it for leverage as he thrust his way into the house. O’Hara called the action “as unlikely as it was unsightly.”

During cross-examination by O’Hara, Luchessi conceded that he could not have gotten in through the window without the help of something “to get myself off the ground,” but added that some patio furniture in the Orzelaks’ backyard “could have done the trick easy” when it came to Flaim’s intrusion.

Sgt. Luchessi, one of the arresting officers in the case, took part in the experiment as a favor to an investigator on the case. Luchessi said he was happy to help, even if it cost him some ribbing by officers who dubbed him “Sgt. Sausage Casing.” “If this will keep one more cocky good-looking klepto off my Main Streets, I don’t care what they call me,” said Luchessi.

Open house

2006-09-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

Here come the parents!

Every time you close your eyes

2006-09-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

So many student papers. Like, so.

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RJ: from "Morning Song" by Sylvia Plath

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

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What kind of love? It doesn't matter at this point - the poem's first line - because I'm hooked. Whatever kind of love I'm inclined to read this love as - fraternal, sexual, paternal, pantheistic - I now have this ticking instrument in mind. & the reader's got to know what kind of love we're really discussing here. Also, how about the triple stress of "fat gold watch"? Love it.

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Currently Arcade Firing. Aren't they due for another album? They've got to be sitting on a trunk full of songs by now. If my band's first album happened to be Funeral, I'd be nervous about my follow-up too. But hey guys, it's all good. Let us have what you've got.

White eager Cessnas

2006-09-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

RJ: from "Midsummer" by Derek Walcott

Certain things here are quietly American -
that chain-link fence dividing the absent roars
of the beach from the empty ball park, its holes
muttering the word umpire instead of empire;
the gray, metal light where an early pelican
coasts, with its engine off, over the pink fire
of a sea whose surface is as cold as Maine's.

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Perhaps I've been reading too much of The Odyssey - as rendered into gorgeous iambic pentameter by Robert Fagles - but these lines of Walcott's strike me first & foremost as highly metrical. Each line, five beats. But in the absence of a common metrical foot, Walcott constantly keeps his reader's ear imbalanced. Extra beats abound. Spondees - stress / stress - pile up ("the WORD UMPire" / "PINK FIRE"). I enjoy these effects more and more these days.

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True confession time: when I was in high school I thought Emerson's poetry was top-notch.

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Say Walt Whitman and his long rambling "breath unit" settled down with a metrical fellow such as, oh, say, off the top of my head James Merrill or even for an older & weirder case Emily Dickinson. What would their children's cries sound like?

Grist for the mill

2006-09-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

These things come up in recent poems:

~ The 80s kids' show Pee-Wee's Playhouse

~ Iggy Pop's Lust For Life

~ The "rule of thirds", a photographic principle which states that objects of importance should be on or near the points of intersection on a hypothesized 3x3 grid

~ Solar calculators

~ Big Lots discount superstores

~ Automatic sensor-based faucets in public restrooms

~ Faceoffs of substantial duration in Japanese manga

~ Zeno's Arrow

~ Childish impressions of Benito Mussolini