Only time will tell.

I am working on my second novel and because I want it to consume me, I have no energy for blogging at this time. I will resume blogging when novel is finished. thank you.

What I Have Been Reading

1. Recently finished David Mitchell's impressive though not as mind blowing as 'Cloud Atlas' novel, 'The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet'.
2. Too many to name books on the Irish Potato Famine
3. Book of Irish Folktales
4. Walt Whitman: miscellaneous selections from Leaves of Grass
5.  John Berger- 'Sense Of Sight'
6.  Willis Thorton- 'History; Fact & Fiction'
7.  Barry Yourgrau- 'Man Jumps Out Of An Airplane'
8.  Diane Ackerman- 'A Natural History of the Senses'
9.  More books on Irish History and Irish Slang
10. Yi-Fu Tuan- 'The Good Life'

Dog Days

                                      

                           Why do some days inevitably feel half-lived? Why do some decisions cause deep regrets? Why don't I have a 'planner' like most respectable adults? Why don't I settle down, get married, have 2.5 kids, get a good job that has benefits like health insurance, buy a big flat screen t.v and just try to be fucking happy? Live closer to my family? Why don't I do sit-ups even though I know my stomach is out of shape from too much pizza and junk food? Why am I still so hung up on creating something beautiful that has meaning and is relevant for human beings besides myself? Why do I live in NYC? Why do I go to the cinema alone sometimes? Why do I care about the anti-eye-candy art of Richard Serra? Why am I frustrated by three well known NYC Art Museums featuring exhibits where 1980's style video games are employed? (I love the 80's too but enough is enough.)
Why do I sigh late at night alone in my room wondering what could have been, should have been? Why must I still be thinking on you? Why did Rilke see that marble torso of Apollo and say to himself, "you must change your life"?

Impressions Of Boston On A Recent Visit

            


                First impressions: Boston is cleaner, more restrained and more tasteful than NYC. Manhattan and the outer boroughs lambast one with a million different advertisements on buildings flashing products like clothes, cars and technology. Not so in Boston. There is a quaintness that I appreciated as I walked along the esplanade next to the Charles River. Even in the middle of Summer the nights are cool. Intrigued by American History as I am, I visited the graves of Paul Revere, Sam Adams and the five victims of the Boston Massacre; an event I took a guided tour for later in the day at the place where it actually happened.
               Walked along the Boston gardens in full sun shine as the Swan boats ferried eager faced kids and their parents thru the park. Every other male wore a Boston Red Sox hat. Boston Harbor was nautically cool and old feeling with areas where rich people ate expensive food outside at table with fancy umbrellas probably owned a sail boat as well. My friend and guide remarked to me, "There's alot of old money in Boston."
Another impression: Boston is a white-bred city. I haven't heard that much of my own language since I was back in Ohio. What else? Several surrounding neighborhoods with tree lined streets, small yards, huge old houses converted into apartments. Three blocks from where I stayed JFK was born on such a quiet residential street. I walked and saw it from the outside. My Irish Grandma would be smiling knowing I visited his house(being the huge Kennedy fan she was when alive). Safe areas from what I could see in my limited time. I didn't see the ghettos or the run down areas. Saw the statues commemorating the Irish Famine and the emigrants who fled to Boston. I toured King's Chapel and sat in weird box pews I had never seen before. A person could get comfortable in this city yet for some I could see how it might not be enough. Enough what? I am not sure. Better ask Ben Franklin. He split to go live in Philadelphia when he was 16.

Summer Without Air-Conditioning

            

                         Right now we have an air-conditioner in our closet collecting dust when the last few nights in my small bedroom have been gruelingly muggy and stifling; when two nights ago I had to use an ice pack from the freezer to sleep with just to have a chance to sleep--which I did by 5am.
Before you think I have come down with a special kind of madness or are the victim of a delusional embolism, or just a glutton for punishment, you should know it is part of my approach to Summer; to want to experience it the way it used to be experienced--which includes uncomfortable moments and annoyingly unrelenting heat waves. My aims are noble and healthy I tell myself but hotdamn last night was a suffering too-long sauna in moist sheets. Granted I had two cheap electric fans whizzing quietly but these seemed only to blow around more hot hair. A joke as it were--on me. For of course people 'experienced' summer without electric fans for thousands of years as well as air-conditioners; (though there are several examples through out history of attempts at cooling housing interiors going back to the ancient Romans.)
                Who cares. Back to the topic at hand. What is the topic? Sweat beads fall onto the keyboard as I type this. How long shall I hold out? In 1965 only 10% of U.S. households had air conditioning. By 2007 the number was up to 86%. (This is one reason jobs have been more plentiful in, and people have moved to, the south for the last few decades in the U.S.) Still, I forge on without Air-Conditioning. What a trooper.
                      They say the crime rate in New York City has gone down drastically from where it was at in the 1970's and 80's and experts have several reasons for this, but I think part of it has to do with people got air-conditioning on a mass scale in a short period of time. Really. Oh, what feverish torments await me tonight? Last night for a snack I had mouthfuls of hot air. Not tasty. Lake Erie is too far away. Even sleeping in the nude doesn't feel good. This is no complaint tangent. These are fevered musings in a small solitary room in the depths of July. An inner voice yells,  'Then go outside!' But I don't really hear it 'cause I instead passed out in a pool of my own sweat and misguided notions of 'experiencing summer'. Cheers.

Song Of The Day

Word Of The Day

crotchet \KROCH-it\, noun:

1. An odd fancy or whimsical notion.
2. A small hook.
3. In British musical nomenclature, a quarter note.
4. A curved surgical instrument with a sharp hook.

"The Wild haired Scientist threw one crotchet after another at me in hopes I could be persuaded to his own personal utopian vision of reincarnation and rebirth. The crazy fucker."

The Further Adventures of Lewis and Clark

So, what'd you do today?
                  For Lewis and Clark and the rest of the group one spring day they came upon some Buffalo carcasses where Buffalo had tried to cross the frozen river in winter and drowned when they broke thru. Judging by the tracks near the carcasses, grizzly bears had been feeding off the mess. They hadn't encountered one yet but many tribes have told them about the dangers of the grizzly bear, how warriors never fight one unless with six or seven other men and even then one man usually dies. Lewis and Clark witnessed tribes preparing to go attack a Grizzly, how they went thru elaborate dancing and prayer rituals, 'superstitions' as Lewis called them.
                 Then a few days later they wander thru areas that had been hunted by local tribes to the extent where they couldn't find live game for half a week. That soon changed when Captain Lewis shot and killed a dear. For dinner they had venison steak and beaver tails. I had spaghetti with a hot spicy red sauce and Italian Bread in my apartment in Astoria. Two French Beaver Trappers hopped a ride for a bit. They cruised the Missouri River in the spring when the land was alive with the sounds of nature and Only nature. Think it was all fun and games? One of the men stole a little whiskey from the barreled rations and when the Captains found out, he got 75 lashes across his bare back.

Water and the Journals of Lewis and Clark

                              
                                 As I was at my sink the other day letting the faucet fill my glass with cold water, I let some spill over and even set the glass down while the faucet continued to run and I thought, 'well that's wasteful' because I remembered back to the book I'm currently reading; 'the Journals of Lewis and Clark' and how at times the men in the expedition as they studied the land in Southern Minnesota or South Dakota were desperately thirsty. When they got back to their main boat(keelhaul) and resumed their path up the Missouri River (they don't call it the 'muddy river' for nothing) several of the men came down with dysentary. This also had to do with their lack of vegetables probably but still. I'm only about 100 pages in. Sacagewea hasn't even showed up yet but already you get the feeling that for what we take for granted without question was for them at times an extremely laborious and difficult task; to drink fresh water day in and day out.
                                  Though that was just one of many challenges the explorers faced it was perhaps the most vital. After all, we humans Need water to live. There was no Coke or Gatorade or Paul Newman's Lemonade or Vitamin Water or Walmarts to stock up on plastic bottles of water back then. No Snapple either. Really, no Snapple? Really. Most of the time it was the mighty and muddy Missouri River and its tributaries. Two Hundred and Seven Years later, in the heat of Summer I can go to the faucet and let it run until it gets cold. I can watch the water go down the drain and then quench my thirst. Or I can go to the fridge and pour forth a delicious river of my own. It is called Minute Maid Tropical Punch and I can drink it cold right out of the carton. It reminds me to think of the expression, "Nectar of the Gods", as I do.

Song Of The Day

On Being Without a Cell Phone For Almost a Full week

    

            

                     At first, of course, you feel liberated. That annoying appendage has been sheared off and once again you feel free, breezy, like a child tossing himself into the wind. (It was especially nice Not to have the phone jammed in my pocket during the MAN MAN show where I was in the middle throb of the gleeful yet borderline violent shoving and bouncing crowd.) (Incidentally, they are the best live band in America right now I think with maybe the exception of 'Of Montreal'.) So a few days pass and then one day you are walking in Greenpoint with an urge to call your best friend who lives in Portland. Shit. No phone. Or you're on the train here in Queens and you want to check in with the family back in Ohio-- Shit. No phone. But you move on with your day and its fine. The next day you wake and at some point you remember how lonely a person could feel back in the days before cell phones. You had totally forgotten. Back then, when you needed some ones attention, when you needed that human contact, you had no choice but to deal with it on your own. Does anyone remember this? And I don't just refer to the times before cell phones-- but to how utterly stuck with ourselves we once were. I certainly do not mean loneliness in general but that particular feeling is gone from our way of being these days for better or worse. So by the fifth day without a cell phone you begin craving it. Maybe not like a meth head yet. But maybe like a pothead. You begin picking yr. nails and wondering what people in your life who live far away are doing at various moments. Then the next day you wonder what the hell bullshit is UPS up to and why the fuck they have not delivered you your new phone  when it was supposed to have arrived three days ago.  You curse ashes and postcards. You see phantom brown UPS trucks with flames and clown faces painted on their sides. You hear squirrels out yr. window mocking you and your contemporary human need for such things. You read somewhere that Doctors now know cell phones may cause cancer. You don't care. And so you wait like a miserable fiend or a disgruntled child. Cars and trucks pass outside without stopping as you sit down at the computer and pray to the Gods of the Internet.

Song Of The Day

The Preakness Stakes Horse Race

                      

                               In what is known as the second jewel in the Triple Crown of  Horse racing, the Preakness happens later today down at Pimlico Race-track in Baltimore, Maryland. 14 horses will go at it in this particular race.(Its good to know that this is not the only race of the day. It happens to be race 12 out of 13; Of course this is by far the most important one of the day. It is afterall, the 136th Preakness Stakes. It also happens to be the one with worth the most in terms of how much the winner gets. {Million dollar purse.})
Anyways, to cut to the chase: I'm choosing 'Shackleford' to win by a nose over 'Midnight Interlude'.
That's my pick. I think I'll play an exacta and then just 'Shackleford' straight up to win. He might be the fastest horse in the race and he led for most of the Kentucky Derby before being soundly beaten but here the track length for this race is much shorter. If he can get out a head and get a clean run or if he sits behind Astrology and then takes him late I think he's got a good chance. How ever the hell he does is just fine with me.
So now you know. Place your bets. Let's all go win money.

Word Of The Day

foofaraw \FOO-fuh-raw\, noun:

1. Excessive or flashy ornamentation or decoration.
2. A fuss over a matter of little importance.

Example: "The novel, written about homeless men living in a facility for Veterans, could not be written in an ornate, flashy style. This was no foofaraw. These were the lives of real men." -Shuble Morgan

Song Of The Day

'Badlands' at The Museum of the Moving Image

                                God damn, what a great movie. Rarely does a film in all its aspects seamlessly contribute to the totality of the vision. An early 20's Martin Sheen is amazing; his every move is a natural extension of his character. There is no doubting his star power. Sissy Spacek is a perfectly balanced blend of bizzare, naive and girly. (They are two young people on the run from the law in the Badlands region of Montana.) Everything works to add to the story. The cinematography, the landscapes, the soundtrack, the editing, the dialogue, the bits of dry humor sprinkled here and there before and after multiple killings, the sense of playfulness within the chemistry of the two leads. It all works and it all adds up to a genuine American Masterpiece of a Motion Picture. Director Terence Malick burst on to the scene with this, his 1973 debut feature. This is, for me, the rare film that I can't even knit-pickingly find some small flaw. (Unincidentally a film that should be seen on the big screen.) If I had some Ebertesque rating system, I'd give it the max. You'll even notice how later films like 'True Romance' borrow heavily from this movie. Shit, anybody who truly cares about experiencing  good films should have this on their 'absolutely-must-fucking-see-list'.
Terence Malick's 1973 debut Film, 'Badlands'.

Song Of The Day

Song Of The Day

Richard Serra at The Met

                        
                  So I went to visit the recently opened Richard Serra exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art the other day. By my estimation he is one of the most famous and influential and prolific American artists still living and working today. Now he made his name(and rightfully so) with large scale steel sculptures experienced sometimes in public, site-specific places but this particular retropspective features everything except what he is primarily known for. No sculptures here--yet as you walk through each room and spend some time with each piece, the Richard Serra signature becomes apparent.
Here we get drawings, notebook doodles, three videos from the 1960's  but mostly(and this was my favorite part anyway) we get large wall size or half-wall size pieces painted black using a custom built 'paintstick' as he calls it on either Belgian Linen or Hiromi Paper. In his world we do well to think about weight, gravity, process, material, and our own bodies experience with those things.
These works are not about image. When you confront or are confronted by one of these massive black Belgian Linen pieces tight against the wall so that the whole what was once a spacious white room is fundamentally altered and your feeling about where you are is altered too. In the last room these giant black rectangles(in other rooms they are triangles in the corners) reached the ceiling some 50 ft high and as you approached they became a towering barrier but only a barrier if you were trying to look into them, through them. These were not walls of airy darkness. Despite their scale and solid black color, these were not something you looked into as though it was a window on another dimension or whatever. In these pieces there is nothing 'out there' or 'in there' because these are not portals or like looking up at a night-time sky. This is physicality. This is material. This is not to help illusion. This is about physical interaction in the present. If you're a big fan of all things colorful, you prolly aint gonna dig this jam. There are no other colors except black in any of the work. Using his custom paintstick which was a combination of crayon, oil, wax, and pigment, he plays on similar themes by varying how thick or thin he paints it on. The exhibit itself is called 'Drawings' but I can't see how these particular pieces(and there are quite a few) are to be considered drawings; not that its a big deal. It isn't. (I'm not covering every piece in the in exhibit in this post.)
In terms of the notebooks under glass cases with certain pages open to the viewer, we see basically a hyper creative individual doodling. If these weren't the notebooks of Richard Serra one gets the impression they wouldn't garner such spotlight. In one room of pieces from the 1970's, the glare from the plexi-glass or whatever it was makes it impossible not to see a reflection. It totally distracts the viewer from the work. This I have noticed is becoming more and more a problem in museums. I realize the need to a have a protective see-thru shield of some kind but find something that doesn't function as mirror and totally change the experience of what we are supposed to be looking at.
All in all, Richard Serra restores my belief in the relevance of a brand of Art for Arts sake that I don't mind subscribing to. I'm gonna go back to the Met next week and take a look again and see what happens.

Song Of The Day