The Fetish of Language is the Ultimate Quietude
Today my thoughts are all over the place, fiction, poetry, politics, the future. I guess they started (my thoughts) spinning around Jonathan Lethem and Michael Chabon, and their books The Yiddish Policeman’s Union and The Fortress of Solitude. But also of the poetry wars, and the odd fact [...]
8.2
Early next morning around 11 I was awakened by Joseph’s booming laugh (a rare sound at that hour), followed by Raph’s gentler, drier one. “Which way does it go?” Joseph asked.
There was silence. I got out of bed, put on a robe and came out into the big room. By the door the two men [...]
Farfalla Press blog has posted a YouTube recording of Weldon Kees reading three poems. Weldon Kees has been a favorite poet of mine for years, since Bill Ford, my formalist adversary, introduced me to him. Farfalla has also put me in their links, so I happily reciprocate. http://farfallapress.blogspot.com/ . The other poet I associate with [...]
8.1
The Phoenix Park Restaurant dinner was not the first time Roy told me to become a librarian. Once, when I was in high school he met me at the main branch of the Public Library and we walked over to Grand Central together. We were to meet our father there for dinner at the Oyster [...]
On the way to work today I had been mulling over a post on the difference between progressive politics and ideas about ‘progressive’ art. I was thinking, as I often do, that these are very different things. When I got to work I let my post drift off and set about moving 140 feet of [...]
7.4
It was my day off and I had to meet my mother for lunch in the East Sixties. I had time to walk; I preferred it to watching Sally go to work on the Opus, which had swelled to 100 closely argued pages, half of the intended length. With only a month to go she [...]
At home Joseph, Lou and Deb and Jayda were watching Straw Dogs and drinking frozen strawberry margaritas. Periodically there was a loud cracking of ice followed by a whine. Every time a gun went off they went, “Aw!!” and laughed. Joseph called out my name, waved with his cigarette and smiled. His hair was a [...]
An hour and a half later we sat in his living room on a couple of lawn chairs watching the southern skyline and sipping gin and tonics.
“It’s just like being at dad’s, only the gin is better. No Gordon’s around here.”
The view south was of buildings like foothills slowly mounting the Wall Street towers. Several [...]
I’ve added two new links today. One is to Obooko, an English website dedicated to the free distribution of e-books. They contacted me about posting The Man Who Can’t Die there, Which I Have Done.
The other is personal. At my friend Bob’s 50th birthday in Brooklyn last weekend (a bash not to be forgotten, at [...]
contact: jon@lastbender.com