‘Great beauty from great despair unbends the mind. Achieved or not, that is every poet’s goal.’
Archives for February 2023
Erich Maria Remarque
All Quiet on East 57th Street
Now that the German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s famous 1928 antiwar novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” has won best picture at the British equivalent of the Oscars, the staff here thought it worth noting that Remarque lived for the last 20 years of his life neither in Germany nor the UK but on Manhattan’s East Side.
David Erdos: ‘The Batchelor’s Promise’
‘Brutally Honest, Brave, Possibly Foolish . . .’
‘Death is divorce in its most basic sense …
This is how it was with my parents
Who when I was 15 split apart
Bound by the need to move on
Despite the connection between them …’
And Now . . . for a Lively Change of Pace
Nine years ago William Osborne posted this trailer for Cybeline, a multimedia music theater work performed by Abbie Conant with music by Osborne. The staff finds it remarkable at how fresh it remains.
Stadtgelichter Nr. 15
A Serious Poetry Journal . . . Showed Up in the Mail
For more than 25 years, Stadtlichter Presse has brought out poetry books in bilingual (German-English) editions with a special interest in Beat literature and its post-Beat legacy.
‘He told ambling, long-limbed tales . . .’
SHOOTER: A Fragment is the tale of Jerry Crane, a photographer for the tabloids. Born Jiri Kiranek, he’s a truthtelling fabulist, tall and lean, a refugee from wealth and privilege. In his younger days he was often high on speed, always riffing, full of imagination. Having reached almost middle age, he still has a facile street-smart intellect. He tells ambling, long-limbed tales. It’s a peculiar form of truth-telling. When he decided to ambush Rod Bangs for a tabloid shoot, he expected the usual rock star excess: party drugs, sex, fancy toys, bad taste. But white supremacy did not make the list … until now.