A friend writes from the French countryside: The invisible threat casts a shadow over an otherwise idyllic springtime. When normally one’s own sorrows are cast aside, albeit temporarily, by the blossoming of nature and its infectious sense of hope, this year comes with a malaise which seems to leach all sense of renewal; and so I find myself hesitant in all I do.
Coping With the Shitstorm #2
A friend writes from Berlin: Good news … I received 5000 euros from the city. I could hardly believe it when I looked at my bank account. That will come in handy. Now we simply have to survive. It was very generous to artists who live here, many of whom are wiped out by what has happened. The decisions were made quickly, based simply upon the evidence that an artist truly has been living and working on their art here. It all seems unreal…everything does now.
GC CUNY Keeps the Conversation Going:
Roxane Gay and Katia D. Ulysse
GC Presents: Roxane Gay, a powerful literary voice and one of today’s most-watched cultural critics, joins in a reading and conversation with acclaimed fiction writer Katia D. Ulysse. (Courtesy of GC CUNY’s Public Programs archive.)
Shared Thoughts
The grand pyannah, glorious
but somewhat out of tune,
awaits my amateur tickling.
It‘s a great distraction.
Tell me you’re distracted,
mowing down the pages
of your rare old books.
GC CUNY Keeps the Conversation Going:
Milanovic, Piketty, Stiglitz, and Krugman
While events are postponed at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York in the heart of Manhattan, videos of recent public programs will be featured from its archive for your enjoyment. The videos provide illuminating discussions in two main categories: insights into current events and conversations with leading writers and artists. (Courtesy of GC CUNY’s Public Programs archive.)
Coping with the Shitstorm #1
A friend writes: “At the clinic some of the people asked after me, and the doc said, ‘Well his routine hasn’t altered one minute. Or one millimeter.’ All of them in stitches—and of course it is true. I have been in self-isolation since age 15— so lots of fun seeing the rest deal with it. […]
Artaud for Our Time
“And I told you: no works of art, no language, no words, no thought, nothing. Nothing except a sort of incomprehensible and totally erect stance in the midst of everything in the mind. And don’t expect me to tell you what all this is called, and how many parts it can be divided into; don’t expect me to tell you its weight; or to get back in step and start discussing all this so that I may, without even realizing it, start THINKING.”
What . ? . No Patti Smith?
Just kidding . . .
Last Breath, Memorialized
Cold Turkey Press has printed a card of this photo and poem in a limited edition.
Last Breath
There are things / closer than rain / that keep hope alive— /
tenement flowers / seasoned with heartbreak, / chattering weeds / and the silence of fireflies— / things that may not be / more brilliant / than a wine-stained shirt / and crow’s-feet eyes. / But they will do …
‘I Do Not Think. I Am Thought. I Am Thought in Action.’
I am that I am that I happen. /
I am a resultant. /
—a coincidence of fields. /
Am is my here. /
That is I there. /
What am I here for? . . . /
I am here to go. /
When the magnetic fields shift / There / is no here. / I am gone.
A Poem and Its Genesis: Malcolm Ritchie’s ‘Writing It’
… and my hand held up against the sky / as if a naked bird singing in sign language / to an empty page lying somewhere / in an uninhabited house where / only dust is moving / from room to room … — from “Writing It”
And From the Outlaw End of the Writing Spectrum
“At age 84, Plymell continues to write, publish and perform—“doing nuttin”, as he says—from his home in Cherry Valley, New York. His activities keep Plymell in steady correspondence with a crowd of like-minded hellions, including rockabilly’s Bloodshot Bill, Sonic Youth founders Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, bassist Mike Watt, filmmaker Mark Hanlon, guitarist Bill Nace, photographer Philip Scalia and musicologist Byron Coley. Plymell and his wife, Pam, first happened upon Cherry Valley in late 1969 in coming to visit Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky at their East Hill farm. Moving there for good in early 1970, the Plymells have set into adding to their immense creative legacy.” – Benito Vila
Poetry in Prose: Cheever’s Domestic Confessions
‘I make no headway, and yet it seems best to come here every day and try. It is not easy. I have had winters before and will have them again, and do not seriously doubt that they will end—the winters—but it is not easy. I am reminded of the weeks and months in Rome when I saw nothing with the right eyes but a cobweb gleaming in the sunlight and an owl flying out of a ruin.’ — John Cheever, from his journals
A Blogpost for the Ages
This was it, Jan. 12, 2017 . . . It began like this: ‘On the day Twitter Fingers is sworn in as the preening el presidente of a tin-pot United States of Trumpistan, enabling him to run the country like a division of his family-held company . . . ‘ and continued with a 17-minute recording of Heathcote Williams reading his poem “The United States of Porn.” That reading alone puts the blogpost in a class of its own.
Before the Day Is Over . . .
… and the occasion becomes a nothing burger, here are a few greetings for the New Year … from Jürgen Schneider, Frank Diersch, Gerard Bellaart, and Charles Plymell.
Wishing You a Happy New Year for 2020
me?
i am trying to spend
a quiet holiday
at home,
glad for the chance
to read, write, play
a bit of pyannah,
and generally
enjoy not being dead.
yet.