01.20.06 s'more bloody awful poetry

NP: nuthin'.
NR: nuthin'.



Those two poems I made reference to the other day:



Perspective

They passed like strangers,
without a word or gesture,
her off to the store,
him heading for the car.

Perhaps startled
or distracted,
or forgetting
that for a short while
they'd been in love forever.

Still, there's no guarantee
that it was them.
Maybe yes from a distance,
but not close up.

I watched them from the window,
and those who observe from above
are often mistaken.

She vanished beyond the glass door.
He got in behind the wheel
and took off.
As if nothing had happened,
if it had.

And I, sure for just a moment
that I'd seen it,
strive to convince you, O Readers,
with this accidental little poem
that it was sad.

Wislawa Szymborska
(Translated, from the Polish, by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.)
(From The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago)



tonight

"your poems about the girls will still be around
50 years from now when the girls are gone,"
my editor phones me.

dear editor:
the girls appear to be gone
already.

I know what you mean

but give me one truly alive woman
tonight
walking across the floor toward me

and you can have all the poems

the good ones
the bad ones
or any that I might write after this one.

I know what you mean.

do you know what I mean?

Charles Bukowski


01.19.06 nothing funny

NP: "The Smile You Smile"Van Morrison.
NP: "The Man Comes Around"Johnny Cash.
NP: "Do The Strand"Roxy Music.
NR: last issue of The New Yorker. Dragging my feet on this one. Doing too much Sudoku and not enough reading.



some photographs:




How can you tell if someone's a New Yorker? Check out their spelling of "Broom".



Found this on the floor of St. Dymphna's a while ago. Poor Kevin.



I don't know if the homeless guy sleeping within noticed the irony of his selection of boxes.
[click on image for a larger photo.]




01.13.06 such bloody awful poetry

NP: nuthin'.
NR: nuthin'.



There's a poem in The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago that reminded me of a couple of poems. I need to find it and transcribe it (as well as this one Bukowski poem that's amazing that I just read), but here are some other poems:



I wonder how many people in this city
live in furnished rooms.
Late at night when I look out at the buildings
I swear I see a face in every window
looking back at me,
and when I turn away
I wonder how many go back to their desks
and write this down.

Leonard Cohen



Excepting the diner
On the outskirts.
The town of Ladora
At 3 a.m.
Was dark but
For my headlights
And up in
One second-story room
A single light
Where someone
Was sick or
Perhaps reading
As I drove past
At seventy
Not thinking.
This poem
Is for whoever
Had the light on

Donald Justice



jake hates 
all the girls(the 
shy ones, the bold paul scorns all
ones; the meek  the girls(the
proud sloppy sleek) bright ones, the dim
all except the cold ones; the slim
ones plump tiny tall)
 all except the
  dull ones
gus loves all the 
girls(the 
warped ones, the lamed mike likes all the girls
ones; the mad  (the
moronic maimed)  fat ones, the lean
all except ones; the mean
the dead ones kind dirty clean)
 all
  except the green ones

e e cummings



Celebration

When you kneel below me
and in both your hands
hold my manhood like a sceptre,

When you wrap your tongue
about the amber jewel
and urge my blessing.

I understand those Roman girls
who danced around a shaft of stone
and kissed it till the stone was warm.

Kneel, love, a thousand feet below me,
so far I can barely see your mouth and hands
perform the ceremony,

Kneel till I topple to your back
with a groan, like those gods on the roof
that Samson pulled down.

Leonard Cohen


01.12.06 Did you give up punk for lent?

NP: nuthin'.
NR: nuthin'.



Annoying poker over the last 24 hours. Just can't hit a hand. Dwindling stacks. Finally hitting top pair and losing to flush. Getting AQ when somebody has AK. No real bad beats, but definitely some bad luck. And a little bit of bad playing, but nothing real noteworthy (honestly).

Online play, which was so good to me for a week, also went to hell. Low stakes pot limit omaha high/low on bodog... was crushing it for a week. Then in the last two days, I just lost every hand. Flopping middle set and losing to top set. Never hitting the nut flush, but backdooring a Jack high flush and calling a bet only to be losing to the King high flush.

So I decide to play some $4/$8 limit hold 'em. Haven't done that forever. Outdrawn after outdrawn after outdrawn. Lose $200 in like 90 minutes. Realizing that I must admit to being awful at limit. I keep losing at it. I haven't made money at limit since Playstation existed. That's bad.

I was up $1000 for 2006. In my last three sessions that all went away. Which means I'm even. But I can't afford to be even this month. I need to make $1500 playing poker this month. I NEED to. I need to play and win. I'm trying to take it seriously, and play well. I need to get over the last 36 hours of poker if I'm going to be able to do that. I hate feeling the confidence trickle away after a couple of losing sessions. I really hate it. I hate this fucking game sometimes. I'm just not a strong enough player to really play well all the time; I'm not a strong enough person to just stop playing it at all. And my finances are just so fucked up that I must admit that the allure of it is just too much for me. I'm frustrated.



I had the strangest thing happen to me today. I saw a cute little kid being pushed in a stroller, and suddenly I had the urge to have a child. I don't know where it came from, or why. But there it was. Just for a second. I'm sure it had something to do with seeing Match Point last week. I'm sure it has something to do with thinking a bit about Molly. A certain amount of just pure escapism fantasy ("what if my life were completely different?"), and some of it was just one of those random thoughts that usually probably passes without even really noticing it. But it was kinda strange.

What happened right after was kinda funny, too. I went to get a slice on the way to work. I'm sitting next to a little girl and her father. I feel like the guy gives me a bit of a strange look, but I don't really think about it. Then when I leave I look in the mirror and realize: I'm wearing a 2 Live Crew "Me So Horny" shirt. doh.




princess, the cat at my deli. princess is 19 years old and weighs exactly 4.75. i know this because she was asleep on the scale when i went in there the other night. i will miss princess when she dies. she's been the only real constant in my life for the last ten years.



01.11.06 more jokes about cocks

NP: "Nightfall (For Boris P.)"Songs Of Green Pheasant.
NP: "I Saw The Light Shining 'Round And Round"John Fahey.
NP: "Box Elder Mo"The Wedding Present.
NP: "A Little Lost"Arthur Russell.
NP: "Hawaiian Baby"The Spinanes.
NP: "Hawaiian Baby"Buffalo Tom.
NP: "Shotgun"Ida.
NP: "10 Gallon Ascot"Tapes N' Tapes.
NP: "Nude"Mi and L'au.
NR: Lots of articles about JT LeRoy. I have to admit that I always thought there was something inauthentic about the stories, and now it makes sense. They ARE inauthentic. Which means they are purely fiction and not at all autobiographical. Which is fine by me, but it does make sense. I always thought that he used similes making reference to something there's no chance someone is his situation would know. But ultimately what I don't like most about his books are the stories themselves. I've thought that the writing was strong at times, it was the stories that were lacking. Good writing is good writing. I don't really care by whom. I look forward to better writing, and better stories.



Attended three concerts in three days. It feels good, except I am feeling a little old and a lot disconnected.

Went to see The Detachment Kit and Tapes N' Tapes on Sunday at Pianos. The sound was AWFUL, so it's hard to make a proper judgement about Tapes N' Tapes. The drums in particular. It sounded as if there were almost some sort of gate on the bass drum, making it sound clipped and huge and wholly inappropriate. But, nonetheless, Tapes N' Tapes are just, simply, in the classic A&R words "not ready." They could be sometime down the line, but they're not now. The rhythm section is unoriginal and clearly just playing whatever the most straightforward interpretation of the song should be, probably (I'm guessing) just playing what the lead singer / guitarist is telling them. And then there's the keyboard / tambourine / mini-tuba(??) guy that's just completely extraneous. I'm guessing he's either the guy with the van, the guy with a basement they can practice in, or the guy with the cute girlfriend who can get lots of cute girls to come to their shows.

Which is all, I suppose a little harsh, but... It's what I feel. I still like the recorded version of the song above. And looking forward to hearing more in the future.

The Detachment Kit were fucking amazing, although they played mostly older (and rocking) songs, as they were playing with an old drummer after having only one practice with him that afternoon. It was great to see them, and made me think about those times when I listened to those songs ten times a day before the first album came out. And it seems (and is) a lifetime ago.

-------------

Then on Tuesday I went to go see two shows. First up was Mary McBride at Joe's Pub, and I must say she was amazing. It's not a universal rule, but it's still a fairly good signpost, especially at a place like Joe's Pub that regularly has five or six bands a night: When you capture the attention of the bartenders, you're doing something right. These people are pretty much trained to ignore and filter out every last bit of aural stimuli except that of their waitresses. When you manage to penetrate through that AND get them to say "they're fucking amazing", well... that's pretty impressive. Mary and her band pulled it off. They absolutely nailed it. You have to respect the pure and perfect tones of the qualified honky tonk NYC studio musician, and her guys were rock solid behind her, and Mary was strong and confidant and sang with a bit less artifice and gimmickry than last I saw her. And it was good.

-------------

And then it was time for a visit to Chris Newmyer's World, Circa 1992. Went to go see Ida, Stephen Malkmus, and Rebecca Gates at Knitting Factory.

Ida played a quiet plaintive set that was typical of their last ten years of existance, and which pretty much had none of the kinetic, swirling, and cathartic songwriting of their early three or four years. And thus it was kinda sleepy, if pleasant. I miss those classic shows of theirs. Upstairs at the Khyber Pass in Philly, at The Old Club at Swarthmore, that one show at The Fez where they played as a six piece with full piano arrangements of all the songs... Some of the best shows I've ever seen. And even the first couple of "Karla-era" shows, where they became more of a rock band... Those were great too. And this set at KF was nice, but lacking.

Stephen Malkmus came up and said "I didn't prepare for this. Anybody have any requests?" After the collective jaws of two hundred pavement dorks hit the floor, everybody started yelling out titles. Stephen proceeded to play a bumbling, shuffling, amateur, and COMPLETELY endearing set of his songs. He shrugged his way through "Box Elder", he bungled his way through "Shoot The Singer", played the guitar solos in "Frontwards" by singing "nearnee nearnee nearnee nur neer neeeeeeeeeer...", and ended with a completely botch version of "Gold Sounds." Along the way he was funny, depricating, charming, and likable. A nice reminder that a great song is a great song, and no matter what that comes to the surface. It was nice to see him having fun and not taking anything too seriously.

And then Rebecca Gates stepped up. Promptly broke a G-string, made some jokes, played some lovely songs, and did a version of Arthur Russell's "A Little Lost." She then picked up the acoustic guitar, sat on the edge of the stage, got the people in attendance to sit on the floor, and performed "Entire" and "Hawaiian Baby" without microphone or amp. The age-old question still resonates: "Did you give up punk for lent?" Amazing.







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However, you may download material from The Self-Starter Foundation website (one machine readable copy and one print copy per page) for your personal, noncommercial use only.

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