FIRST POST-BRAIN SURGERY LIST!

Okay, this isn't exactly old style. Not my usual pre-op alphabet list, or trinity lists, or couplets or any of the others you can find in this blog's archives under lists, but instead, simply a daytime, wide awake attempt to remember, as well as I can, works of art that I've dug since the operation and have given me some joy and satisfaction and a sense of the goodness (yes, goodness) and creative originality, the talent and commitment, the effort and tenacity that goes into making something new that brings pleasure and more (enlightenment even) to those who experience these works of art.

I got a little preparation for this by revising the lists on my profile several days ago to only post-op options. So here's what I can remember (I know there's more) of works of creativity that have opened and filled my heart with gratitude for their presence in my life since 11/13/09, the date my brain was invaded by the surgeon's blade:

MOVIES:

THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY
RANDOM HARVEST
AFTER THE THIN MAN
ANOTHER THIN MAN
ON THE WATERFRONT
CASABLANCA
IT'S COMPLICATED
CRAZY HEART
JULIA & JULIE (mostly the Julia/Streep parts)
UP IN THE AIR (with a few small caveats)


BOOKS:

EAST OF WEST L.A. (photographs by Kevin McCollister)
A PALPABLE ELYSIUM (photos and commentary by Jonathan Williams)
NOT TWICE ENOUGH (poems by Geoffrey Young I began reading before the operation and finished since)
IRISH TINKERS (photos and quotes taken and complied by Janine Wiedel and Martina O'Fearaghaigh
SWING ERA NEW YORK ("The Jazz Photographs of Charles Peterson" with commentary by W. Royal Stokes, almost finished with this)

MUSIC:

LEONARD BERNSTEIN (the soundtrack for ON THE WATERFRONT which I have on my computer)
CHARLIE PARKER (early stuff)
LESTER YOUNG (early stuff)
FRANK SINATRA ('40s, '50s & '60s)
THELONIOUS MONK
BILL EVANS
MILES DAVIS ('40s, '50s and early '60s)
JOHN COLTRANE
THE ANIMALS
THE WHO
THE BEATLES
THE ROLLING STONES
IT'S COMPLICATED (the soundtrack)
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER (the soundtrack)

ART:

FAIRFIELD PORTER
FRANCIS PICABIA
LOUISA MATTHIASDOTTIR
RICHARD BAKER
(all of the above from reproductions of details of paintings on oversized postcard announcements from TIBOR DE NAGY GALLERY—which if you're in NYC you should check out at 724 Fifth Ave.)
and from books I've been perusing from my shelves:
R. B. KITAJ
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

And three blogs that are basically photography (there are other favorite blogs, see the list to the right, that I love but these are the most specifically "works of art" ones):
EAST OF WEST L.A.
MY EYE AND I
DISCREET INDISCRETIONS

[Woops: how could I have left off my oldest photographer friend who is one of the alltime greats, Robert Zuckerman and his KINDSIGHT!]

(and poems that my dear friend Terence Winch has read to me over the phone that he has written since the operation)

PS: Lisa, the ticking in my head from the scalp adjusting to the titanium plate or reattaching to the skull (or whatever causes it) that I thought was gone, hasn't. Ticking away here at the computer this morning. So maybe it will be a year before that's entirely gone as your doctors said. Thank God I find it kind of amusing.

PPS: Though I 'd put in an example of my typing without correcting it. Pretyy good for the most part heh? Certaly a lot better than wherer iI started at.