EASTERN PROMISES inspired my last post about equality for women. One of the plot devices is the bad guys’ exploitation and abuse of underage immigrant females.
The movie’s not always so well thought out, for instance a character who has no compunction at slitting a tough mobster’s throat, suddenly goes all nervous nelly over witnessing the corpse of same mobster being cut.
But aside from the incongruities, the inconsistencies and the incomplete pay offs (as many reviewers noted, the ending seems tacked on, as if scenes are missing or a focus group was consulted)—nonetheless, it’s a movie worth seeing.
The reason is Viggo Mortensen. The guy’s a real movie star, and has been for a while. His presence made LORD OF THE RINGS more than a fantasy-fairyland-attraction. And even though it didn’t get much attention, and probably didn’t make much money, his “cowboy” movie HILDAGO is one of my favorites, it totally worked, for me, like old fashioned Hollywood movies did when I was young, as did LORD OF THE RINGS, primarily because of Mortensen’s star power.
EASTERN PROMISES reunites director David Cronenberg and Mortensen in a movie as cartoony as their collaboration on HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, but like that flick, if you can surrender to the magic of Mortensen’s star power, you won’t be disappointed.
He’s an old style movie star, which means you can’t help not only liking, but admiring, him, whatever the role, even a cold blooded killer. You want to keep watching him, see more of him (and you see more of him than most movie stars in the most famous and memorable scene in this flick, the already famous steam room fight).
I can’t wait for the sequel.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
A SIMPLE SOLUTION?
Contemporary feminism has its contradictions, like most things, but the cause of equality in the workplace and the home, and before the law, is not only good, in my view, but should be the standard by which we judge our politics.
For instance in diplomacy, we should be rewarding (with trade or aid or military treaties, etc.) all countries that treat women equally, and punishing (through sanctions, non-support, UN resolutions, carried out, etc.) those that don’t.
If that was the standard by which we did all our politics, we would not have made most of the mistakes of this, and past, administrations.
Saddam’s Iraq would have been seen, through that perspective, as one that granted a lot of equality to women. The main exception was when it came to the personal power of Saddam and his clan, particularly his sons, who were so feared and so protected they were able to choose random young women for their entertainment and abuse.
If our government had used only the feminist perspective in dealing with Saddam, the goal would not have been to topple the government, or occupy the country, but instead to do everything possible to remove Saddam and his family from power. Which would have meant we wouldn’t have given him the means (weapons, including chemical) that we did for him to supposedly fight Iran, but which he also used to commit genocide against the Kurds and the Shi’ites.
We also wouldn’t be rewarding Saudi Arabia with military aid and trade and political support etc. The majority of the 9/11 attackers, who came from there, would not have had the motive to commit that atrocity, because they and their leaders, Osama et. al., were incensed by the U.S. military presence in their country, and support of the Saudi ruling family.
Which would never have happened if we had used a feminist yardstick for the basis of our treatment of a country in which women aren’t even allowed to drive, let alone vote.
The mass rapes taking place in the Eastern Congo, as I write this, are reported to be the worst in the world at this time, maybe ever. Women not just raped in the ordinary sense of the word, but with implements intended to make them unfit for reproduction or any sexual activity ever again.
So who exactly is profiting from the great wealth that is the resources in the Congo? What corporations, what countries? And if we enforced our perspective, as we do with so much else, could we influence this situation to end it? We could if we committed all our political might to it. This is a situation that does call for the kind of macho strength these conservatives and neo-conservatives are always pretending to have.
Even the religious intolerance that is spreading in the world, and here at home (evangelizing for Christianity in the military and in professional and university athletics, etc.) would diminish if equality for women was the standard political behavior was based on. Because the kind of fundamentalism that inspires that kind of Christian (and other religious) proselytizing does not live up to the standard of equality for women.
It is no accident that societies where there is more equality for women have more tolerance for other religions, or even atheists. Or that they have less poverty and economic inequality.
It may seem over simplistic, but I am convinced by the news lately, as well as by popular culture (all these young women stars fetishized by our society and then held up for ridicule when the pressure of that sexual double standard and hypocrisy causes them to become caricatures of what society had been demanding of them in the first place) that the treatment of women is the key to turning the world back to the goals of what this country had come to represent, whether deservedly or not—tolerance, liberty, fairness, equality, and individual rights and freedom.
As the females go, so goes the world. At least the way I see it.
PS: And believe me, I accept that there are biological and (therefore?) temperamental differences between the sexes, as they used to say, but there shouldn’t be before the law. One of the biggest failures of our nation in the course of this administration’s rule is the loss of the ideal of being a society ruled by law, not by any one religion or family or class or group or party or man or sect or cult or cabal of corporate leaders.
For instance in diplomacy, we should be rewarding (with trade or aid or military treaties, etc.) all countries that treat women equally, and punishing (through sanctions, non-support, UN resolutions, carried out, etc.) those that don’t.
If that was the standard by which we did all our politics, we would not have made most of the mistakes of this, and past, administrations.
Saddam’s Iraq would have been seen, through that perspective, as one that granted a lot of equality to women. The main exception was when it came to the personal power of Saddam and his clan, particularly his sons, who were so feared and so protected they were able to choose random young women for their entertainment and abuse.
If our government had used only the feminist perspective in dealing with Saddam, the goal would not have been to topple the government, or occupy the country, but instead to do everything possible to remove Saddam and his family from power. Which would have meant we wouldn’t have given him the means (weapons, including chemical) that we did for him to supposedly fight Iran, but which he also used to commit genocide against the Kurds and the Shi’ites.
We also wouldn’t be rewarding Saudi Arabia with military aid and trade and political support etc. The majority of the 9/11 attackers, who came from there, would not have had the motive to commit that atrocity, because they and their leaders, Osama et. al., were incensed by the U.S. military presence in their country, and support of the Saudi ruling family.
Which would never have happened if we had used a feminist yardstick for the basis of our treatment of a country in which women aren’t even allowed to drive, let alone vote.
The mass rapes taking place in the Eastern Congo, as I write this, are reported to be the worst in the world at this time, maybe ever. Women not just raped in the ordinary sense of the word, but with implements intended to make them unfit for reproduction or any sexual activity ever again.
So who exactly is profiting from the great wealth that is the resources in the Congo? What corporations, what countries? And if we enforced our perspective, as we do with so much else, could we influence this situation to end it? We could if we committed all our political might to it. This is a situation that does call for the kind of macho strength these conservatives and neo-conservatives are always pretending to have.
Even the religious intolerance that is spreading in the world, and here at home (evangelizing for Christianity in the military and in professional and university athletics, etc.) would diminish if equality for women was the standard political behavior was based on. Because the kind of fundamentalism that inspires that kind of Christian (and other religious) proselytizing does not live up to the standard of equality for women.
It is no accident that societies where there is more equality for women have more tolerance for other religions, or even atheists. Or that they have less poverty and economic inequality.
It may seem over simplistic, but I am convinced by the news lately, as well as by popular culture (all these young women stars fetishized by our society and then held up for ridicule when the pressure of that sexual double standard and hypocrisy causes them to become caricatures of what society had been demanding of them in the first place) that the treatment of women is the key to turning the world back to the goals of what this country had come to represent, whether deservedly or not—tolerance, liberty, fairness, equality, and individual rights and freedom.
As the females go, so goes the world. At least the way I see it.
PS: And believe me, I accept that there are biological and (therefore?) temperamental differences between the sexes, as they used to say, but there shouldn’t be before the law. One of the biggest failures of our nation in the course of this administration’s rule is the loss of the ideal of being a society ruled by law, not by any one religion or family or class or group or party or man or sect or cult or cabal of corporate leaders.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
AUTUMN IN…
Hectic lately. You too?
Something about Autumn, my favorite season, when many things start up again (e.g. my nine-year-old is back to school) or seem to speed up and multiply (art openings, readings, new movies I want to see, etc.).
Especially “Autumn in New York” (one of my favorite tunes, especially sung by Sinatra).
A lot of birthdays this season as well, among family—Flynn and Jaina, Isabelle and Miles and Heidi—and friends—Ray DiPalma, Jim Keefe, Karen Allen, Terence Winch, Simon Pettet, Raleigh Robinson, Dennis Christopher, Jamie Rose, Michael Winch and Laura Askew—and I’m sure others I’ve forgotten.
One of the main reasons I moved back East after years in Southern California was Autumn. The seasons in the L. A. area weren’t what I was used to. Or didn’t produce the kinds of effects I was used to. They were interesting, hot Santa Ana winds from the dessert that made your hair electric, “June gloom,” “the rainy season” etc.
I missed the landscape of my soul, especially when it turns auburn and bright yellow, dazzling red and gold, and all the hues of this season that returns my soul to contemplation and gratitude.
Apple picking (when I was a little, little kid I remember picking apple’s at an uncle’s farm—the only one any family member ever had and not for long—from the back of my father’s pick up truck—now I pay for my little one to pick them from the low branches or climb to pick the higher ones) and pumpkin choosing (already picked, lying in rows on the ground as people scurry among them making their choices and a hay wagon rides kids around an oval dirt road that passes “ghosts and goblins” and familiar creatures from recent kid movies, and all the other Fall “activities” as so much play has now become).
I just got back from a ride up to the Berkshires, where the trees are turning beautifully, but later than usual, and the weather was unusually hot, more summer than Autumn, but with the air conditioner on in the car and the breezes causing leaves to fall here and there as I passed the trees lining “the scenic route” (“next 16.4 miles”) I could imagine Autumns of my youth, when the despised (at least by me, a Brooklyn Dodger fan back then until they moved and broke my heart, and a million others) Yankees are in the play offs once again, the familiar rhythms of school life had taken hold of my week days, and the kind of crisp air that’s hard to find some days these days seemed totally unthreatened…
Ah Autumn, has always held so many glories, personal and seemingly universal (though obviously confined in many ways to the Northeast of my childhood and youth)—don’t take that away too.
Something about Autumn, my favorite season, when many things start up again (e.g. my nine-year-old is back to school) or seem to speed up and multiply (art openings, readings, new movies I want to see, etc.).
Especially “Autumn in New York” (one of my favorite tunes, especially sung by Sinatra).
A lot of birthdays this season as well, among family—Flynn and Jaina, Isabelle and Miles and Heidi—and friends—Ray DiPalma, Jim Keefe, Karen Allen, Terence Winch, Simon Pettet, Raleigh Robinson, Dennis Christopher, Jamie Rose, Michael Winch and Laura Askew—and I’m sure others I’ve forgotten.
One of the main reasons I moved back East after years in Southern California was Autumn. The seasons in the L. A. area weren’t what I was used to. Or didn’t produce the kinds of effects I was used to. They were interesting, hot Santa Ana winds from the dessert that made your hair electric, “June gloom,” “the rainy season” etc.
I missed the landscape of my soul, especially when it turns auburn and bright yellow, dazzling red and gold, and all the hues of this season that returns my soul to contemplation and gratitude.
Apple picking (when I was a little, little kid I remember picking apple’s at an uncle’s farm—the only one any family member ever had and not for long—from the back of my father’s pick up truck—now I pay for my little one to pick them from the low branches or climb to pick the higher ones) and pumpkin choosing (already picked, lying in rows on the ground as people scurry among them making their choices and a hay wagon rides kids around an oval dirt road that passes “ghosts and goblins” and familiar creatures from recent kid movies, and all the other Fall “activities” as so much play has now become).
I just got back from a ride up to the Berkshires, where the trees are turning beautifully, but later than usual, and the weather was unusually hot, more summer than Autumn, but with the air conditioner on in the car and the breezes causing leaves to fall here and there as I passed the trees lining “the scenic route” (“next 16.4 miles”) I could imagine Autumns of my youth, when the despised (at least by me, a Brooklyn Dodger fan back then until they moved and broke my heart, and a million others) Yankees are in the play offs once again, the familiar rhythms of school life had taken hold of my week days, and the kind of crisp air that’s hard to find some days these days seemed totally unthreatened…
Ah Autumn, has always held so many glories, personal and seemingly universal (though obviously confined in many ways to the Northeast of my childhood and youth)—don’t take that away too.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
YET ANOTHER LIST!
My friend Ray DiPalma suggested I do one of my alphabet lists based on favorite books with four or less letters in their titles! A great challenge, which he got going by suggesting several titles in an email before I went to bed.
Naturally I fell asleep compiling my own, including some of his suggestions.
He sent more since then, many of which I had come up with myself, and some of which aren’t favorites of mine necessarily. So here’s the alphabet list of some favorite books (many of which were originally suggested by Ray) with four or less letters in their titles:
“A” by Louis Zukofsky (we both came up with this long, epic, experimental lifetime poem, as well as ALL, his collected shorter works, and one of my favorite books, ACT by Tom Raworth, one of my favorite poets)
BIRD by Robert George Reisner (this was all mine—the first hardcover book I ever bought, and still have, because it was about my then idol, Charlie Parker, and though later dismissed as a lightweight, thrown together, pastiche of anecdotes and myths, I found it mesmerizing and inspiring and still do)
CANE by Jean Toomer (on so many lists of mine, because it remains an all time favorite)
DAWN by Theodore Dreiser (The first volume of his autobiography, and one of my favorite books, if you dig history, you should dig this and his follow up NEWSPAPER DAYS)
EDGE by Bruce Andrews (first chapbook by one of the original “Language poets” and one of my favorites, obviously, since I was part of the “collective” that published it)
F? (Ray suggested a novel called FUR, but I haven’t read it)
GO by John Clellon Holmes (Ray reminded me of this novel about the “Beat generation” that beat ON THE ROAD to press but was nowhere near as good, nonetheless it had an impact on me as a kid)
HOWL by Allen Ginsberg
INRI by Joe Ceravolo (a book suggested by Ray which I was unaware of, but since I love Ceravolo’s poetry including his collected poems I’m sure I dug the work in here elsewhere)
JOE by Ron Padgett (though not my take on Joe Brainard’s life and art, Ron knew him longer than anyone besides Joe’s family, and has a lot of anecdotal incidents that make this book a treasure in some ways)
K? (Ray suggested KIM by Rudyard Kipling, but it’s not one of my favorites)
LIES by C. K. Williams (another of Ray’s suggestions I hadn’t thought of, by a poet who graduated from the high school that was almost in my backyard as a kid)
MAX by Ray DiPalma (an early book by Ray that I loved and still do)
NUNS by Terence Winch (an early chapbook of great Winch poems about nuns! Which both Ray and I thought of)
OF by me (Ray’s suggestion, but one of my favorite books of mine as well)
PIC by Jack Kerouac (considered one of his weakest “novels” and certainly his most unusual, since the lead characters in it are black, but still, for me, a touching attempt to portray some of his own longings and confusion through these invented characters—and POGO by Walt Kelly, the first collection of his comic strip from the Eisenhower years, I loved it as a kid and still do)
Q?
RAIK by Ray DiPalma (a “mid-career” book of Ray’s I always dug and mention in OF)
SKY by Blaise Cendrars (a memoir and a meditation and historical riff on human flight—I also couldn’t help thinking of SOAP, which Ray did too, one of my favorite—book-length—poems, by one of my favorite poets, Francis Ponge)
TED by Ron Padgett (a different take than mine on poet Ted Berrigan’s life, or the part that Padgett was privy to, but simply and directly written and a source of information and insight not found elsewhere)
USA by John Dos Passos (Ray and I both remembered this trilogy, which was considered in its time “The Great American Novel” and certainly had an impact on me)
V. by Thomas Pynchon (his first and to my mind best novel)
WATT by Samuel Beckett (Ray’s initial suggestion, Beckett’s second novel and most difficult in some ways, but I fell in love with it in my youth, and the challenge of the originality of it)
X?
Y?
ZAP by R. Crumb (my initial thought for “Z” even though it was the first “alternative” or “underground” comic “book”—which jolted the 1960s hippie scene and caused shock waves still resonating today)
Naturally I fell asleep compiling my own, including some of his suggestions.
He sent more since then, many of which I had come up with myself, and some of which aren’t favorites of mine necessarily. So here’s the alphabet list of some favorite books (many of which were originally suggested by Ray) with four or less letters in their titles:
“A” by Louis Zukofsky (we both came up with this long, epic, experimental lifetime poem, as well as ALL, his collected shorter works, and one of my favorite books, ACT by Tom Raworth, one of my favorite poets)
BIRD by Robert George Reisner (this was all mine—the first hardcover book I ever bought, and still have, because it was about my then idol, Charlie Parker, and though later dismissed as a lightweight, thrown together, pastiche of anecdotes and myths, I found it mesmerizing and inspiring and still do)
CANE by Jean Toomer (on so many lists of mine, because it remains an all time favorite)
DAWN by Theodore Dreiser (The first volume of his autobiography, and one of my favorite books, if you dig history, you should dig this and his follow up NEWSPAPER DAYS)
EDGE by Bruce Andrews (first chapbook by one of the original “Language poets” and one of my favorites, obviously, since I was part of the “collective” that published it)
F? (Ray suggested a novel called FUR, but I haven’t read it)
GO by John Clellon Holmes (Ray reminded me of this novel about the “Beat generation” that beat ON THE ROAD to press but was nowhere near as good, nonetheless it had an impact on me as a kid)
HOWL by Allen Ginsberg
INRI by Joe Ceravolo (a book suggested by Ray which I was unaware of, but since I love Ceravolo’s poetry including his collected poems I’m sure I dug the work in here elsewhere)
JOE by Ron Padgett (though not my take on Joe Brainard’s life and art, Ron knew him longer than anyone besides Joe’s family, and has a lot of anecdotal incidents that make this book a treasure in some ways)
K? (Ray suggested KIM by Rudyard Kipling, but it’s not one of my favorites)
LIES by C. K. Williams (another of Ray’s suggestions I hadn’t thought of, by a poet who graduated from the high school that was almost in my backyard as a kid)
MAX by Ray DiPalma (an early book by Ray that I loved and still do)
NUNS by Terence Winch (an early chapbook of great Winch poems about nuns! Which both Ray and I thought of)
OF by me (Ray’s suggestion, but one of my favorite books of mine as well)
PIC by Jack Kerouac (considered one of his weakest “novels” and certainly his most unusual, since the lead characters in it are black, but still, for me, a touching attempt to portray some of his own longings and confusion through these invented characters—and POGO by Walt Kelly, the first collection of his comic strip from the Eisenhower years, I loved it as a kid and still do)
Q?
RAIK by Ray DiPalma (a “mid-career” book of Ray’s I always dug and mention in OF)
SKY by Blaise Cendrars (a memoir and a meditation and historical riff on human flight—I also couldn’t help thinking of SOAP, which Ray did too, one of my favorite—book-length—poems, by one of my favorite poets, Francis Ponge)
TED by Ron Padgett (a different take than mine on poet Ted Berrigan’s life, or the part that Padgett was privy to, but simply and directly written and a source of information and insight not found elsewhere)
USA by John Dos Passos (Ray and I both remembered this trilogy, which was considered in its time “The Great American Novel” and certainly had an impact on me)
V. by Thomas Pynchon (his first and to my mind best novel)
WATT by Samuel Beckett (Ray’s initial suggestion, Beckett’s second novel and most difficult in some ways, but I fell in love with it in my youth, and the challenge of the originality of it)
X?
Y?
ZAP by R. Crumb (my initial thought for “Z” even though it was the first “alternative” or “underground” comic “book”—which jolted the 1960s hippie scene and caused shock waves still resonating today)
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
TWO SYLLABLE LIST
Another alphabet list, this one sparked by being woke up in the middle of the night by the garbage trucks emptying the dumpsters from the restaurants next door to my apartment.
It took a while to get back to sleep. So I went to my usual alphabet list making.
To make it a little more challenging, I remembered the one I made of titles of works of art I dug that only had one syllable in them. So I thought, why not a list of two word titles of art I dig in which each word has only one syllable.
I instantly thought of Gary Snyder’s first book of poems, RIP RAP, and went from there:
ALL BLUES (from the Miles Davis album KINDA BLUE)
BLUE MOON (Elvis version from the Sun Sessions)
COOL WORLD (Shirley Clark’s c. 1960 movie from the Warren Miller novel)
DRUM TAPS (Walt Whitman’s book of Civil War poems)
ED WOOD (not my favorite Johnny Depp or Tim Burton movie, but still…)
FREE JAZZ (the Ornette Coleman album that defined the late 1950s early ‘60s progression in jazz music)
GET BACK (though attributed to Lennon/McCartney, Paul says it’s all his)
HIGH NOON
IN TIME (one of my favorite books by the poet Robert Kelly)
JACK FROST (a corny kids’ movie with Michael Keaton as a father who dies and is reborn as a snowman!—but it actually works, and is worth it, also, for the cameos by Henry Rollins and Ahmet and Dweezil Zappa)
KING KONG (the original)
LET’S GO! (the original title in Spanish has more words and syllables, but this is translator Margaret Randall’s title for this book of poems by the Guatemalan revolutionary Otto Rene Castillo—Randall was one of the few women Beat poets, she lived in exile in Cuba for decades after their revolution)
MEAN STREETS
NOT YET (one of the first works of art I saw by Eva Hesse and immediately got and dug and was inspired by, a group of teardrop shaped hanging things created by some kind of organ like objects in giant mesh bags, difficult to describe, in some ways almost nondescript, but evoking human organs, sex, bodily functions, abstract concepts, etc. etc.) [found this illustration this morning!]
ODD JOB (Mark Terrill prose poem from one of my all time favorite books: BREAD & FISH)
PLEASE TOUCH (English translated title of a collage of a woman’s breast by Marcel Duchamp that might have been ‘sexist” but opened my mind—more—to the possibilities in art and attitude)
QUIZ SHOW
RIP RAP
ST. ROACH (great poem by Muriel Rukeyser)
THREE KINGS (a terrific George Clooney movie, and best movie to come out of the first Iraq war—were there any others?)
UP FRONT (Bill Mauldin’s collection of cartoons and dispatches from the front lines of WWII, one of the greatest books you could ever read about that conflict, outside of Martha Gellhorn’s reporting and Lee Miller’s reporting and photographs, and thanks to poet Ted Greenwald turning me on to this decades ago, I knew who Maudlin was and remembered his cartoons from when I was a little boy and my two oldest brothers had just got back from WWII after it ended, and this book brought all that back)
VAN GOGH (Joe Brainard’s essay/prose poem in his often faux naïf style that ends up expressing profound truths and insights as usual)
WHAT’S NEW (Sinatra’s version from the album ONLY THE LONELY)
X? (X is usually the problem, we should all write some books and movies and songs with titles beginning with X!)
YOUNG LOVE (the Sonny James version that epitomized my romantic life c. 1957)
ZOOT SUIT (a failed movie musical, I think, but a noble and unique attempt)
I did that so quickly and was still not asleep, so I did another!
AT LAST (Etta James version)
BLUE SKIES (Irving Berlin’s standard that still makes me smile, including Bill Charlip’s relatively recent instrumental version)
COP LAND (underrated terrific movie)
DANSE RUSSE (my favorite W. C. Williams short, stand-alone poem—I identified completely with it when I was a young husband and father)
EBB TIDE (corny song that I played on the piano when I was a kid, with lots of show off-y long runs up and down the keys, indicating the tide coming in and out!)
FOR LOVE (first book of poet Robert Creeley’s I read as a young man and dug)
GREEN CARD (one of my favorite romantic movies with two of my favorite actors)
HARD TIMES (maybe you have to be a guy to get this James Coburn-Charles Bronson flick about bare knuckle fighting for money during the Depression, but whatever the reason, I totally dug it when it came out in the 1970s and probably still would if I saw it today)
IS AS (one of my favorite short poems, by me [!] included in IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE)
JOE KIDD (Clint Eastwood Western with Robert Duvall, not their best, but still…)
KING LEAR
LES GIRLS (Not a great movie musical, but Gene Kelly was naturally the dancer I identified most with as a kid, since he was more of a street Mick than any other man who danced, as far as I knew, and I wasn’t crazy about Mitzi Gaynor, but I still found this flick sexy as a kid, probably just because of the title, which translated to us teenagers of the time as “lay girls”!)
MEAN GIRLS
N? (drew a blank this time)
O LOVE (great, succinct little poem about love by Ted Berrigan)
PEACE PIECE (my favorite Bill Evans tune)
Q?
ROB ROY (the movie, one of my romantic favorites)
SHOW BOAT (parts of both film versions, 1936 and 1951 [I looked up the dates this morning], are classic, especially the latter with Ava Gardner, whose heart was broken when they refused to use her singing voice, she never gave herself completely to a movie role again, but instead, on screen and in life, played the cynical star they turned her into as a result of her disappointment over her singing being dubbed by someone else in SHOW BOAT)
TOP HAT
UTE NOTE (a Merrill Gilfillan poem from his SELECTED POEMS, all of which are great but I remembered this title, not even sure if “Ute” is one syllable, but it is, in my pronunciation!)
VROOM VROOM (my personal title for a poem by Ray Bremser, a lesser known Beat poet who was an ex-con street guy I identified with a lot when the Beats were first coming to prominence, especially because he wrote a poem about the then relatively new New Jersey Turnpike, in which that two word phrase figured prominently in my mind, even though he may never have put it exactly like that, but every time I think of that poem and it’s impact on me as a teenager I think “Vroom vroom”!)
WOOD STOVE (one of my favorite artists is sculptor David Nash, who works with wood mostly in its natural state, and for this piece had a tree stump that smoked like a wood stove, maybe you had to be there)
X? (once again)
YOU BET! (one of poet Ted Greenwald’s early books and one of my favorites)
ZONE GONE (with an upper case Z and the rest lower case and a period at the end, as though a sentence, this is the last piece in Kenward Elmslie’s THE ALPHABET WORK, and easiest to remember)
It took a while to get back to sleep. So I went to my usual alphabet list making.
To make it a little more challenging, I remembered the one I made of titles of works of art I dug that only had one syllable in them. So I thought, why not a list of two word titles of art I dig in which each word has only one syllable.
I instantly thought of Gary Snyder’s first book of poems, RIP RAP, and went from there:
ALL BLUES (from the Miles Davis album KINDA BLUE)
BLUE MOON (Elvis version from the Sun Sessions)
COOL WORLD (Shirley Clark’s c. 1960 movie from the Warren Miller novel)
DRUM TAPS (Walt Whitman’s book of Civil War poems)
ED WOOD (not my favorite Johnny Depp or Tim Burton movie, but still…)
FREE JAZZ (the Ornette Coleman album that defined the late 1950s early ‘60s progression in jazz music)
GET BACK (though attributed to Lennon/McCartney, Paul says it’s all his)
HIGH NOON
IN TIME (one of my favorite books by the poet Robert Kelly)
JACK FROST (a corny kids’ movie with Michael Keaton as a father who dies and is reborn as a snowman!—but it actually works, and is worth it, also, for the cameos by Henry Rollins and Ahmet and Dweezil Zappa)
KING KONG (the original)
LET’S GO! (the original title in Spanish has more words and syllables, but this is translator Margaret Randall’s title for this book of poems by the Guatemalan revolutionary Otto Rene Castillo—Randall was one of the few women Beat poets, she lived in exile in Cuba for decades after their revolution)
MEAN STREETS
NOT YET (one of the first works of art I saw by Eva Hesse and immediately got and dug and was inspired by, a group of teardrop shaped hanging things created by some kind of organ like objects in giant mesh bags, difficult to describe, in some ways almost nondescript, but evoking human organs, sex, bodily functions, abstract concepts, etc. etc.) [found this illustration this morning!]
ODD JOB (Mark Terrill prose poem from one of my all time favorite books: BREAD & FISH)
PLEASE TOUCH (English translated title of a collage of a woman’s breast by Marcel Duchamp that might have been ‘sexist” but opened my mind—more—to the possibilities in art and attitude)
QUIZ SHOW
RIP RAP
ST. ROACH (great poem by Muriel Rukeyser)
THREE KINGS (a terrific George Clooney movie, and best movie to come out of the first Iraq war—were there any others?)
UP FRONT (Bill Mauldin’s collection of cartoons and dispatches from the front lines of WWII, one of the greatest books you could ever read about that conflict, outside of Martha Gellhorn’s reporting and Lee Miller’s reporting and photographs, and thanks to poet Ted Greenwald turning me on to this decades ago, I knew who Maudlin was and remembered his cartoons from when I was a little boy and my two oldest brothers had just got back from WWII after it ended, and this book brought all that back)
VAN GOGH (Joe Brainard’s essay/prose poem in his often faux naïf style that ends up expressing profound truths and insights as usual)
WHAT’S NEW (Sinatra’s version from the album ONLY THE LONELY)
X? (X is usually the problem, we should all write some books and movies and songs with titles beginning with X!)
YOUNG LOVE (the Sonny James version that epitomized my romantic life c. 1957)
ZOOT SUIT (a failed movie musical, I think, but a noble and unique attempt)
I did that so quickly and was still not asleep, so I did another!
AT LAST (Etta James version)
BLUE SKIES (Irving Berlin’s standard that still makes me smile, including Bill Charlip’s relatively recent instrumental version)
COP LAND (underrated terrific movie)
DANSE RUSSE (my favorite W. C. Williams short, stand-alone poem—I identified completely with it when I was a young husband and father)
EBB TIDE (corny song that I played on the piano when I was a kid, with lots of show off-y long runs up and down the keys, indicating the tide coming in and out!)
FOR LOVE (first book of poet Robert Creeley’s I read as a young man and dug)
GREEN CARD (one of my favorite romantic movies with two of my favorite actors)
HARD TIMES (maybe you have to be a guy to get this James Coburn-Charles Bronson flick about bare knuckle fighting for money during the Depression, but whatever the reason, I totally dug it when it came out in the 1970s and probably still would if I saw it today)
IS AS (one of my favorite short poems, by me [!] included in IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE)
JOE KIDD (Clint Eastwood Western with Robert Duvall, not their best, but still…)
KING LEAR
LES GIRLS (Not a great movie musical, but Gene Kelly was naturally the dancer I identified most with as a kid, since he was more of a street Mick than any other man who danced, as far as I knew, and I wasn’t crazy about Mitzi Gaynor, but I still found this flick sexy as a kid, probably just because of the title, which translated to us teenagers of the time as “lay girls”!)
MEAN GIRLS
N? (drew a blank this time)
O LOVE (great, succinct little poem about love by Ted Berrigan)
PEACE PIECE (my favorite Bill Evans tune)
Q?
ROB ROY (the movie, one of my romantic favorites)
SHOW BOAT (parts of both film versions, 1936 and 1951 [I looked up the dates this morning], are classic, especially the latter with Ava Gardner, whose heart was broken when they refused to use her singing voice, she never gave herself completely to a movie role again, but instead, on screen and in life, played the cynical star they turned her into as a result of her disappointment over her singing being dubbed by someone else in SHOW BOAT)
TOP HAT
UTE NOTE (a Merrill Gilfillan poem from his SELECTED POEMS, all of which are great but I remembered this title, not even sure if “Ute” is one syllable, but it is, in my pronunciation!)
VROOM VROOM (my personal title for a poem by Ray Bremser, a lesser known Beat poet who was an ex-con street guy I identified with a lot when the Beats were first coming to prominence, especially because he wrote a poem about the then relatively new New Jersey Turnpike, in which that two word phrase figured prominently in my mind, even though he may never have put it exactly like that, but every time I think of that poem and it’s impact on me as a teenager I think “Vroom vroom”!)
WOOD STOVE (one of my favorite artists is sculptor David Nash, who works with wood mostly in its natural state, and for this piece had a tree stump that smoked like a wood stove, maybe you had to be there)
X? (once again)
YOU BET! (one of poet Ted Greenwald’s early books and one of my favorites)
ZONE GONE (with an upper case Z and the rest lower case and a period at the end, as though a sentence, this is the last piece in Kenward Elmslie’s THE ALPHABET WORK, and easiest to remember)
Monday, October 1, 2007
NEW BLOG & SITE
I recently added another blog and another site to my recommended list on the right.
A nephew of mine headed out to Alaska awhile ago to work with wildlife conservation there. He recently started a blog to share his experiences. A nice change from the usual. Check it out at My Alaskan Adventure.
Artist friend Paul Harryn sent me the link to a site I'd heard about and promises to be pretty interesting The Elders. I'll keep an eye on it, maybe you should check it out too.
A nephew of mine headed out to Alaska awhile ago to work with wildlife conservation there. He recently started a blog to share his experiences. A nice change from the usual. Check it out at My Alaskan Adventure.
Artist friend Paul Harryn sent me the link to a site I'd heard about and promises to be pretty interesting The Elders. I'll keep an eye on it, maybe you should check it out too.
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