interval interventions

Empire State Building

2012-02-09T19:18:00.000-08:00

Last night, I walked through a drizzle of snow flurries on 5th Ave, from 34th to 14th and back. I had been checking out a merchandise on the web, and wanted to see it in-person before buying it. And since I liked what I saw, I went home with it. The streets were busy and wet outside the store, and I felt like walking around for a while. Pizza was in my mind, or food from a truck-stand. But I ended up getting a subway sandwich at a place near 32nd. After leaving the fast-food restaurant, I stood on the sidewalk for a while, looked around, then up. The lights on the upper part of the Empire State Building were on, and created an effect; it looked immersed in a halo, or that its height blocked my line of sight to a full moon on a semi-cloudy sky. I took a couple of snapshots, before heading to the Grand Central Station. On my way there, I borrowed some videos at the Mid-Manhattan Library. Costa-Gavra's Missing - a political drama set in the 1973 coup in Chile - wasn't that bad, when I saw it later. The main characters in the story - played by Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek - are residents of the empire state.

Galatea Resurrects #17

2012-01-04T22:30:00.000-08:00

Galatea Resurrects 17 [22 Dec 2011] Curated/Edited By: Eileen Tabios.

Issue No. 17 TABLE OF CONTENTS

[N.B. You can scroll down on blog or click on highlighted names or titles to go directly to the referenced article.]

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
Eileen Tabios

NEW REVIEWS
Nicholas Manning Reviews IRRESPONSIBILITY by Chris Vitiello

Patrick James Dunagan Reviews HOW PHENOMENA APPEAR TO UNFOLD by Leslie Scalapino

Allen Bramhall Reviews AT THAT by Skip Fox

T.C. Marshall Reviews ETHICS OF SLEEP by Bernadette Mayer

Fiona Sze-Lorrain Reviews SELF-PORTRAIT WITH CRAYON by Allison Benis White

Laura Trantham Smith Reviews UTOPIA MINUS by Susan Briante

Moira Richards Reviews IN PARAN by Larissa Shmailo

Philip Troy Reviews THE FEELING IS ACTUAL by Paolo Javier

Eileen Tabios Engages THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO THINK THAT PAINTERS SHOULDN’T TALK: A GUSTONBOOK by Patrick James Dunagan

Logan Fry Reviews IN THE COMMON DREAM OF GEORGE OPPEN by Joseph Bradshaw

Eileen Tabios Engages TO BE HUMAN IS TO BE A CONVERSATION by Andrea Rexilius

Thomas Fink Reviews PARTS AND OTHER PIECES by Tom Beckett

T.C. Marshall Reviews TO LIGHT OUT by Karen Weiser and DUTIES OF AN ENGLISH FOREIGN SECRETARY by MacGregor Card

Allen Bramhall Reviews CITIZEN CAIN by Ben Friedlander

William Allegrezza Reviews FORTY-NINE GUARANTEED WAYS TO ESCAPE DEATH by Sandy McIntosh

Fiona Sze-Lorrain Reviews THERE’S THE HAND AND THERE’S THE ARID CHAIR by Tomaz Salamun

Eileen Tabios Engages MY LIFE AS A DOLL by Elizabeth Kirschner

Gabriel Lovatt Reviews THE USE OF SPEECH by Nathalie Sarraute, translated from the French by Barbara Wright

Logan Fry Reviews PORTRAIT OF COLON DASH PARENTHESIS by Jeffrey Jullich

Eileen Tabios Engages STILL: OF THE EARTH AS THE ARK WHICH DOES NOT MOVE by Matthew Cooperman

Bill Scalia Reviews THE URGE TO BELIEVE IS STRONGER THAN BELIEF ITSELF by Erin M. Bertram

Kristin Berkey-Abbot Reviews FAULKNER’S ROSARY by Sarah Vap

Micah Cavaleri Reviews KYOTOLOGIC by Anne Gorrick

Tom Beckett Engages AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY GENDER, PRURIENT OMNIBUS ANARCHIC, RESTITUTIONS FOR A NEWER BOUNTIFUL VERB, COCK-BURN, OUR BODIES . . . ARE BEAUTY INDUCERS, THE ULTERIOR EDEN, ASYMPTOTIC LOVER//THERMODYNAMIC VENTS, all by j/j hastain

j/j hastain Reviews A GOOD CUNTBOY IS HARD TO FIND by Doug Rice

Eileen Tabios Engages 60 TEXTOS by Sarah Riggs

Bill Scalia Reviews BEAT THING by David Meltzer

Logan Fry Reviews HANK by Abraham Smith

T.C. Marshall Reviews EXPLORATIONS IN NAVAJO POETRY AND POETICS by Anthony K. Webster and THE PRINCIPLE OF MEASURE IN COMPOSITION BY FIELD: PROJECTIVE VERSE II by Charles Olson, Ed. Joshue Hoeynck

Eileen Tabios Engages TEENY TINY #13, Edited by Amanda Laughtland

Allen Bramhall Reviews ANTIPHONIES: ESSAYS ON WOMEN'S EXPERIMENTAL POETRIES IN CANADA, Ed. Nate Dorward

Gabriel Lovatt Reviews VACANT LOT by Oliver Rohe, translated from the French by Laird Hunt

Eric Wayne Dickey Reviews PUNISH HONEY by Karen Leona Anderson

Eileen Tabios Engages INSIDE THE MONEY MACHINE by Minnie Bruce Pratt

Pam Brown Reviews SLY MONGOOSE by Ken Bolton

T.C. Marshall Reviews HOW LONG by Ron Padgett

Neil Leadbeater Reviews A HERON IN BUENOS AIRES by Luis Benítez

Jean Vengua Reviews THE WISDOM ANTHOLOGY OF NORTH AMERICAN BUDDHIST POETRY, Editor Andrew Schelling

Eileen Tabios Engages WAIFS AND STRAYS by Micah Ballard

T.C. Marshall Reviews THE NEW TOURISM by Harry Mathews

Guillermo Parra Reviews HOW’S THE COWS by Jess Mynes

T.C. Marshall Reviews THE WIDE ROAD by Carla Harryman and Lyn Hejinian

John Bloomberg-Rissman Reviews THE COMMONS by Sean Bonney

Pam Brown Reviews PERRIER FEVER by Pete Spence

Jim McCrary Engages MARROWING and THE NAME OF THIS INTERSECTION IS FROST, both by Maryrose Larkin

Tom Beckett Reviews THE NAME OF THIS INTERSECTION IS FROST by Maryrose Larkin

Patrick James Dunagan Reviews “NEITHER WIT NOR GOLD” by Ammiel Alcalay and STREET METE: VERTICAL ELEGIES 6 by Sam Truitt

Eileen Tabios Engages RADIATOR by NF Huth

Genevieve Kaplan Reviews SPEAKING OFF CENTRE by James Cummins, CORPORATE GEES (VOLUME V) by Christopher William Purdom, KITCHEN TIDBITS by Amanda Laughtland, FROM HERE by Zoë Skoulding with images by Simonetta Moro, and TWO HATS APPEAR WHEN APPLAUDED: AN IMPROVISATION by Raymond Farr

L.S. Bassen Reviews IT MIGHT TURN OUT WE ARE REAL by Susan Scarlata

rob mclennan Reviews THREE NOVELS by Elizabeth Robinson

Patrick James Dunagan & Ava Koohbor Review THE TELLER OF TALES: STORIES FROM FERODWSI’S SHAHNAHMEN, Translated by Richard Jeffrey Newman

Tom Hibbard Reviews SELECTED POEMS by Nick Demske, A MYSTICAL THEOLOGY OF THE LIMBIC FISSURE by Peter O’Leary, HOSTILE WITNESS by Garin Cycholl, UNABLE TO FULLY CALIFORNIA by Larry Sawyer, AIN’T GOT ALL NIGHT by Buck Downs, and ANSWER by Mark DuCharme

Jeff Harrison Engages THE DANGEROUS ISLANDS (A NOVEL) by Séamas Cain

Eileen Tabios Engages ALIENS: AN ISLAND by Uljana Wolf, Trans. from the German by Monika Zobel

Kristin Berkey-Abbot Reviews LOOKING UP HARRYETTE MULLEN: INTERVIEWS ON SLEEPING WITH THE DICTIONARY AND OTHER WORKS by Barbara Henning

G. Justin Hulog Reviews ARCHIPELAGO DUST by Karen Llagas

Allen Bramhall Reviews FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS by William Allegrezza

Eileen Tabios Engages RED WALLS by James Tolan

Juliet Cook Reviews COMPENDIUM by Kristina Marie Darling

Bill Scalia Reviews WHAT THE RAVEN SAID by Robert Alexander

Fiona Sze-Lorrain Reviews SEE HOW WE ALMOST FLY by Alison Luterman

Sunnylynn Thibodeaux Reviews THE INCOMPOSSIBLE by Carrie Hunter

John Bloomberg-Rissman Reviews 908-1078 and THE PERSIANS BY AESCHYLUS, both by Brandon Brown

Benjamin Winkler Reviews WE IN MY TRANS by j/j hastain

Mary Kasimor Reviews T&U&/LASH YOUR NIPPLES TO A POST/HISTORY IS GORGEOUS by Jared Schickling

Jeff Harrison Engages T&U& LASH YOUR NIPPLES TO A POST HISTORY IS GORGEOUS by Jared Schickling

rob mclennan Reviews APOLLINAIRE’S SPEECH TO THE WAR MEDIC by Jake Kennedy

Megan Burns Reviews LUCKY by Mairéad Byrne and A REDUCTION by Jimmy Lo

Paul Lai Engages KĒROTAKIS : by Janice Lee

Patrick James Dunagan Reviews CLEARVIEW by Ted Greenwald and THE PUBLIC GARDENS: POEMS AND HISTORY by Linda Norton

John Bloomberg-Rissman Reviews KAZOO DREAMBOATS OR, ON WHAT THERE IS by J.H. Prynne

Gregory W. Randall Reviews THE HOMELESSNESS OF SELF by Susan Terris

Jim McCrary Reviews MY COMMON HEART by Anne Boyer and ISSUE 8, Newsletter from James Yeary

Megan Burns Reviews A TOAST IN THE HOUSE OF FRIENDS by Akilah Oliver

Eileen Tabios Engages INFO RATION by Stan Apps

Bill Scalia Reviews THE MORNING NEWS IS EXCITING by Don Mee Choi

Micah Cavaleri Reviews ACOUSTIC EXPERIENCE by Noah Eli Gordon

Jim McCrary Reviews COLLECTION by Megan Kaminski, MANTIC SEMANTIC by A.L. Nielsen, LVNGinTONGUES by G. E. Schwartz, and PO DOOM by jim mccrary

Eileen Tabios Engages BLUE COLLAR POET by G. Emil Reutter

Fiona Sze-Lorrain Reviews IF NOT METAMORPHIC by Brenda Iljima

Eileen Tabios Engages THE ULTERIOR EDEN: A SERIES OF GENUFLECTIONS, RUMINATIONS AND GYROSCOPES by j/j hastain

INTERVIEW
Tom Beckett Interviews NF Huth

FEATURE ARTICLE
“Make a Wish…and Blow out the Candles: An Explication of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie” by Nicholas T. Spatafora

THE CRITIC WRITES POEMS
Sunnylyn Thibodeaux

FROM OFFLINE TO ONLINE
Paul Lai Reviews AUTOMATON BIOGRAPHIES by Larissa Lai

ADVERTISEMENTS
Poets on the Great Recession: Poets reflect on the Great Recession, and its impact on their Poetry. Because

"To bring the poem into the world / is to bring the world into the poem."

Poets On Adoption:
Poetry: it inevitably relates to -- among others -- identity, history, culture, class, race, community, economics, politics, power, loss, health, desire, regret, language, form and genre disruption, love ... as well as the absences thereofs. The same may be said about Adoption."

BACK COVER
A Thousand Words Plus...!

Early this year, I wrote another boring confession.

2011-11-30T02:04:00.001-08:00

Confessions of a Thrift Store Whore

[ Feb. 1, 2011, Thought Catalog ]

I’m a bit of a whore, like many. But I’m not talking about the kind of whore – from either gender – who uses a busy street-corner after midnight, baiting clients with smooth or rusty marketing skills learned from the Do-It-Yourself School of Charm, nor the veteran from those corners who has learned to advertise who they are into discreet information on business cards that directs potential costumers to their pimp’s phone number. I’m talking about whorishness derived from excessive habits to satisfy specific needs, the kind akin to mental habits that make one a media whore, vampire-movie whore, trend whore, or, yes, thrift-shop whore. These habits can easily be categorized as obsessions, although that description must be used with caution, since these kinds of whores, in general, have some awareness about being controlled by their fixations, and are, therefore, wary they don't fall into traps that convince them they have, indeed, become qualified, resolute suckers.

I’m a thrift-shop whore, not because thrift shops are great places to hang out and connect with other people from Facebook or elsewhere who like used stuff, but because, as many of you know, there are great merchandise there that probably won’t hurt you, at the cash register. However, I’m not always seduced by the lure of cheap merchandise in these stores, but only spend on things I can use, and do not go through withdrawal symptoms or anxiety attacks, if I end up empty handed on my two previous visits there. Thus, in the arena of thrift-shop whoredom, I’m, categorically, a mild thrift-shop whore. Although I may have been an intense thrift-shop whore once, for a brief, unmemorable period, spending mindlessly on anything, even though I didn’t have much to spend. Indeed, these stores are heaven for the underpaid, although the parking lot of most used stores I patronize somehow tells me my co-shoppers have healthy bank accounts, can easily splurge at pricier stores, or may even be donors themselves of merchandise sold in these used stores. But then perhaps they have been thrift-store whores since their undergrad years at a public or private university, a period sustained by student-loan programs or depleted trust funds, and cannot evolve out of being bargain hunters.

Years ago, I became a regular at a neighborhood used-store, to look for brand-name sneakers. Adidas, Nike, and Puma were the usual brand-names I looked for. I used to shop once a month there, and only spend fifteen to thirty minutes at the men’s shoe-rack, looking for a great steal, then a few minutes to browse t-shirts, before leaving. But those were the good old days, before I became a thrift-shop whore. These days, I’m a weekly bargain hunter, not only looking for shoes and t-shirts but also for sweaters, pants, bags, books, and music cds. The cd display shelves have become my focal-point, in these weekly two-hour visits, which now consumes half of my time, looking for anything that catches my eye, such as any old albums by U2, Maroon 5, Nora Jones, Marvin Gaye, Chopin, Cher, Schubert, Madonna, or Carlos Santana.

But the music section has not derailed me from the men’s shoe-racks, which I check carefully, because a great catch could be hidden under the gigantic size-thirteens or fourteens. Usually, shoe-racks for men, in most used stores I frequent, are nothing compared to shoe-racks for women. Women used-store shoppers have more selections to choose from. This probably means women think more about their feet than men, in terms of care and ways of dressing them up. But just because men used-store shoppers do not have an array of shoes to choose from doesn’t mean they are locked out of getting a great steal. In many ways though, this particular scarcity -as in life, in general- summons sharpened hunter-gatherer skills among men shoppers there, to not only look for shoes around the men’s shoe section, but into the women’s shoe section as well.

Now this ceremonious spatial-expansion, in shoe bargain hunting, does not mean these men are trying to satisfy the feminine aspect of their tastes, nor are they necessarily expressing some uncontrolled fetish for women’s shoes, revealed in a thrift-store public-sphere, that may later inspire details for a story or theoretical paper. Not quite. These men wander into the women’s shoe section to look for stray men’s shoes, amidst the general chaos of voices, leathery shoe-smell, and, yes, feet-smell, in that section. Often, men’s shoes are misplaced in the women’s display racks, because of children who make toys out of anything that catch the regimes of their tastes, besides shoes their mothers are trying to browse through; and since their mothers are busy fitting shoes, these children wander to a nearby rack -the men’s area, usually- where they can resume the summer of boisterous play, while still within the general scope of their mother’s or auntie’s highly-distracted peripheral vision.

For the full-text that - I think - needs editing, please visit Thought Catalog.

Ronald Ventura: A Thousand Islands

2011-11-25T11:56:00.000-08:00

Invitation to the Feast, 2011

oil on canvas; 60 x 96 in. (152.4 x 243.8 cm)

The body depicted in the center of the image is the kind of white that do not quite exist in the complexion of a human being in real-life, almost bond-paper white. This is the white of death's skin, drained of blood, sucked by elements thirsty of that liquid, the essence of its life; thus the body's external form here is left intact, like a marble statue, meant for display. But the presence of fruits before this body suggests it is some sort of god, surrounded by colorful offerings from plant life. Unfortunately, this god is not awake, perhaps too exhausted to pay attention to what's going on, or - as suggested above - simply dead. On the other hand, when one looks closer at this god, one notices its other head - or the extension of that head - is of a pig's, also lifeless, now a culinary delight, roasted, the heart of some tropical fiesta, celebration, gluttony.

Frank's Pizza

2011-11-13T00:20:00.001-08:00

After dropping some books at the Epiphany Library on 23rd Street last night, I ate a slice of pizza. I think that was Frank who took my order. He wasn't as friendly as the review below claims he is, and looked tired. Maybe he didn't want me to be there. I don't know. However, there was a woman who looked friendly. I think that was his wife. She gave me my slice of sausage pizza, fresh from the oven. For a Saturday night, the place was quiet. I assume this is the reason why Frank looked gloomy. But that is Frank in 2011, twenty years after the review below that declared Frank's Pizza was the Best of Manhattan in 1991. Yes, twenty years. It's only natural to look exhausted. But I hate to think his long face last night was indicative of how his business is doing.

There was a young couple there on the other side of the room, and me on the other side. I actually liked the pizza, and wouldn't hesitate to buy another one with a diet coke, next time I'm in the area.

Brillante Mendoza & Isabelle Huppert

2011-10-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

The clip below from Michel Reilhac's vlog is an informative glimpse of Philippine director Brillante Mendoza making a movie. This time, Mendoza's lead star is a big name in cinema: Isabelle Huppert. The film Mendoza is directing here is titled Captured. Moving from this to that location, the camera captures Mendoza talking to his crew in Tagalog. But we don't see Mendoza and Huppert having a conversation. And there are only a few moments when Huppert is with somebody, and she doesn't seem to be paying attention to the person talking to her, that she prefers to be left alone. I wonder what she thinks about the Philippines.

No doubt this film will be as gritty as Mendoza's other films, especially that this is about a kidnapping. But I'm curious though how he handles the element of race in this story. This is probably the first time Mendoza enters the territory of race. In his case, we can assume there might or could be difficulties in handling this subject, because his biography tells us he has lived most of his life in the Philippines. Specifically, the race involved here is Caucasian in a Philippine setting. Now the Philippines of Mendoza is a feast of cultural collisions and fusions that often enriches the vagueness of the idea of being Filipino. Certainly, this aspect of the Philippines informs or arms his perceptions as an artist looking at humanity beyond the Philippine imagination. And so I'm curious about the extent in which Mendoza can access the French imagination of his protagonist in this film. It probably would've been easier if that protagonist is from the U.S.A. or Spain, since Philippine culture has more intimate ties with those cultural spaces through colonization. But here, his protagonist is French. French culture has probably not made a significant impact in the imagination of the Philippines, in general; although in certain areas of Philippine history, France may have made an impact in the sugar industry of the Philippines through Yves Gaston. Thus, I wonder how much Mendoza knows about the French, beyond French films, French books, or attending the Cannes Film Festival. His story somehow requires that knowledge, in order to give the French character dimension, of a European now colonized by elements in the tropics. On the other hand, one can argue that this lack doesn't have to be a hindrance for Mendoza, because his sense and lens of universality as an artist can see through facades imposed by culture. Furthermore, the kind of support this film has received outside the Philippines suggests that the new wave in Philippine cinema that has been evolving for at least a decade now - perhaps unofficially led by Mendoza - is swelling. But it's the kind of support in which critics might take a second look, and highlight the politics of assistance. And however strong this assistance is, a large part of its interest probably hinges on what is involved in the film, a terrorist group: the Abu Sayyaf. That's why this film could draw lines at the box-office. But since most of Mendoza's films so far were not exactly money-making ventures, Mendoza's supporters in this film must have a certain regard for his art.

Now the participation of a famous actress from Europe, and the use of a real military vehicle and many extras mean that this film is so far the costliest of Mendoza's films. In that light, Mendoza is probably moving up. Kinatay was hard to see. Serbis was entertaining and quite reavealing. I wonder if Captured is, at least, thrilling, based on scenes recorded in the clip below.

Vlog de Michel Reilhac > Sur le tournage de "Captured" / Brillante Mendoza" from ARTE FRANCE on Vimeo.

Fran Lebowitz

2011-09-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

I ended up looking for clips of Fran Lebowitz on YouTube today, while looking for publishing/literary events in New York City. And I'm glad I followed the links of other clips that featured her or I wouldn't know about a new documentary about this former taxi driver; the film is titled Public Speaking, directed by Martin Scorsese. I followed these links with some excitement and curiosity, because I know she hasn't written for a while; due to writer's block, according to her. But she doesn't seem to have lapses in being witty, and has found ways to express it through public appearances.

Clips of these appearances, however, are not abundant. And of those I've viewed, it's hard to not replay them a few times; these are glimpses of her being interviewed or making a speech in this or that function. Her wit grabs you; it's quite sharp, I think, you end up evaluating your view of certain things in life instantly. And I hope to catch her in person somewhere in New York City, whether she's walking on 5th Avenue, smoking the city around Bryant Park, or just hanging out anywhere in Manhattan. Seeing her would probably feel like an event for me, like I was seeing Picasso, even though Fran's body of work is much lesser than the Spaniard's. But what I'm curious though is her not behind a camera; she seems to know how to project herself through a medium; her facial expressions and hand-gestures complement what comes out of her mouth.

Now the New York Public Library has already cataloged the information on this new documentary by Scorsese, and there's now a line for its Holds List that'll soon grow longer.

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Resting With Calliope

2011-09-19T23:44:00.000-07:00

Calliope Nerve's latest post contained news about its editor. I only had one correspondence with Matthew, or Nobius Black. When I submitted my poem on December last year, his answer was quick, that he'd like to publish my piece. I was about to send another poem last month, when I saw the post below, on his journal, written by Lynn Alexander. My condolences. And wherever he is now, I'm sure he's doing some collaborative work with Calliope (Homer's muse), to help inject substance on the nerves of those who can't help find music and poetry anywhere.

Pyrta Journal

2011-09-15T00:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Janice Pariat at Pyrta for including my poem:

Their Mutual Silence

London Riots 2011 & Los Angeles Riots 1992

2011-08-13T04:21:00.000-07:00

The media has been underlining the similarities between the London Riots 2011 and Los Angeles Riots 1992. Both are brutal and bloody. But perhaps one specific difference that can be highlighted between the two riots is what happened to the particular individual that sparked them. In the case of London, Mark Duggan died, while in Los Angeles Rodney King survived and still lives to tell his story. Thus, I think the anger in London's case is more intense.

I have some vivid memories of the Los Angeles Riots, because the fires slowly moved to my old neighborhood around Hollywood, transformed some stores to ashes, and almost did the same act to my local library's temporary building. But most of the time, I stayed home, and watched the news with family.

One image I still remember from the L.A. riots was a person wearing a ski-mask, and holding a gun. I didn't see him in-person, of course, but on TV news. He was standing on a parking lot of a popular electronic store, pointing his weapon to different directions, unable to recognize where or who his real and immediate enemy was around him. He was wearing the body language of someone in a war-zone.

1992's place in the memory of Los Angeles is, no doubt, cataloged under nightmare, horror, racial unrest, social inequality, catastrophe, class divide, and other categories. It could happen again.

To display the recent London Riots images above, image-location links from
Boston Globe's The Big Picture section are used.

~

Into the Weekend

2011-08-06T23:38:00.000-07:00

Expectations unfold when our gestures flow into words we prefer not to say, then stretch into busy freeways that hush on the windshield I'm looking through. As always, the day is our conversations, hanging on to familiar phrases. Tonight, we surrender again to a glossy menu with carefully written descriptions. I know you'll pick a dish that'll eat a subject we won't talk about, and I'll pick something to drink that'll make us feel as thirsty as a weekend that might be worth waiting for.

Rest Stop

2011-08-02T02:31:00.000-07:00

On July last year, I attended a family event near Bakersfield. This was taken from the last rest stop, on my way back to Los Angeles. I remember it was hot, and the temperatures this summer cloned last year's, maybe even hotter. But surprisingly, the stop wasn't crowded with the usual vehicles summer travelers use around these parts, such as vans, campers, or trailers. That's why it felt quiet, but not restful because of the heat, the kind that emphasized California's dry climate.

A Blue Duet

2011-08-01T05:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Otoliths for including my work: A Blue Duet.

This is the announcement from editor Mark Young:

Issue twenty-two of Otoliths has just gone live.

As always, it presents the broad church of creativity the journal is renowned for, with new work from John Martone, Elisa Gabbert & Kathleen Rooney, Richard Kostelanetz, Philip Byron Oakes, Karen Neuberg, dan raphael, Márton Koppány, Martin Burke, Stephen Nelson, John M. Bennett, Morgan Harlow, Sheila E. Murphy, Anny Ballardini, Raymond Farr, Ray Scanlon, Marco Giovenale, Ryan Scott, Tom Beckett (interviewing Kirsten Kaschock), Kirsten Kaschock, Erica Eller, Jim Meirose, Howie Good, Enola Mirao, Jean Vengua (on Dion Farquhar’s Feet First), Walter Ruhlmann, Jill Jones, David James Miller, Michael Caylo-Baradi, Catherine Vidler, Jillian Mukavetz, Zachary Scott Hamilton, Jill Chan, Glenn R. Frantz, Felino Soriano, Iain Britton, Mark Cobley, bruno neiva, Brenda Mann Hammack, Toby Fitch, Tony Rickaby, Grzegorz Wróblewski, Lisa Samuels, Kevin Opstedal, Gustave Morin, Rich Murphy, Laura Wetherington, Jeff Harrison, J. D. Nelson, Charles Freeland, Rosaire Appel, Ann Vickery, Isaac Linder, Bobbi Lurie, Sam Langer, Rose Hunter, Spencer Selby, Jason Lester, Michael Brandonisio, Bob Heman, Keith Higginbotham, Connor Stratman, & Marcia Arrieta.

Enjoy.

Ceasefires

2011-07-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Blue Fifth Review for including my poem: Ceasefires.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

2011-07-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

Joan Rivers takes us on a ride, in this documentary directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg. Here, Rivers attempts to frame her life in show-business, or perhaps, more so, as show-business herself.

Rivers understands show-business, particularly because of brutalities the ambitious must swallow and endure. And she endured, because she's driven. Workaholism has been her vehicle to success, fame, respect, wealth, and, yes, disrespect as well. For her, work is air, perhaps the only way the lungs of her ambitions can inhale.

I assume she has an over-active imagination, full of ideas, brilliant, bizarre, stupid, or otherwise. And like many successful comedians, who have been through numerous hurdles in show-business, she is smart and calculating. At seventy-five*, it's amazing how energetic this woman is, performing to this and that city, traveling, hungry for something that's not merely money or fame, or even a sense of power, but some sort of fundamental continuity and rhythm in her life, to not fade out of entertaining people.

I'm tempted to say her workaholism is an expression of madness, of trying to control some beast inside her, one that cannot be domesticated, or must be liberated out of its cage through stage performance. And perhaps this is what glamour in show-business is, the liberation of what refuses to be domesticated, into a savage space, the space of spectacle, which, in unequal parts, is: Entertainment, Enlightenment, Farce, and, even Pollution, or simply Air.
[ * Her age when the film was made. ]

Wings

2011-07-03T05:50:00.000-07:00

Blown

2011-06-24T00:02:00.001-07:00

When breezes blow those leaves, that's my gesture I'm taking you with me. Some are green, others brown, or colors that fall between seasons. They fly, rise, give in to gravity, then trashed, after someone's silence gathers them, where echoes of memories flicker like late-afternoon sun-rays filtered through trees.

Breathing Paradise Outside Eden

2011-06-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

Sunsets punctuate us into infinity, into a curve of horizons each time you look at me over your shoulder, commas that deform into teardrops, and fall like echoes. The apparitions from your touch crowd like waves on shore dissolving in my pores. I'm touching you now, fresh as memory. I feel symmetry, this geometry of moonlight that overwhelms our whispers, and mutes them into elements we inhale.

Kisses

2011-06-06T20:07:00.000-07:00

We are an accumulation of kisses, of goodbyes that flap wings in the wind, to join flight of birds. We are an addiction of words that tell us we'll see each other again. I think these moments are copies of many movie scenes. Let's not say goodbye next time, but instead just close our eyes, and long for each other there, in the dark, in a cinema that never ends, without departures.

White House Poetry Reading

2011-06-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

Splendor In The Grass

2011-06-06T04:29:00.000-07:00

Natalie Wood's Deanie Loomis in Splendor In The Grass is performance that's way up there. You can feel her transformations, from an innocent girl, to the part when she feels her love for Bud is robbed by one of her classmates, to her declining mental state, her abyss, then back up, to where she has moved on, as though she, indeed, has found "strength in what remains behind" - to quote William Wordsworth (1770–1850) from "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". A classroom scene talks about a part of that poem, from which the film borrows a phrase:

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;

On the other hand, I'm not quite sure about Warren Beatty's Bud, although he got his share of accolade for his work in this film. And thumbs up, indeed, to Zohra Lampert's Angelina - who only appeared in a few scenes - but played her part well as the woman Bud would eventually marry. There's nice touch in the last part when Angelina is aware about her own clothing, after she meets Deanie who is dressed quite elegantly for Bud but doesn't know that he already has a baby, and another one in the oven. Deanie, too, is aware of her own clothing after meeting Bud's wife. Somehow Deanie realizes she has dressed up for some occasion that doesn't quite belong to what Bud has become, now husband and farmer, what he always wanted to be, ever since, even when his father told him he has to go to Yale. It's as though Deanie realizes that "nothing can bring back the hour [o]f splendour in the grass" with Bud, their years together. It's one of the most painful moments in the film.

Sometimes I wonder if James Dean would've been better for the part of Bud, even though he passed away six years before, in 1955. Marlon Brando would've been good, too, or Monty Clift, but perhaps not Paul Newman. If Beatty and his fans read this, I'm sure they'll get mad. Now this film was Beatty's first as leading man, and already won him a Golden Globe Award, for Most Promising Newcomer, that is; and so, I guess this suggests my assessment of him in this film is incorrect. However, while watching this Eliza Kazan film, I must've been thinking of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, in which Beatty's matinee idol appeal fits perfectly well as a Tennessee Williams protagonist.

The Crying Game

2011-06-03T01:12:00.000-07:00

It's still fresh, the movie The Crying Game, which came out almost twenty-years ago, in 1992; but definitely not for everyone. In it are two love stories intertwined, tightly choreographed, to heighten the plot to an explosive rage. While telling these stories, the film offers an image of the Irish Republican Army, especially its commitment to a cause. And the hurdle to that cause -in the film, that is- is a British subject, Dil, played by Jaye Davidson with hypnotic calculation. She seems to be what we think she is, until the film reveals something about her. From that point on, we realize its writer and director - Neil Jordan - is twisting the story to another dimension, through illusions nurtured in the notion that gender is performance. Jordan is careful that, when Fergus - played by Stephen Rea - enters The Metro bar to look for Dil, we don't immediately recognize it's not quite a bar for everyone. We somehow see the bar through Fergus' eyes, almost oblivious to the kind of crowd he is in. I think it's a satisfying trick and illusion, so that we, too, will be surprised what Dil is trying to hide. And that revelation seems to carry the weight of conversations about this film, overshadowing other heavy elements that attempts to tackle issues of race and nationality.

Jessica Hagedorn, Toxicology

2011-05-31T01:31:00.000-07:00

Toxicology - Jessica Hagedorn's latest novel - is vintage Jessica Hagedorn. Her prose pulls you in, and as you arrive in the world of that prose, Hagedorn leaves you alone to piece the narrative together. It can be daunting task for readers new to her style, especially in her first novel Dogeaters, which is a feast of personalities and multiple plots that tries to imagine the Philippines. And Hagedorn's novels after that novel have, more or less, tried to paint an image and idea of that place, through perspectives inspired by distance, in exilic life. Still, the Philippines is alive in Hagedorn's recent novel, but as a sort of ghost, apparition that hovers above and through the life of artists in New York City, a carnival of grit, sarcasm, desire, sex, pop-culture, and drugs. Once again, it's a feast, but this time a feast of toxic elements, or even a study of toxic personalities trying to coexist the best way they can.

Cannes Lars von Trier still win? Lars Von Trier has been Cannes-ed.

2011-05-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

At the 64th Cannes Film Festival, the controversial nazi comments Lars Von Trier had said during a press conference for his competition-entry - Melancholia - was the height of that conference session; but it may also be the height of the festival itself, in terms of the attention it received this year. Von Trier's comments were made just a few days away from the festival's closing ceremonies. Thierry Fremaux, the festival's General Delegate, gave a brief press announcement to distance the festival from Von Trier's comments, even though the director meant to be funny. Thus,on 19 May 2011, festival officials declared Von Trier persona non grata.

Now before Von Trier made those comments, the conference was sailing somewhat smoothly. In some ways, the exchange of questions and answers was lively, peppered with jokes by Von Trier himself. However, there were moments his jokes verged on crossing certain lines, especially those directed to his female cast-members: Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Around the middle of the conference, his jokes about doing a porn-film with these cast-members in his next film-project received shaky laughter. Funny, somewhat funny, mocking, sarcastic, insulting, and, in some ways, sincere. Perhaps this is Danish humor?

Towards the end of the conference, the marriage of those descriptors above gained a less appealing momentum, when Kate Muir from The Times of London asked:

"Can you talk a bit about your German roots, and the gothic aspect of this film? And also, you mentioned in a Danish film magazine also about your interest in the nazi aesthetic, and you talked about that German roots at the same time. Can you tell us a bit/more about that?"

A great question, I think. Muir's question was more provocative than the question hurled at this year's competition-jury president, Robert De Niro: "Did you f— my wife?" Had that question been directed to Von Trier, his press conference, no doubt, would've ended with a less depressing note. And so, to answer Muir's question, Von Trier gave a long answer:

"The only thing I can tell is that I thought I was a Jew for a long time, and was very happy being a Jew. Then later on came Susanne Bier and suddenly I wasn't very happy about being a Jew. No, that was a joke. Sorry. It turned out that I was not a Jew, and even if I'd been a Jew, I would be a kind of a second rate Jew because there are, kind of, a hierarchy in the Jewish population. But anyway, no, I really wanted to be a Jew. And then I found out that I was really a Nazi. Because my family was German, Hartman, which also gave me some pleasure. So I'm kind of a, what can I say? I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely! I can see him sitting in his bunker in the end. But there will come a point at the end of this. No, I'm just saying that I think I understand the man. He's not what you would call a good guy, but I understand much about him and I sympathise with him a little bit. No, but come on! I am not for the Second World War! And I'm not against Jews - Susanne Bier? No, not even Susanne Bier, that was also a joke! I'm of course, very much for Jews, no, not too much because Israel is a pain in the ass. But, still, how can I get out of this sentence? No, I just want to say about the art of the, I'm very much for Speer, Speer I liked, Albert Speer I liked. He was also maybe one of God's best children, but he had some talent that was kind of possible for him to use during - OK, I'm a Nazi!"
Press Conference for Melancholia, Cannes, 2011;from Wikipedia,

But while Von Trier was banned in the festival, his film was not taken out of competition. In fact, it won in the Best Actress category: Kirsten Dunst. In her acceptance speech, after receiving her Prize from Edgar Ramirez, Dunst said:

"What a week! My thanks to the Jury, this is a real honour. I'm grateful to the Festival for keeping the film in Competition. And I'm grateful to Lars Von Trier for letting me play the role with such freedom."

Cannes Pedro Almodovar win this time?

2011-05-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

It's a very short trailer, but says a lot about the story. And some calculated shots in this clip, I think. For example, Almodovar puts Banderas in front of a big painting, of a naked woman, and the woman Banderas is looking at stands on a red circle, a target. On the other hand, Almodovar directing Antonio Banderas in this film must feel like a reunion of their earlier films. Banderas looks much older now, of course. But he does have that look from his earlier films with Almodovar, when he tries to play someone inebriated with anger. It's hard to tell if Almodovar will win this time. Terrence Malick is in the festival's 64th year, including other notable names.