tributary

The Avengers

2012-06-04T12:36:00.003-04:00

Erin and I have now become au courant with The Avengers, having partaken yesterday afternoon. We arrived a trifle late, which makes me anxious. I want to see the previews. The room was full, which hasn’t been the case the last few times I’ve gone to the movies. As to the up and coming, it is the sort of stuff I want to see, large-scale cheesy summer flicks, but I am beginning to think

The Tangled Web

2012-06-03T12:03:00.001-04:00

Clever Shakespeare reference, yes? Well I just presume to scribble about the Internet, and specifically Facebook. Facebook’s initial public offering—the drama!—brought on this urge to opine. The build up to that IPO caught me. I don’t like Facebook, which made any misstep by the company, and with luck any train wreck, entertaining. When Ford cancelled advertising on Facebook, my wish was

2012-05-20T09:42:00.002-04:00

Dear Friends, I have a project on Kickstarter that I hope you will help with. It is a book about family, love and loss. It deals with Alzheimer's, Asperger's, and inherent confusion. It's also funny. Details are at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theforgetting/the-stories-we-tell-documented-in-time?ref=home_location Kickstarter projects are supported by PEOPLE LIKE YOU. People donate to the

Mother’s Day Roundabout

2012-05-16T08:10:00.001-04:00

Sunday Beth and I did a number of things, nothing large but all satisfying. It was a beautiful spring day. First, we did our volunteer work for OARS. I think that stands for Organization for the Assabet River System. The organization works towards improving the Assabet, Sudbury and Concord Rivers. The sources of the Assabet and the Sudbury are about a mile apart, 20 some miles away. They hook

New Book by Eileen Tabios and j/j hastain

2012-04-23T11:09:00.000-04:00

I received The Relational Elations of Orphaned Algebra (Marsh Hawk 2012) by the two mentioned in the post title. Every new book incites the excitement of exploration. I mean even the most clunkaroony book invites investigation, even if it only results in the comment clunkaroony. Eileen is safe from that term, I know. j/j hastain I do not know (prior this, I mean), but as I scanned merely scanned

Artist Open House, Concord, MA

2012-04-14T08:54:00.001-04:00

I should read Tristram Shandy again, or A Sentimental Journey, because Laurence Sterne’s ability to ramble seems noteworthy and praiseworthy. With poems, movies, and novels, the more easily that you can say what the work is about, the less interesting. I like when trails are broken, rambling on. So this peregrination… Two weeks ago, then, Beth and I went to an open house at The Emerson Umbrella.

Pygmy (Chuck Palahniuk Redux)

2012-04-08T06:00:00.001-04:00

There is something to be said about reading thru a chunk of an author’s works. I engaged a second Palahniuk novel, Pygmy. I also got three novels by Mary Renault at the library, but have only read one so far. CP’s Damned interested me even as it disappointed or irritated me. Pygmy satisfies me more. Maybe I will continue with this author. I guess what I like about CP is his tendency towards tour

Damned by Chuck Palahniuk

2012-03-26T05:45:00.001-04:00

I picked up Damned at the library simply because I saw a review in the Times recently. I only glanced at the review. The author’s name rang no bell, but I see that he wrote Fight Club, which I have heard of, even if I haven’t read it or seen the movie. I think I have clearly demonstrated that I had no particular reason to read this book. And yet I did. It’s not a bad book, which is to say, I’m

Boy Bands are the Antennae of the Race

2012-03-25T08:27:00.001-04:00

The Arts section of yesterday’s New York Times has an article on the latest trend in boy bands. I have not yet delved into this no doubt scintillating look at pop culture, I was simply caught by the photo. It shows the group One Direction onstage at the Radio City Music Hall. The same place where I saw the Dalai Lama. The Times offers full, blurry colour for this photo, the subject is just that

Malcolm Gladwell

2012-03-17T08:07:00.001-04:00

I’m reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, having sped thru Outliers. A little disappointed with him. While his subject matter interests me, and he’s capable enough as a writer, something seems to be missing. First off, he lacks cred. He’s ‘just’ a writer. He writes for The New Yorker and was a reporter for The Washington Post. Those stand as decent publications, sure. I assumed when I

Blog Writer Extraordinaire: Allen Bramhall

2012-03-16T22:47:00.002-04:00

You know what the thing is? I love reading my blog. This one here. It surprises me. I laugh at the clever bits. I admired the deep, thoughtful bits. I write the writing that I like to read: imagine that! This only means that I do not invest in some image of correctness but accept the immediate shining thing before me for what it is. This took decades to learn, and lots of clunky attempts.

Mallory, Everest, and WWI

2012-03-10T09:24:00.001-05:00

Just finished reading Into the Silence by Wade Davis (Knopf 2011). It concerns the early efforts to climb Mount Everest. Its scope goes way beyond the three expeditions that George Mallory participated in. I guess you could say it gives a harrowing look at British culture in the years leading to and just following WWI. George Mallory stands centerstage in the book, but he really doesn’t appear

Biographies

2012-02-18T12:33:00.001-05:00

At the store a customer asked me a question. After answering it, I was inspired to compliment his tie, which had lovely colours in a trippy, expressionist, Gauguin-like way. The compliment pleased the guy, who showed me that it was a Jerry Garcia tie. He said he had 12 of them. I have one myself. I don’t know why I enter this vignette here, except that Garcia is someone of interest to me. That I

Losing Barnes & Noble

2012-02-16T07:18:00.001-05:00

Barnes and Noble struggles against the Internet’s Wall-Mart, Amazon. I will miss you, B&N. Many little bookstore’s fell to Barnes & Noble’s size and power. The little bookstores I saw locally offered little reason to support them. In many instances, I could predict what I’d see in each section. The same handful of certified “classics” plus celebrity-driven books: Nancy Reagan’s Tax Advice, Paul

Coleridge / Olson

2012-02-06T17:39:00.001-05:00

I happened upon the second volume of Richard Holmes’ biography of Coleridge at the library, Darker Reflections. I read the first volume, Early Visions, years ago, and loved it. Holmes continues the approach that he took in the first volume, using footnotes to ruminate and extend upon the facts and observations delivered in the text. These two books are as good as biography gets. Of the Romantics,

The Beatles

2012-01-30T04:23:00.001-05:00

Read a bio of John Lennon by Tim Riley. Lively enough, and even with some stylistic verve in the writing. I also read (more like scanned) Keith Richard’s autobiography. I skipped a lot of his drugged hijinx stories but enjoyed how he looked at making rock music. These two books got me thinking about the era, and more specifically the dynamism of The Beatles’ effect. I liked them from the start. “

Super—A Not so Super Movie

2012-01-06T06:58:00.001-05:00

Scoping the selection of dvds at the library, I saw Super. The cover showed a masked superhero with the legend Shut Up Crime! I was hooked. Alas. It had its moments but I ended up despising too much of it. It started somewhat patently and cute, with this schlub happy about two things, marrying his wife, and helping a cop in a minor way catch a felon. He’s played by Rainn Wilson and she by Liv

A Further Review

2011-12-24T09:16:00.001-05:00

Here is my review of Antiphonies for Galatea Ressurects, specifically an anthology of Canadian, women’s and experimental poetry edited by Nate Dorward.

Wham!

2011-12-23T07:42:00.001-05:00

I flutter at the cluttered atrocities of popular music and entertainers. I mean, omigod, they preach the strange and enticing. An unexamined meaning persists, thrilling yet unqualified. Years ago, I saw a picture of the New Kids on the Block, back when they were both new and kids. Everything seemed to be arranged, pregnant with meaning. The clothing, the rat tail, the postures, the gestures, the

Galatea Resurrects, Some Reviews

2011-12-23T06:12:00.001-05:00

Get thee here for numero seventeen of Eileen Tabios’ review blog. Your Love Boat captain has several reviews, to wit: What If by Skip Fox (or vice versa) Citizen Can by Ben Friedlander Fragile Replacements by William Allegrezza Antiphonies: Essays on Women’s Experimental Poetries in Canada edited by Nate Dorward (link currently broken but trust me)

Antic View 152

2011-12-19T18:47:00.001-05:00

After a hiatus, Antic View returns. Installment number 152 is here.

Mall Narrative

2011-12-19T16:05:00.001-05:00

Nobody woke with boundless energy yesterday, day after our party. At the crack of mid-afternoon, however, Beth and I saw that we needed to visit the mall. Not for Christmas shopping, we don’t do much of that, just to tour around. We are intelligent observers. Beth sees the economy almost as a living body by visiting the mall. Excuse me if I revert to narrative here. My interest in narrative hangs

Dog Bite and Christmas Party

2011-12-18T11:02:00.001-05:00

I walk to work down a former railroad cut (down what had been one of the oldest rail lines in the nation). Basically, a walk in the woods. It comes out near the centre. As I came to the crosswalk on South Rd, you know, across from that red house, I heard dogs barking and a woman yelling. I looked to see a dog in the neighbouring yard racing toward me. Interesting, thinks I. I assumed that an

Simple Theories

2011-12-11T21:27:00.001-05:00

53 poem/posts this year, not grandly amazing, but I like each individual. Coax you, Readers fair, to visit Simple Theories.

“Santa Baby”, the Song that Really Sucks

2011-12-03T07:33:00.001-05:00

The song “Santa Baby” enjoys the world’s record for the creepiest Christmas song extant. I shan’t argue the point. One can hardly imagine an ickier song coming along to disturb posterity. I have not researched who exactly claims responsibility for this song. The less said about the perps the better. Somebody, clearly, consciously or not, had thoughts to the tune of “I have some weird, creepy