The Gypsy Art Show

BLOOD AND RAIN by B.L Morgan, reviewed by BL Kennedy

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Tue, 29 May 2012 15:29:00 +0000

Blood and Rain

B.L Morgan

Stone Garden.net Publishing

Danville, CA

260 pgs

$12.95

ISBN: 1-60076-067-8

There are reasons for all the things that I do. You may not understand them. Hell I might not understand them, but there are reasons. It’s Saturday night, raining lightly. I’m driving in my car, a tan Olds Delta Eighty-Eight. Just driving, watching the streaks made by the streetlights and the blinking neon lights from the taverns.

What can I say about Blood and Rain: A John Dark Shocker? Just that, I wish I had something to say about this book. But I don’t. Oh, I can tell you its well written and very entertaining, but overall, I felt like I was missing out on the mythology of its main character, John Dark. I feel that anybody who comes across Blood and Rain without having read the previous John Dark books will be just as lost as I am. Its that place where a critic never wants to be that I find myself in; part of me really likes this book, and part of me wants to dropkick it out my living room window. Either way, its going to up to each individual reader. So, yeah, purchase a copy of Blood and Rain. Or better yet, figure out which book is the first in the series and start there.

Honoring Memorial Day

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Mon, 28 May 2012 16:24:00 +0000

Memorial Day is a federal holiday observed annually in the United States on the last Monday of May.Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars. It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.

Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.

By the early 20th century, Memorial Day was an occasion for more general expressions of memory, as people visited the graves of their deceased relatives in church cemeteries, whether they had served in the military or not. It also became a long weekend increasingly devoted to shopping, family gatherings, fireworks, trips to the beach, and national media events such as the Indianapolis 500 auto race, held since 1911 on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.

Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in some rural areas of the American South, notably in the mountains. In cases involving a family graveyard where remote ancestors as well as those who were deceased more recently are buried, this may take on the character of an extended family reunion to which some people travel hundreds of miles. People gather on the designated day and put flowers on graves and renew contacts with kinfolk and others. There often is a religious service and a "dinner on the ground," the traditional term for a potluck meal in which people used to spread the dishes out on sheets or tablecloths on the grass. It is believed that this practice began before the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the "memorial day" idea.

^{text from Wikipedia}

The Art of Claudio Parentela

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Fri, 25 May 2012 03:04:00 +0000

Born in Catanzaro (1962-Italy) where he lives and works…Claudio Parentela is an illustrator, painter, photographer, mail artist, cartoonist, collagist,and free- lance journalist . He has been active for many years in the international contemporary art scene. He has collaborated and he collaborates with many zines and magazines of contemporary art, literary and of comics in Italy and in the world...both on the paper and on the web...including the NYArtsMagazine,Turntable & Blue Light Magazine.

CLAUDIO PARENTELA
VIA F.CRISPI N.79
88100 CATANZARO-ITALY

E-Mail: claudio.parentela@alice.it

Writing in English as a Second Language by Walter Ruhlmann

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:45:00 +0000

Writing in English as a Second Language

first published in Magnapoets July 2010 issue. Revised for The Gypsy Art Show Blog.

English has always been a language I felt acquainted with, even before I could actually speak it fluently. My parents had lived over seven years in California and I had been kept amazed in this atmosphere of souvenirs from a dreamed America, stuck in the late 50s, early 60s, with my parents twenty or thirty years younger, and my big brother in nappies or shorts.

All these images on super 8 films and photographs never made me jealous nor did they make me sad not to have been part of the experience – I was not born yet. They just filled me with wonder and encouraged me to know more about English and all the countries and cultures related to it.

It took over another decade for me to be able to live my dream and go abroad, just across the English Channel. Bath, Cirencester, Manchester – three cities I have lived in. Three cities in which I got used to not only speaking English and put aside my mother tongue for a while but to start dreaming and writing in English.

As far as I can remember, the starting point was when Dr. Teresinka Pereira – a teacher at Bluffton College, Ohio – sent me her poems and suggested I translated them into French. Soon, her words on paper and the life I was living then pulled me towards an exercise I would not have thought be ready for: putting my own words on paper in a language which had just been a topic of study and a useful vehicle of needs and services.

English had suddenly taken the shape of a language to transpose my thoughts, emotions, feelings, frights, joys, phantasms, desires, repulsions, dreams and nightmares on paper.

The funny thing is that writing in English is less exhausting, less draining, asks less efforts from me than writing in French.

I could not explain it really, but I am so fond of English and American literature, always read, watch and listen more works from artists of English culture that I guess words in English come more naturally to me than French words do.

In the late 1990s, Teresinka Pereira was the first editor to trust me with English and published two small booklets with short collections of poetry of mine[1].

Then, I came back to France, had to fulfil my military duties – they still existed at the time – during which I wrote a collection of poems entitled Hospital of the Armies and which was written the way poets such as Harry R. Wilkens, Erich von Neff or Pradip Chouduri, all English-speaking poets from various parts of the globe, write poems themeselves.

I also used English to write this collection in order to hide all the negative thoughts I expressed against the French navy and the waste of time and ludicrousness this period implied. It was also to hide the rather crude sexual images inside it. I could not be sure these pages would not be read by one of my superiors or one of the “crew members”. It was writing in English as the most debased way to write: under a mask or doing auto censure.

I then got several part-time jobs, went back to University, carried on writing – too little – and publishing mgversion2>datura (ex-Mauvaise graine)[2], stopped to concentrate on my new job as a TESL (Teacher of English as a Second Language), moved places several times and English came back slowly as a means to write poetry and fiction.

The thrill had come back to me and has not ceased since then. Over the last seven years, I have had the opportunity to meet more and more English-speaking poets, writers and artists, translate their works, publish them, and be able to publish my own poems in various magazines.

Each time I receive a positive answer to my submissions, I am filled with pride and amazement. Pride because you are never totally accustomed to being published even after fifteen years or so of relationship with editors and magazines – well, I am not. Amazement because it took me less than five years to be published quite widely in English, American, Canadian... blogs and magazines – whether with translations of my own works or with original English material – when it had taken me over a decade to be recognized as a poet on the French-speaking scene[3].

It took me just a few weeks to have my first genuine collection of poetry in English – De Maore (From Mayotte) – accepted by Lapwing Publishing (Belfast, Northern-Ireland) when I am still struggling to have another one written in French accepted by any French publishers. I guess even my early works is filled with images and symbols that have more impact and are more meaningful to English-speaking readers than French-speaking ones. This I suppose is one of the other reasons why I chose to write in English, even sometimes translating my earlier poems in this language

I discovered the Anglo-American culture at school first and plunged into it when I sat at University. This language is useful in everyday life and to discover the world, it is a language you cannot do without. It has allowed me not only to communicate with many people all around the globe, and probably still will, but also to discover my own world, my inside world, all the abilities beyond my knowledge. Discover yet another part of my own conscience.

Walter RUHLMANN

Nantes, May 21, 2012

[1] Space Unconsciousness and Fireflies, IWA Editions, 1997.

[2] A literature magazine published and printed from 1996 to 2000 now on line and available in print through lulu.com

[3] Writing in French allowed me to be published in French as well as Swiss and Belgian magazines.

TRANSCENDENTAL TELEMARKETER by Beth Copeland

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Sun, 20 May 2012 14:30:00 +0000

· Paperback: 100 pages 

· Binding: Perfect-Bound 

· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books]  

· ISBN: 978-1-60964-088-0

$16.00

Copeland’s Transcendental Telemarketer contains beautiful lyrics of emotion and meditation, but it also contains rants against war and violence, and all the while it swings us from the U.S. to Japan to Afghanistan, from Islam to Buddhism to Christianity It’s compelling, playful, and well-crafted. —William Allegrezza, author of Fragile Replacements

sample poems:

Still Life With One Apple

From earliest memory: one apple
in a bowl predating speech, spores

of sunlight floating on air like pollen
from the garden of Hesperides.

In childhood I wanted everything in pairs,
animals entering Noah's ark two by two,

the symmetry of hand in hand,
bride and groom.

I thought the apple needed another apple
or at least the company of an orange or pear,

that the apple was lonely, that everything—
even an apple in a bowl—

had a soul. Was it wrong to believe
the apple could suffer and bleed,

to project my own needs
onto that fruit?

To believe only a membrane
of matter and speed

separates blood from stone
and bone from apple seed?

To see the apple as a symbol
of the universal soul,

as in Georgia O’Keefe’s “Green
Apple on Black Plate,”

a study in simplicity?
Still Life With An Empty Bowl—

I ate the apple to make it whole.

My Life as a Slut

Age 6: A boy finds a penny on the playground. He says he’ll give it to me if I go in a closet, take off all my clothes, and let him look. My sister says, “Don’t,” but I do it, anyway.

Age 21: My mother calls me a “harlot,” “Jezebel,” and “strumpet” after I stay out all night with my boyfriend. I roll my eyes and say, “If we’re going to have this conversation, at least update your vocabulary. The word is ‘slut.’”

Age 16: A teacher tells me to kneel in the girls’ bathroom. Am I supposed to pray for forgiveness? I get sent home from school because my skirt doesn’t touch the floor.

Age 27: I walk down the aisle in an off-white satin dress. It’s snowing, and the next day I lose my voice.

Age 20: I have sex with three different men in one week. I write their names on my calendar in wisteria-blue ink.

Age 10: At recess I tell Tommy Faircloth I’m going to be a stripper when I grow up. Tommy tattles to the teacher, who scolds him and says I’m a good girl. I would never say a terrible thing like that.

Age 32: A man at my college reunion tells me a lot of other girls in our class were sluttier than I was. I feel like a failure.

Age 23: I fall in love with a Vietnam vet who plays guitar and writes bad poetry. I sleep with him on the first date. He dumps me for a frumpy girl who waits until the second date.

Age 9: I’m walking down the sidewalk wearing short-shorts, and a teenage boy leans out a car window and yells, “Call me when you’re 16!”

Age 30: I buy a bar of Saints and Sinners soap in New Orleans. My husband says it’s a rip-off.

Age 18: I get drunk at a party and lose my virginity. The next morning hot water runs down my thighs in a stream of silver and blood.

Age 5: I’m afraid of dogs, strangers, and the dark. Shadows cast by tree branches and leaves on the bedroom wall look like the devil’s face. Do I hear footsteps in the stairwell? I’m afraid I‘ll die in my sleep. I know I’m going to Hell.

About the poet: Beth Copeland lived in Japan, India, and North Carolina as a child. Her book Traveling Through Glass received the 1999 Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Award. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals and have received awards from Atlanta Review, North American Review, The North Carolina Poetry Society, and Peregrine. Two of her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is an English instructor at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She lives in a log cabin in the country with her husband, Phil Rech.

Tribute to Carol Novack

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Mad Hatters' Review Issue 13: Tribute to Carol Novack

Carol Novack, (RIP 1948 - 2011), founded Mad Hatters’ Review in 2005, was the former recipient of a writer’s award from the Australian government, author of a poetry chapbook, and an erstwhile criminal defense and constitutional lawyer in NYC. In 2010, she moved from a Greenwich Village co-op to a mountain residence (future “retreat” for individuals and collaborators) in Western North Carolina, importing her KGB Bar reading series, “Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes” to The Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center, and founding the non-profit arts organization, MadHat, Inc.

Carol’s collection of fictions, fusions, monologues and poems, Giraffes in Hiding: The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack, was published in Fall 2010 by Spuyten Duyvil Press. The book is beautifully illustrated, mainly by artists who’ve graced the pages of Mad Hatters’ Review.

The late poet, Hugh Fox called the collection: “THE most seductive, original, impacting work I have seen for years. A fascinating combination of Kerouacian street-talk plus a trip through the museum of Modern Art in Chicago, plus a nod-off to Kosty's furthest out experimentalism. Magnifique!”

Teachings of Death

affirmation sticks to me
like a porcupine’s quill

the dumb animal death—instinctively
a woman who has lain with pigs
keeps me going

where lions hunt
desires
silent in the bog

that wizened woman who has lain with goats
opens doors
that had been breathing

under closed lids

I watch her aghast
the air smelling briefly of love
breezes by humming
an old French song

the voice of the woman
has been extinguished
by its own extravagance
has been taken in
by wind
which makes gutteral sounds
inside

my body
so surprised by the opening
of doors

III

she speaks of that man
as if he were holy

her voice of bodies
closely woven
as knots of paradise
lovers

she wags her wand
& takes me back
to his shadow

as light deceives
it seems the shade
of a mountain
cast from her wand

‘climb’ she says
lifting her breasts

death’s tongue
flies away
wavering its notes
high above
the mountain

& i am alone
all sinew & bone
wrapped in the flesh
of his shadow

by Carol Novack

photo by Jeff Davis

The Art of James D. Pendleton

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:21:00 +0000

From the artist: Born 1946 in Houston, Texas and that meant that I had the benefits of coming of age during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism, action painting, Op, Pop, minimalism, conceptualism, the works but none of that had the impact upon me that Andrew Wyeth’s masterpiece, ‘Christina’s World’ delivered. Resting comfortably within that technically superb painting was the sort of surreal juxtapositions of objects and figure that made me want to communicate in that same manner. Not that I didn’t like the work of Barnet Newman, Joan Mitchell or Jackson Pollock but I didn’t enjoy the cold intellectualism that surrounded the abstract, and maybe there was a feeling of The Emperor’s New Clothes that I got from the criticism of the times. So, I took a degree in Commercial Art and set out to paint in the style of the great illustrators.

However, commercial work required the auspices of a committee to make all decisions regarding subject matter and even message. In my last week of classes, my most influential professor, William Kolbe took me aside and explained that I’d never be happy under such control and with that, I understood that I needed to go back to the very basics of painting and work toward what would please me. In that same year, I married Martha Susan Black and we took our meager monies to Europe where there was art that I’d only known in printed matter.

Coming to face the works in the Louvre, the Prado or the Tate showed me two things. One was that I knew almost nothing about painting and the other was that I felt that I could do as well if I set down to do it, and so we returned home. Our lives became structured around Martha pursuing her career and me staying home to paint and be house dad to our daughter, Virginia Anne.

Having the material and more importantly, the spiritual support from Martha allowed me to forget trying to place myself into a comfortable niche, somewhere in the world of art. There was some success in this, a solo show at a Houston gallery and modest sales but there was also the lure of the works that I’d not seen in Europe. So, we took off again and stopped on the way in NYC where I found that nobody wanted to even see figurative paintings, certainly no nudes and there was an apprenticeship of gallery association that would eventually lead me to the top of the list of painters, once I readjusted my ‘style’. However, I met the extremely affable fellow, Ward Jackson, then director at the Guggenheim. While no one else would bother, he took the better part of an afternoon to look at my work and counseled me to continue what I was doing and told me that Paris would be the place to do it.

Paris was all that it can be and my work found acceptance, a solo show, some good reviews and more art to study. Of course, there are always issues of visas, overstayed welcomes and forced return to home to recharge the bank account. However, we eventually found ourselves back in Paris, then in England on the Welsh border and down to Spain; always following the art and sometimes the better exchange rates for the dollar.

This also meant that I’d almost totally removed myself from anything like the mainstream. However, it was in Paris that I found the little book on the works of Egon Schiele, by Dr. Alessandra Comini, the professor emeritus at SMU. Schiele hit me like a thunderclap. Here was this consummate painter who treated art much in the way that I was trying to do. His subject matter offended many, his behavior was anathema to his peers and countrymen but more importantly, he painted women in the manner that, in my mind was precisely the way they should be seen: wonderful in their being and sublime in their presence.

So, nearly ten years after leaving art school, I was finally comfortable with what I was doing. Soon, we moved to Oaxaca, Mexico and a year and a half of what can be best described as color saturation that filled in more gaps in my understanding of art and how it serves people.

This last twenty five years has been spent in the gradual evolution of becoming the painter that I am today. It has been a most satisfying life and filled with meeting very interesting people of diverse backgrounds, a phenomenon that occurs often within the art world. My work has taken on a sort of life of its own. Few pieces are planned and all of them grow within the confines of what is suggested on the canvas rather than my own personal dictum.

Is this work any good? Perhaps. There are those who over the years have collected my art, there are those who have offered places to stay and to paint uninterrupted by outside pressures of hustling the rent and food money. In fact, one could say that it is the impact of my work on others that has kept this activity going. As a painter, one is totally aware that there are far more pressures working against a life in art than there are to support it. Every day is a blessing.

Larry Charles' Masked and Anonymous, movie review by Travis Hedge Coke

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:33:00 +0000

“A vanity production beyond all reason.” - Roger Ebert

Masked and Anonymous was a movie that couldn't win for being made of win. Bob Dylan cowriting and starring in a movie about a strong messianic singer full of flaws and just freed from a stint in prison (as represented by a disused entrance at the LA Zoo) to play a benefit concert? It's ego when words are put in the mouths of characters lauding him or fearing his fame; it's ego when Dylan's own character, Jack Fate, says “I was always a singer and maybe no more than that.” He's faking humble, you see. And in a vanity film, no less. Because the worst thing any artist can do is put their own money and time into doing something that won't make them more money or more famous.

And, sure, Masked and Anonymous is pretentious. But, in an age of so many movies that aren't trying at all, isn't it worthwhile to reach out and let your reach exceed its grasp? In the movie, it is asked, “Would you reach out to a dying man, if while reaching, you thought he might pull you in?” And, sure there's a reflex answer. A Sensible answer. Loads of answers. But what's the good answer? What's the value of the question and what's missing from it?

On one level, this is just Larry Charles and Bob Dylan scripting dialogue for celebrities while they tour a camera around town to a soundtrack of Dylan covers, covers of Dylan, and new Dylan recordings. It's entirely made of stunt casting, meta-reference casting, from the roadies (Chris Penn and Christian Slater) to the dying American President (Richard Sarafian), entirely shot in LA (with the exception of stock footage), deliberately elliptical and even a “man eating chicken” joke is played utterly deadpan. But Larry Charles and Bob Dylan sending a film crew around on a tour of LA with dialogue is really rather beautiful. It's a gorgeous city and deserves to look gorgeous in a movie. Why not show off a locale if you can? Why not take your stunt caste or your menagerie and display them amidst bon mots and lights?

Mickey Rourke is great stunt casting, sure, and that should be – and is – embraced, but he also cleans up nice and wicked as the Vice President of America, half Andrew Jackson, half Dick Cheney, all sniffs and dismissal and undercurrents of raging envy. Charles and Dylan don't have to know that 2003 was a good year for political and religious commentary in a movie, they just stick their hand out and feel around. Good year or not, you don't know if it's worth trying without trying. Same reasoning, I imagine, fueled the casting of Jeff Bridges and John Goodman in a dynamic wherein Bridges is the asshole. And what an ass he is! Bridges' Tom Friend is a brutal, pig-headed justice-minded journalist who clearly writes his answers for an interview before he asks his questions.

The bulk of critics hated Bridges role and his meanness, by the way. Several took his assaults as the thoughts of Dylan, directly, including Hendrix as the lonely sad boy whose forefathers were the pilgrims, and Janis Joplin, super-capitalist. This is, to my knowledge, the only movie where someone (Jessica Lange) put their hand between their legs and breathed funny and critics came out saying they weren't sure what happened in that scene. It's unbecoming of a critic to suggest critics are stupid, so I'll just let that rest there where you can reread it if you have to.

I'm not suggesting the movie is simple or that the makers had huge, brilliant special knowledge that motivated all of it, but I will say that Val Kilmer's bit with the rabbit is the best explanation of what bunnies have to do with the death and resurrection of Christ and it was a sad, funny, engrossing scene that, as most moments in the movie accomplish, expands to be relevant to the entirety of Masked and Anonymous. I'm not sure many unpretentious movies manage that, and those that do probably don't have as good a soundtrack.

BALLROOM POEMS by Lyn Lifshin

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:42:00 +0000

Lyn Lifshin has written more than 125 books and edited 4 anthologies of women writers. Her poems have appeared in most poetry and literary magazines in the U.S.A, and her work has been included in virtually every major anthology of recent writing by women. She has given more than 700 readings across the U.S.A. and has appeared at Dartmouth and Skidmore colleges, Cornell University, the Shakespeare Library, Whitney Museum, and Huntington Library. Lyn Lifshin has also taught poetry and prose writing for many years at universities, colleges and high schools, and has been Poet in Residence at the University of Rochester, Antioch, and Colorado Mountain College. Winner of numerous awards including the Jack Kerouac Award for her book Kiss The Skin Off, Lyn is the subject of the documentary film Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass. For her absolute dedication to the small presses which first published her, and for managing to survive on her own apart from any major publishing house or academic institution, Lifshin has earned the distinction "Queen of the Small Presses." She has been praised by Robert Frost, Ken Kesey and Richard Eberhart, and Ed Sanders has seen her as "a modern Emily Dickinson."

Lyn Lifshin's prizewinning book (Paterson Poetry Award) Before It's Light was published Winter 1999-2000 by Black Sparrow Press, following their publication of Cold Comfort in 1997. The Licorice Daughter was published in February 2006 and Another Woman who Looks Like Me was published by Black Sparrow-David Godine in October 2006. (order@godine.com) Also books include A New Film About a Woman in Love with the Dead, March Street Press, Marilyn Monroe, When a Cat Dies, Another Woman's Story, Barbie Poems, The Daughter I Don't Have, What Matters Most, and Blue Tattoo. Lifshin has won awards for her non-fiction and edited four anthologies of women's writing including Tangled Vines, Ariadne's Thread and Lips Unsealed. Her poems have appeared in most literary and poetry magazines. Her poem "No More Apologizing" has been called "among the most impressive documents of the women's poetry movement" by Alicia Ostriker. An update to her Gale Research Projects Autobiographical Series, "On the Outside, Lips, Blues, Blue Lace," was published in Spring, 2003. Texas Review Press published her poems about the famous, short-lived, beautiful race horse, Ruffian: The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian. New books include Mirrors, August Wind, Novemberly and just out spring 2008, 92 Rapple Drive and Desire. She is working on a collection about poets, Poets, (Mostly) Who Have Touched Me, Living and Dead. All True, Especially the Lies will be published by World Parade and Tsunami will come from Blue Heron Press. Other forthcoming books include a book about the courageous and riveting race horse, Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness from Texas Review Press, Nutley Pond from Goose River Press, Lost in the Fog from Finishing Line Press, Persephone from Red Hen.

WHEN YOU TURN

CHA CHA

INTO A MAD GIRL

POEM

and I didn’t plan to do it.

When this dangerous tango

slams me from despair

to a five-margarita high,

to look back would be a

guillotine. When no rumba

is torture, when all that

matters, all that is real is

fantasy. Just your eyes and

the v in my bikini is soaking.

I can barely imagine

surviving anything more

invasive. Each deep look

a bruise that doesn’t fade

WHEN

THERE ARE MARIACHIS

when breakfast and lunch

are martinis. When

sheets smell of rose,

Bulgarian rose, Tuber

rose, that dark rose

in a bottle on my dresser,

musky as skin. When

it’s bolero or rumba.

When we leave the

room, and there is no

cat puke to clean up,

no terror of what’s

ahead. When you hold

me, should you hold me

YOUR EYES

IN THE CROWDED

ROOM

I’m in for it

now, not that longing

isn’t what I wanted,

feeling that alive

No wonder I’m not

the only one sure

it’s you. Their skin’s

been torched.

I’m stunned by the

day’s tattoo where

your fingers held me

Belinda Subraman and Lyn Lifshin
You might want to hear this interview with Lyn Lifshin .

Michael Masley: Artist General, Master Musician

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:18:00 +0000

Michael Masley is known for his musical work on the Hungarian cymbalom. His unique method of playing the instrument comes from his invention of the bowhammer, a cross between a fiddle bow and a dulcimer hammer, attached to the finger with a ring. The bowhammers, one worn on each finger except thumbs, allow Masley to bow, strike, and pick the cymbalom's strings. These bowhammers, along with a pick on each thumb, allow for the creation of unique musical effects and highly complicated music.

Masley describes his music as "earth-folk", "a contemporary Afro-Celtic variation of Free World and Country Eastern music.". Others have categorized his music as New Age or World music. One musician has described Masley's bowhammer style of cymbalom playing as generating "a turkish steambath of overtones".

In 1993, Ry Cooder arranged to have Masley record music for the soundtrack of the film Geronimo: An American Legend. When the soundtrack album was issued, Masley's name did not appear in the credits. His soundtrack contributions were later used in the broadcast of the 1994 Winter Olympics, on an HBO program, and on Entertainment Tonight, with Masley receiving neither royalties nor credit.

Masley took legal action, resulting in an out-of-court settlement and a letter of vindication signed by Robert E. Holmes of Sony Pictures' music division. Masley described the case in an article titled "Credit is Not Negotiable" which appeared in Musician; in the article, Masley states "To gain access to an audience, artists make compromises that few executives would ask of anyone in the usual labor-for-wages domain. The upshot is that fair compensation must be measured in credit as well as dollars. Recognition is not a mere vanity issue. It is part and parcel of payment." Perhaps ironically, significant portions of the settlement were later spent buying Sony audio equipment.

In 1995, Masley formed part of a new quintet, named "Cloud Chamber". Other members included Barry Cleveland, bassist Michael Manring, cellist Dan Reiter and percussionist Joe Venegoni. The members of Cloud Chamber met through "The Lodge", an incorporeal musical concept channeled primarily through Barry Cleveland which manifests through musical events attended by three or more members of "the Tribe," a permeable-boundary group of improvising Bay Area musicians. Cloud Chamber released a CD, Dark Matter, in 1998.

In 2002, Masley served as Grand Marshal of the How Berkeley Can You Be? parade.

Since at least 1993, during certain shows and conventions, especially computer and technology shows, Masley sets up as a street musician in front of San Francisco's Moscone Center and the adjacent Metreon. In 2004, security guards at Sony's Metreon were preparing to displace Masley from playing in front of the facility during the Apple MacWorld event, but listeners in the vicinity convinced them to allow him to remain. In 2005, Masley contacted the Metreon prior to MacWorld to ensure he would be able to perform there unimpeded. During the 2005 show, a Metreon executive inquired if he could be hired for private performances.

Masley has taken on the self-appointed title and persona of Artist General (along the lines of a Surgeon General) and claims to represent the interests of artists, issuing pronouncements such as "Conformity is addictive: don't abuse it".

As of 2007, Masley can frequently be seen playing all over Berkeley, particularly on Telegraph Avenue.
Text from Wikipedia

Mai-Ling, Alternative-Classical Pianist

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:34:00 +0000

Frances Mai-Ling is pioneering the genre of Alternative-Classical music; taking a classical piano to new level giving it a fresh sound of the traditional and the current trend of rock, pop, alternative. Creating a new genre that is exciting and powerful, for people of all ages can enjoy. Since 2001, she has taken her creation of Alternative-Classical merging the sparkling qualities of classical music with the emotional melodic style of many genres, all within an intimate setting of Mai-Ling and her music. She got her first start in show business with her parents magic show , but chose music over magic. Mai-Ling is a trained classical pianist, with only having two years of piano lessons under her belt. Performing a program of original music. Mai-Ling is co-founder of EastWestNow Records. The first record label & collective that promotes artists of Asian Ethnicity. Focusing on artists who are half-Asian. Mai-Ling is HAPAnese (a term she coined being 1/2 Chinese & 1/2 Polish). She is also one-half of “The Shake + Poe Project”, where she write music to the text of Shakespeare. Founder of the creative artists group “Notes & Poets: Bringing the Creative Artist to the Stage.” She has scored music for theatre and film, along with a various amount of side projects to her credit. Besides being a published composer, she is also a published writer and visual artist. Mai-Ling is an independent artist.

In addition to her creative arts efforts, Mai-Ling works with the American Heart Association and its division the American Stroke Assocition. As an Go Red For Women ambassador and American Stroke Association ambassador. Mai-Ling formed the “Take Heart Awareness Cause” in 2005 to help bring her personal crusade of helping create more awareness of heart disease and stroke to the public forefront.. She has been recognized regionally and nationally with the “Heart & Stroke” Hero Award for her “outstanding efforts to create a healthier community, safe from the devastation of heart disease and stroke.” She help’s create awareness of the #1 and #3 killers among men and women in the United States. A portion of every CD she sells includes information and a portion is donated to the AHA for research and eduction programs. One of the first pioneers in merchandising her CDs for a specific cause.

Mai-Ling works with Jeanine Hill-Soldner on the groundbreaking Portraits of American Veterans Project : A Continuing Dialouge as the graphic designer and writer. She creates a profile and writes the story of each veteran that Hill-Soldner paints. Telling their story of Human Experiences of War. To learn more visit www.portraitsofamericanveterans.com

Happy Mother's Day Tradition

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Sat, 12 May 2012 20:35:00 +0000

Celebrations of mothers and motherhood occur throughout the world. Many of these trace back to ancient festivals, like the Greek cult to Cybele, the Roman festival of Hilaria, or the Christian Mothering Sunday celebration. However, the modern holiday is an American invention and not directly descended from these celebrations. Despite this, in some countries Mother's Day has become synonymous with these older traditions.

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamaition of 1870

The first North American Mother’s Day was conceptualized with Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870. Despite having penned The Battle Hymn of the Republic 12 years earlier, Howe had become so distraught by the death and carnage of the Civil War that she called on Mother’s to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their Sons killing the Sons of other Mothers. With the following, she called for an international Mother's Day celebrating peace and motherhood:
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:

"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of
charity, mercy and patience.

"We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have of ten forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war.

Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions.
The great and general interests of peace.

The Rise & Fall of Howe's Mother's Day

At one point Howe even proposed converting July 4th into Mother’s Day, in order to dedicate the nation’s anniversary to peace. Eventually, however, June 2nd was designated for the celebration. In 1873 women’s groups in 18 North American cities observed this new Mother’s holiday. Howe initially funded many of these celebrations, but most of them died out once she stopped footing the bill. The city of Boston, however, would continue celebrating Howe’s holiday for 10 more years.

Despite the decided failure of her holiday, Howe had nevertheless planted the seed that would blossom into what we know as Mother’s Day today. A West Virginia women’s group led by Anna Reeves Jarvis began to celebrate an adaptation of Howe’s holiday. In order to re-unite families and neighbors that had been divided between the Union and Confederate sides of the Civil War, the group held a Mother’s Friendship Day.

Anna M. Jarvis's Mother's Day in 1908

After Anna Reeves Jarvis died, her daughter Anna M. Jarvis campaigned for the creation of an official Mother’s Day in remembrance of her mother and in honor of peace. In 1908, Anna petitioned the superintendent of the church where her Mother had spent over 20 years teaching Sunday School. Her request was honored, and on May 10, 1908, the first official Mother's Day celebration took place at Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia and a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The West Virginia event drew a congregation of 407 and Anna Jarvis arranged for white carnations—her Mother’s favorite flower—to adorn the patrons. Two carnations were given to every Mother in attendance. Today, white carnations are used to honor deceased Mothers, while pink or red carnations pay tribute to Mothers who are still alive. Andrew's Methodist Church exists to this day, and was incorporated into the International Mother’s Day Shrine in 1962.

US Government Adoption

In 1908 a U.S. Senator from Nebraska, Elmer Burkett, proposed making Mother's Day a national holiday at the request of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). The proposal was defeated, but by 1909 forty-six states were holding Mother's Day services as well as parts of Canada and Mexico.
Anna Jarvis quit working and devoted herself full time to the creation of Mother's Day, endlessly petitioning state governments, business leaders, women groups, churches and other institutions and organizations. She finally convinced the World's Sunday School Association to back her, a key influence over state legislators and congress. In 1912 West Virginia became the first state to officially recognize Mother's Day, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed it into national observance, declaring the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

The Fight Over Commercialization

The holiday flourished in the United States and flowers, especially white carnations, became very popular. One business journal, Florists Review, went so far as to print, “This was a holiday that could be exploited.” But the budding commercialization of Mother's Day greatly disturbed Jarvis, so she vociferously opposed what she perceived as a misuse of the holiday. In 1923 she sued to stop a Mother’s Day event, and in the 1930's she was arrested for disturbing the peace at the American War Mothers group. She was protesting their sale of flowers. In the 1930’s Jarvis also petitioned against the postage stamp featuring her Mother, a vase of white carnations and the word “Mother’s Day.” Jarvis was able to have the words “Mother’s Day” removed. The flowers remained. In 1938, Time Magazine ran an article about Jarvis's fight to copyright Mother's Day, but by then it was already too late to change the commercial trend.
In opposition to the flower industry’s exploitation of the holiday, Jarvis wrote, “What will you do to route charlatans, bandits, pirates, racketeers, kidnappers and other termites that would undermine with their greed one of the finest, noblest and truest movements and celebrations?” Despite her efforts, flower sales on Mother's Day continued to grow. Florist's Review wrote, “Miss Jarvis was completely squelched.”

Anna Jarvis died in 1948, blind, poor and childless. Jarvis would never know that it was, ironically, The Florist's Exchange that had anonymously paid for her care.

You might enjoy this Mother's Day Poem by David Michael Jackson.

Murder in the Mummy’s Tomb by Kel Richards, reviewed by BL Kennedy

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:15:00 +0000

Murder in the Mummy’s Tomb

Kel Richards

RiverOak Publishing

Tulsa, Oklahoma

$17.95

ISBN: 1-58919-963-4

“Not at all. It seems poetry must be of your very essence.”

“I do assure you, Mr. Flinders, that I am a very practical, down to earth young woman. My father insists that I be, and I am.”

“And yet I find you in the moonlight dreaming dreams seeing visions.”

“We all dream,” she said quietly.

G.K. Chesterton, a detective, imagined by Kel Richards, drags us into his latest adventure, which is part detective story, part murder mystery, and part sci-fi adventure. Those of you who are addicted to a great mummy story will find yourself at home with this very entertaining book. It has everything you need. It takes place in 1919 (now how cool is that?), it doesn’t have Brendan Frasier in it. It has a cool plot which focuses on a discredited professor, a three thousand year old mummy, and a freshly murdered corpse. I ask you, what is there not to like?

So if you like Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, and you love heroes such as Doc Savage, and are addicted to Lamont Cranston, this book is for you. It has everything: romance, mystery, a lost city, wisdom, a temple of Carnak, and the Valley of the Kings. I say, get off your ass and grab it. It is a really cool and fun read.

BARBIE DOLL POEM by Marge Piercy

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Thu, 10 May 2012 17:52:00 +0000

Ira Wood

Marge Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, into a working-class family that had been hard-hit by the Depression. Piercy was the first member of her family to attend college, winning a scholarship to attend the University of Michigan. She received an MA from Northwestern University. During the 1960s, Piercy was an organizer in political movements like the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the movement against the war in Vietnam, an engagement which has shaped her work in myriad ways. Perhaps most importantly, though, has been Piercy’s sustained involvement with feminism, Marxism and environmental thought. An extremely prolific writer, Piercy has published 17 volumes of poetry and 17 novels. Her novels generally address larger social concerns through sharply observed characters and brisk plot lines. Though generally focused on issues such as class or culture, and usually written from a feminist position, Piercy’s novels have taken on a variety of guises, including historical fiction and science or speculative fiction. Her novel He, She, and It (1991)—published as Body of Glass in the UK—won that country’s prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award; an earlier novel of speculative fiction, Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) has been credited as the first work of cyber-punk.

Barbie Doll

This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

Marge Piercy

I LIKE WAR, poetry chapbook by Allen Tayler

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:18:00 +0000

File Size: 99 KB
Print Length: 25 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: World Class Poetry (March 14, 2012)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B007KM624Y

Iraq War veteran Allen Taylor put together a chapbook of poems based on his experience as a battle captain stationed at al Taqaddum Air Base in Western Iraq in 2005. These poems are provocative and full of rich imagery. They are musical and poignant. Allen Taylor could very well go down in history as an important war poet.

Piano

He closed his Wurlitzer
for the last time.

Ebony hands,
ivory teeth,
a hymn bequeathed
to a bride so fresh
her sheets will not press.

Lover, soldier, son:
alive now in memory,
his sullen eyes fall sharp
like a half rest
through his mother’s imploding heart.

Tomorrow comes,
but not for any more love notes.

Allen Taylor is an Iraq War veteran, a poet, an essayist, and a fiction writer. He is the author of several poetry chapbooks and the full-length poetry collection "Rumsfeld's Sandbox."
In fiction he writes mostly in the Bizarro genre and some literary fiction. His satire is biting and tends to mock social conventions and political ideologies. He also dabbles in the horrific.
He is an award-winning journalist and works full time as a ghostwriter managing company blogs.

God Bless Paul: A Collection of Love Poetry by Crystal Lane Swift, reviewed by BL Kennedy

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:25:00 +0000

God Bless Paul: A Collection of Love Poetry
Crystal Lane Swift
RoseDog Books
Pittsburg, PA
105 pgs
$14.00
ISBN: 978-1-434-9542-1

Stop Touching Me
stop touching me
please
just stop
you are making me dirty
dirty from the inside out
the kind of dirty
I cannot wash away
if I shower for days
your residue will remain
you are hurting me
stop
do you not hear me screaming

As the author Crystal Lane Swift writes in her endnotes of God Bless Paul: A Collection of Love Poetry is actually a series inspired by and written for all the “Pauls” of her life. The Apostle Paul, for example, focuses on the concept of love, and how God intended this concept to be felt and expressed through all people who have fallen short of God’s original intention. Time and again, I felt that this book was a string of expressions that imbedded themselves in poetry. Now, look, I’m not putting the author down. Crystal Lane Swift has a Ph.D in rhetoric and public address from Louisiana State University, is a professor of communications, and is co-director of forensics at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, California. She has written a number of academic articles on abortion, rhetoric, rape, survivor rhetoric, and intercollegiate forensics. Whatever all that means, I can’t figure it out. It’s beside the point. The bottom line is this: I liked some of the poetry in this very handsome book, which I find beautifully executed, and very creative in its layout and design. In fact, I’m going to recommend that various people I know and those of you who read these reviews who just happen to host poetry series invite Ms. Swift to read. At fourteen dollars, I think the book is worth the investment. So, if you so desire to investigate the writings of Crystal Lane Swift, I highly recommend that you purchase this book.

Dirge for an Imaginary World — Poems by Matthew Buckley Smith, winner of the 2011 Able Muse Book Award

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Dirge for an Imaginary World
— Poems by Matthew Buckley Smith
With a Foreword by Greg Williamson
Paperback ~ $16.95
(Able Muse Press, 2012)
80 pages
ISBN 978-0-9878705-0-6

Dirge for an Imaginary World from Matthew Buckley Smith is the winner of the 2011 Able Muse Book Award, selected by Andrew Hudgins. These are poems of breathtaking craftsmanship that find inspiration in the simplicity of the quotidian, or the perplexity of the grand. Smith is equally at ease musing about Neanderthals or God as he is with a ballet exam or highway medians. These poems of personal and universal introspection are filled with grace, and sparkle with abundant intelligence and wit. This masterful debut collection is an event to celebrate.

Sample poems from Matthew Buckley Smith's A Dirge for an Imaginary World

Nowhere

i.m. Steve Sigur

The sprinkler system wakes up on the hour,
Casting its vacant arcs across the lawn.
All night its clockwork tends to every flower
Bedded down here to bury roots and spawn,
While, nowhere in particular, my friend,
Who just last week lay mumbling on a cot,
Is dead, is nothing time or work can mend,
Though his machinery remains to rot
As I walk late at night across a campus
Hundreds of miles away, which is to say
As near to him as anywhere, and tempus
Fugit no less irreparabile
From me than from the blossoms here and there
Who do not know their lot, and do not care.

(previously published in Iron Horse Literary Review and Best American Poetry 2011)

For the Neanderthals

When you were nothing but dull-witted, wayward cousins
We missed you less—believing you were unaware
Of what was happening, of the unlikely reasons
You’d be replaced. We liked to think you free of care.
That was your role: our stout, thick-snouted kin. Ill-fated
But oblivious, you fed and dozed and mated.

Then someone took another glance at what you left
And found your skulls allowed for brains as big as ours,
Or bigger, making room for fleeting dreams and deft
Apologies on deathbeds richly spread with flowers.
In desert chambers lay the artifacts of pain
You must have felt at losing those you knew you’d join.

Of course we also learned you dragged slick leaves of flint
Across the bones of your own tribe, to strip fresh meat.
You mastered fire, you cooked. Maybe you even spent
Odd noiseless moments sulking, feeling desolate.
We’ve done much worse, and better, in our hopeful age,
Strutting our share of hours and more upon the stage.

I’ve thumbed through color photographs of crumbling tools
And like to think I understand those minds that gave
Form to the world the way our own minds do. What fools
We were to tiptoe from the darkness of your cave,
Leaving you there to murmur God’s name in a tongue
That died before it could evolve beyond a song.

(previously published in Measure)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Matthew Buckley Smith was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He earned his MFA in poetry at the Johns Hopkins University. His poems have appeared, or will soon appear in various magazines, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Iron Horse Literary Review, Measure, The Alabama Literary Review, Think Journal, and Best American Poetry 2011. His poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, Joanna.

THE DARK ENDEAVOR by Kenneth Oppel, reviewed by BL Kennedy

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:49:00 +0000

The Dark Endeavor
Kenneth Oppel
New York, NY
297 pgs
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0315-4

We found the monster on a rocky ledge high above the lake. For three dark days my brother and I had tracked it through maze of caves to its lair on the mountain’s summit. And now we beheld it, curled atop its treasure, its pale fur and scaled ablaze with moonlight.

It knew we were there. Doubtless it had smelled us coming, its flared nostrils drinking in our sweat and fea. Its crested head lifted slightly, almost lazily. Coins and jewels clinked and shifted as its body began to recoil.

There is a new school of literature in our midst: it’s called ‘tweenlit’. You know, its literature for those between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one. We might argue that this new field of literature was started by those accursed Harry Potter books (I’m sure you’ve all seen the movies). It goes on to Twilight and the Hunger Games; empires of rabid teen appreciation. Now, we finally have something that they can dig their teeth into. It’s the story of the apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein. Believe it or not, I really enjoyed this book. I would highly recommend it just on the basis that it might spark some enthusiasm in young readers and old to investigate Mary Shelley’s classic.

Kenneth Oppel, the author This Dark Endeavor is a good writer for what he does, and that’s all you need to know. I highly recommend the book, and if you can find it on Amazon or your local bookstore, I would say buy it and give your child a really cool present. Or, save it for yourself.

NATIONAL CASH by Marcello Tino

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:59:00 +0000

National Cash by Marcello Tino
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Thompson and Prince (March 28, 2012)
ISBN-10: 061558893X
ISBN-13: 978-0615588933

National Cash is about sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a Second American Revolution where the children of the 60s became giants and took on the corporate Leviathan, overthrew two presidents of the United State, nearly toppled an Empire, and stood at the door to eternity where Zen meets quantum physics and everything is possible.

Lori Anne Lee says:

From the moment I started it until I finished the last page, I was astonished by the depth of perception and sophistication of this multi-layered novel. It's a historical, adventure, and love story together set in one the most turbulent yet inspiring eras in our nation's history: the 60's. The protagonist, Sonny Versace, is dynamic and complex. His female counterpart (and love interest), Miranda Hewitt, is formidable. Tino's grasp of culture, history, politics, and character is impressive but what truly sets him apart is his gorgeous imagery and the archetypal metaphors that establish him as a true poet and important writer of our age. As you turn the pages, you will be pulled into a story of the American people that must be told. You should read this novel.

Yolanda Martinez, Artist, Singer, Composer and Master Drum Maker

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:44:00 +0000

Legends Alive Productions, LLC
Since 1994
Native American Owned & Operated
Authentic Native American Drums & More
by Yolanda Martinez

Yolanda Martinez is Apache/Comanche/Hispanic born in S New Mexico. She is an Artist, Singer, Composer, and Master Drum Maker. She was one of 11 children and was raised in New Mexico till the age of 15 when her family moved to California, San Joaquin Valley in 1965.

In 1986 Spirit sent a message for her to make a Drums. She made her first drum in 1987. This turned out to be a base drum made out of a redwood planter. She thought she had completed her task, and was ready to move on, WRONG! Great Spirit still kept after her to “MAKE DRUMS”!

After a lot of frustration, prayers, tears, and a near death experience she decided to surrender and let Spirit guide her, this is when she started creating drums that wake up the soul, balance and connect you with Earth Mothers rhythms in nature, her heartbeat, and song.

In summer of 1975 Yolanda was drawn to Alaska where she spent 8 years on the Island of Kodiak. She was one of the first Commercial Fishing Women as back then women were not allowed on fishing boats. She fished commercially and worked as a cook and deck hand for 2 years before starting her own business as a Professional Picture Framer and Gallery Owner. In 1980 she decided to move her and her daughter back to California where her family still lives.

After her return Yolanda started the Central Valley Moon Lodges in Modesto, CA. in 1992. She has been very active in teaching and organizing the spiritual way of the woman and the balance between herself, her family and Mother Earth. Using her Drums and her Songs Yolanda works through her music.

She was inspired to do her first recording “RESOUNDING SPIRITUALITY,” Drumming & Chants in 1993 and on to record, “DREAMING WOMAN,” “PRAIRIE MOTHER, “LONELY WARRIOR,” 2000 NAMMY Nominated, “DESERT SONG,” 2003 NAMMY Nominated, “NATIVE HEARTBEAT,” 2004 NAMMY WINNER “BEST FEMALE ARTIST,” AMERICA, 2007 NAMMY Nominated, AMOR DEVERAS, 2010 NAMMY Nominated. Yolanda also received a 2008 NATIVE-E AWARD for “BEST REMAKE” of “SUMMER TIME” for her AMERICA CD.

In 1993 she moved to Asheville, NC where she spent 6 years in the beautiful forest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This beautiful, magical land is what inspired her to create and write her music. Yolanda currently resides in Las Cruces, NM. Where she came back home to her beautiful home state of New Mexico with the Organ Mts. in her back yard, beautiful sunsets, and glorious nights. She is continuing her work and is conducting Drum Making Workshops, Drumming Circles, Women’s Circles and Concerts nationally and internationally.

We carry wonderful authentic Native American Crafts and Gifts. With all her traveling performing Yolanda has met some wonderful gifted crafters that she honors by carrying their beautiful items for you to choose from. We make sure to mark the items that are NOT Native American Made with ‘NN’ (Non Native) so you always know what you are purchasing.

Please visit http://yolandasdrums.com/ for more information. We hope you enjoy our site and that we have succeeded in making it a journey to remember and one that you will recommend to your friends and keep coming back to.

NAZI LITERATURE IN THE AMERICAS by Roberto Bolano, reviewed by BL Kennedy

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:15:00 +0000

Nazi Literature in the Americas
Roberto Bolano
New Directions Publishing
New York,NY
227 pgs
$13.95
ISBN: 978-8112-1794-1

Irma Carrasco

Puebla Mexico-1910—Mexico City

A Mexican poet inclined to mysticism and tormented phraseology. At the age of twenty she published her first collection of verse, The Voice You Withered, which bears witness to a stubborn and sometimes fanatical reading of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz.

Her grandparents and parents were supporters of the Porfio Diaz. Her elder brother was a priest who embraced the cause of the Cristeros and was executed in 1928. In her 1933 collection, The Destiny of Women, she confessed that she was in love with God, Life, and a New Mexican Dawn, to which she also referred indiscriminately as “resurrection, awakening, forgiveness, falling in love forgiveness” and “marriage”.

I do not know precisely what I think of this book. In fact, I do not know how this book relates to me as a poet. The author, Roberto Bolano, is highly respected in his field by the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Octavio Paz, and Lezama Lima. To be honest with you, I couldn’t give two flying fucks if the author was recommended by Borges. I think that Nazi Literature in the Americas offers little insight into the workings of a lame and racist imagination.

The book is broken down into fourteen thematic sections, in which the writer lives through politics and literary works. Oh, I should add, it includes bibliographies and cross references, with an epilogue for all you monsters who are foaming at the mouth to read this book. My advice is that at the price of $13.95, even if it is published by New Directions Press, this book is just a waste of money.

MONDAYS WITH MARY by Sam Oliver

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:49:00 +0000

This book outlines the process of entering into a relationship with those who are dying. Although the focus of attention is on Hospice Volunteering, it can be read and used by anyone caring for someone involved in the care of a dying loved one. As you read these pages, you will find yourself connecting with Mary and Jim in places deep within your heart known as the place your soul calls home.

You will find your heart awaken into an eternal love with each section of this book allowing you to discover your true nature. Your creative imagination will enter into places you knew as a child. It is the place inside you where dreams come true. Let your heart open where your mind takes you in this book and you will find that place whereby we are known as we are truly known.

Sam Oliver has cared for the needs of the dying in palliative care for over 22 years. During that time, he has served as the Chair and Co-chair of Hospice Ethics Committees in Indiana and Ohio. He has served several years as a State Continuing Education Chairperson for the Association of Professional Chaplains in Indiana. Presently, Sam is the Chaplain for Amedisys Hospice Services in Southern New Hampshire.

Kindle Version: http://www.amazon.com/Mondays-with-Mary-ebook/dp/B007W6293G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1335005576&sr=1-1

Novel Version: http://www.amazon.com/Mondays-Mary-Sam-Oliver/dp/1604145536/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335005755&sr=1-3

La Machine Art Company, presented by Walter Ruhlmann

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 21:58:00 +0000

There exists a city in the west of France, Nantes, which is reputed for many things but one of the most popular and recent is this cultural and architectural company called La Machine [The Machine]. This company is at the origin of the most amazing realizations in the city. Who would have guessed one could actually ride a giant elephant – bigger than a wild one – and visit its clock-work entrails? Or be sprayed by water expelled by its trunk?

François Delarozière created this company in 1999 and still leads it. He gathered technicians, architects, street-artists, craftspeople all around him, bought this abandoned ship building hangar which they first demolished almost entirely, then rebuilt as to provide an open space museum called La Gallerie. [The Gallery]

This is the place where everything occurs: the conceptualization, the construction, the exhibition, eventually the implantation and evolution of many of their present and up-coming creations. The Great Elephant, Nantes.

The Great Elephant is probably one of the most popular here in Nantes as much as in the whole country. You may take a tour or just watch it pace slowly along the banks of the Loire river, across the ancient shipyard, past the carousel to be. For they are currently building a carousel based on Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne was born in Nantes in 1828 and is one of the most popular French novelists of the 19th century; he can be compared to Herbert George Wells as to the type of stories they both wrote, except Verne's novels were more science than fiction. Anyway, this new creation – the Carrousel des mondes marins [Sea Worlds Carousel] is inspired by many of the characters Verne described in his novel. It will open in July 2012 and is over 65 ft high and over 82 ft wide. Its top will reach the Great Elephant's back and give a wonderful sight of the city. What the Carousel will soon look like (computer generated image)

For this company and the gallery are situated on the Ile de Nantes [Island of Nantes] a large bit of land surrounded by two arms of the Loire river. It is on this island that most of cultural events take place in the city. This is the place where ships accosted in the 17th and 18th century before Saint-Nazaire, a port west of Nantes was in use, it is also the place where one of the corners of the slave trade triangle was based.

Other creations include Les mécaniques savantes [The Smart Clockworks], Aéroflorale II, etc. They do not only build and perform in Nantes but are present everywhere in the world – mostly Europe – Liverpool, Lisbon, Yokohama, Anvers, Bruges...

They intend to invent the cities of the future, to develop those we dream of in order to have a new vision of the current ones. As they say on their website, if so many crafts are involved it is to justify this saying: “L’homme et ses savoir-faire sont l’essence même du processus de création.” Man and his know-how are the very essence of the creative process.

Walter Ruhlmann, Nantes, April 3, 2012 http://lorchideenoctambule.hautetfort.com

OUT OF OZ by Gregory Maguire, reviewed by BL Kennedy

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:49:00 +0000

Out of Oz
Gregory Maguire
Harper Collins
New York, NY
568 pgs
$26.99
ISBN: 978-0-06-054894-0

It would take Dorothy Gale and her relatives three days to reach the mountains by train from Kansas, the conductor told them.

No matter what the schoolteacher had said about Galileo, Copernicus, and those other spoilsports, any cockamamie theory that the world was round remained refuted by the geometrical instrument of a rattling train applied to the spare facts of a prairie. Dorothy watched eagles and hawks careening too high to cast shadows, she watched the returning larks and bluebirds, and she wondered what they knew about the shape of the world, and if they would ever tell here.

Gregory Maguire, the New York Times Bestselling author of Wicked is at it again with this final volume in the Wicked years. My prediction is that this book will not only be immensely successful, but also very sought after. Simply put, Maguire's audience will not be disappointed. I’m kinda sad, though; its all gonna be coming to an end with this book. Reading it left me wanting more. Gregory Maguire took his inspiration from America’s first fairy tale, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and created a world that will leave people screaming from the Middle Earth. The Middle Earth is safe compared to the political climate of Oz. This book is about the granddaughter of the Wicked Witch of the West, and her coming to understand abilities that have grown within her. The book, to say the least, is remarkable, extraordinary, delicious, and bewitching. This is a sophisticated fantasy cycle, inspired by work of L. Frank Baum. The first book, Wicked, went from novel to Tony winning Broadway production. Its going to be sad watching it disappear with this novel. This is probably Maguire’s most trans-formative work, a thrilling and compulsively readable saga. Once again, we experienced social unrest in Emerald City, for there is a mounting invasion on Munchkin land. Glenda is under house arrest, and the Cowardly Lion is on the run from the law, when who comes knocking at the door? It’s none other than Dorothy, and that’s all that needs to be said. The book is a wonderful read filled with beautiful, imaginative histories and quickly moving chapters that will just seduce the reader, and I promise, you will not be able to put this book down once you start it.

So yeah, I guess what I’m saying is that if you are a fan of the writing of Gregory Maguire and L. Frank Baum, if you are an Ozhead or you just remember the movie with Judy Garland, buy this book. I promise you it is worth every penny and more. Reading Out of Oz is one of the most enjoyable experiences that I have had in a while.

Gene of El Paso: Poet, singer/songwriter/musician

noreply@blogger.com (Belinda Subraman Presents / Gypsy Art Show) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:45:00 +0000

photo by Richard Baron

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A POET (by Gene Keller)

I am sure I have been spontaneously producing poems and songs all my life. I
know this because I heard both my children making up poems and songs before they
started school. I must have, too. I remember making up a poem when I was eight.
And it was at that age I first had a guitar in my hands.

In my high school senior year, I began to consciously write poems and songs in
response to several horrors - President Kennedy was shot and a good friend
committed suicide. Like many young people of my generation, I wanted to be a
rock star. Unfortunately, I did not have the skill or the personality. Anyway I
was destined to be a poet.

However, it took a long time to find the temerity to say I am a poet. Not until
my forties did I make a serious commitment. Even then I didn’t truly understand
what the statement “I am a poet” means. After more than a decade of study and
practice, I identified and defined, (at least for myself,) the five functions of
a poet. And, as I have been able, I work in these multiple areas: maker, seer,
healer, singer, storyteller.

1. Makar is an old word for artist and poet, the poet as maker of word
artifacts - birthday or holiday poems, political or other public announcements.
I also feel bound by this duty to make my own chapbooks and broadsides.

2. The seer function incorporates much between prayer and vision, and it may
simply be an expression of hope for the community and the self. Beyond doubt,
something ineffable is going on in life, so some poets try to define what is
essentially irrational, outside of the senses as confined to holes in the head.

3. Surely the scalpel has a place in the doctor’s bag of tricks, but word-based
healing is also vital, and not only in psychotherapy. Whether the poet delves
into personal psychic wounds or those inflicted by history, putting the pain
into words bears healthy results.

4. In my experience, poetry and song come from the same source, the same need.
Even an oral performance of a poem has musical qualities, and as with music,
people need to hear the healing vibrations of poetry, maybe even dance to the
rhythms. Thereby the performer and the audience get to breathe deeply together.

5. At the roots of poetry, the lyric and the narrative are both required. From
our cave-residing ancestors to Homer and on to contemporary masters, readers /
listeners want to get lost in stories, to see themselves in stories.

As with other skills, some poets are better at different functions. For example,
I play guitar, have a loud voice, and more often prefer a lyric response to a
narrative one. But I like the challenges offered by trying my hand at the broad
spectrum of poetic expression.

Pride and ego have to be considered and controlled because some of the functions
can place the poet in the path of temptations, for some in the community mistake
the message which is passing through the poet for the physical vessel that is
the poet. One is the breath, the other is the breather.

Being a poet at this level is a great responsibility. When I try to explain it
to myself, I think of the responsibilities as being the toll for having the
gift. I have taken a vow similar to the vows that teachers and physicians make,
at least to themselves, to serve the public, the community, even when it is
inconvenient or costly.

When one has a calling, the topic must be professed. That make me a professor of
poetry. I believe poetry can help the world and poets have a responsibility to
do so. Posterity may judge the value and the success.

- Gene Keller / EPTX / 14 Apr 12

BUY HIS MUSIC at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/genemusic

"Blues for No Reason" is copyright 2004,
by Gypsy Wind Music, and the track was produced by Doug Adamz.