tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215632382024-09-08T11:06:53.012-04:00All things books, publishing, music & photography, from New YorkUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-39030493153419463342008-05-14T20:43:00.005-04:002013-11-10T20:28:52.295-05:00

"The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium." -- Norbet Platt I've written about how important it is to me (or how important it has been in the past) to have a perfect environment and set of tools in order to sit down and write. I've read a lot over the years about how electronic paper

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-47174684778822360552008-04-17T22:08:00.011-04:002013-11-10T12:21:26.238-05:00

There have only been a few things that have truly perturbed me about my relocation, though most of their particular mall church when you open an account--even that, I anticipated. Nice people, polite people, that wasn't too hard to get used to either. Hell, I even have an awesome used bookstore nearby (something I didn't have in my home neighborhood in NY, or even all that conveniently in my work

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-55395012056778139952008-03-26T18:40:00.004-04:002008-04-18T17:40:38.995-04:00

It would figure that my first post after moving away from NY would be to recount an evening during my first trip back to my hometown ... However, the long weekend trip back was perfectly timed to coincide with a performance by one of my favorite new bands, the (relatively) unknown local darlings, Longwave, at Mercury Lounge (still a preferred venue for seeing bands in NY for me, as well). And

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-55418047497461012862008-02-22T23:03:00.011-05:002008-04-19T06:39:34.541-04:00

So, two years, almost to the the date of moving to my new digs in Astoria and starting my life over, I find myself having packed up and doing pretty much the same thing all over again. This time, a little more drastically (and dramatically) as I have given up my very precious job (my career) at a major publishing house, and once again packed up the apartment, the cats, the books and music and

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-14673623382695978682007-10-20T17:51:00.004-04:002008-02-28T17:27:19.094-05:00

"... the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!' " - Jack Kerouac, On the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-31820524680655558422007-09-11T06:51:00.001-04:002007-09-11T21:53:52.857-04:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } “The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui, vanish ...”-- Ralph Waldo Emerson_________corner of my eye © 1977

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-77680861942603094792007-09-09T22:49:00.001-04:002007-09-11T06:59:56.738-04:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Yes, ladies and gentlemen, An End Has a Start ... and the Editors (no publishing relation ... nudge, nudge, wink, wink ...) are indeed rock stars (in every good sense of that word), touching all parts. Performing live they are

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-92129582838348150742007-09-04T20:55:00.000-04:002013-11-09T19:45:42.517-05:00

"Baseball knows no limits, and the true baseball field, the foul lines diverge forever, eventually taking in most, or all of the universe." - WP Kinsella It was funny for me to find, having gone to a minor league game a few evenings ago that baseball is still a sentimental game for me. As with so much of my life, it was something I left behind for years, something that was ingrained in me at a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-11244571898402238282007-06-20T21:28:00.000-04:002013-11-10T20:19:50.281-05:00

"We read to know we are not alone." - C.S. Lewis So, while this is embarrassing, it is also an important confession. It has been over a year-and-a-half since I have read a book. A novel. Hell, let me just lay it all out ... I have barely been able to complete a full magazine article, never mind a nonfiction title. A couple of months ago I staggered into skimming short stories, but, that didn't

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-18139483798569895382007-06-12T19:43:00.001-04:002013-11-10T20:29:54.563-05:00

"We are only beginning to learn what to say in a photograph. The world we live in is a succession of fleeting moments, any one of which might say something significant. When such an instant arrives, I react intuitively. There is, I think, an electronic impulse between my eye and my finger. But even this is not enough. I dream that someday the step between my mind and my finger will no longer be

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-62829146447812737802007-06-08T23:07:00.001-04:002008-04-17T20:11:57.097-04:00

A little over a year ago, I sat at my computer, boxes packed, killing time looking for new music to dance my future memories to. I think I searched for "Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave." And the Google result brought up a review (that I can no longer link to, sorry to say) of The National. After reading the review, I searched for their band site, which at the time, didn't come up as a top hit

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-43865538098249655072007-05-30T06:50:00.000-04:002013-11-09T20:24:17.915-05:00

It's always fun for me to hear that others have the same quirks as I do when it comes to having neurotic preferences such as what font to use when one sits down at the keyboard. I imagine it has something to do with a writer's universal need to procrastinate and tinker with every little piece of their work. So I really enjoyed an article in Slate that I came across last week that posed to a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-42151426104925518792007-05-14T21:20:00.001-04:002007-06-16T21:36:26.595-04:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Reading is dead ... long live the book ... sigh, it is, once again, the demise of books in the news. Yawn.________"freedom of speech" © 2007 duluoz cats

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-35691051252937694982007-05-04T20:31:00.000-04:002013-09-27T12:21:47.322-04:00

Back from the great white north, which was not as white as it had been until recently, but also not as green as the city I returned to, which had taken to bursting into full-leaf overnight, so so it appeared. It had been almost a decade since I visited Montreal, since I had been to Canada, actually, but it was just as I'd remembered it; quaint, urban, provincial, and worldly, all at the same

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-1149994547989869042007-04-16T21:37:00.000-04:002007-04-16T21:52:55.233-04:00

Goodbye Sky HarborIs tomorrow just a day like all the restHow could you know just what you did? So full of faith yet so full of doubt I ask Time and time again you said don't be afraid If you believe you can do it The only voice I want to hear is yours AgainI shall ask you this once again And again He said: "I am but one small instrument." Do you remember that? So here I am above palm trees so

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-2885625923007949152007-04-14T12:54:00.000-04:002007-04-14T13:00:48.303-04:00

"Catherine Tekakwitha, who are you? ... Do I have any right to come after you with my dusty mind full of the junk of maybe five thousand books? I hardly even get out to the country very often. Could you teach me about leaves?" --Beautiful Losers____________"St. Antoine" © 1999 duluoz cats

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-60289463424645820252007-04-12T07:35:00.000-04:002007-04-14T12:48:38.919-04:00

"All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber." --Slaughterhouse FiveOw. My heart. God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.So it goes.ObitsNY TimesVoice of America_____________Photograph of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Associated Press

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-39296831501854349292007-04-08T18:40:00.000-04:002007-04-14T12:50:02.582-04:00

I read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland when I was in college. One of the children's lit classes I took--funny how I always knew that was where my heart would lie. It's a complicated tale, made all the more so by the history and psychological profile of author, Lewis Carroll. But, ignoring all of the rumor and implications of his love of young girls and its place in his writing of the story, as

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-28780496890723515682007-03-27T20:45:00.000-04:002007-04-14T12:50:36.042-04:00

“I knew it was a song about Montreal, it seemed to come out of that landscape that I loved very much in Montreal, which was the harbour, and the waterfront, and the sailors' church there, called Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, which stood out over the river, and I knew that there were ships going by, I knew that there was a harbour, I knew that there was Our Lady of the Harbour, which was the Virgin

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-33549772810999806462007-03-22T17:52:00.000-04:002013-11-06T01:00:32.561-05:00

"Poets and intellectuals—who are paid little, and who are usually ignored by the general population—have this consolation, at least: they are the ones the tyrants go after first." - Frederick Smock, Poetry & Compassion A slow day at work and the first true spring "spring day" had me feeling a bit of cabin fever, so I took a long walk and then a train ride uptown to Spanish Harlem to visit El

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-18862570997887377022007-03-21T20:30:00.000-04:002007-04-14T12:52:01.200-04:00

It's National Poetry Day (or it was). One of those frou-frou days I cringe at, though I suppose it serves a purpose for that part of the population that isn't usually reminded of the world of creativity except as it pertains to children's artwork on the refrigerator. But, for one crowded hour ... this is the thought for this evening, in deference to those poets (good and bad); this is where I am

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-1143806932563072702007-03-20T07:00:00.000-04:002007-04-14T12:52:30.256-04:00

two years + two ... too many"Syntax, according to Norman O. Brown, is the arrangement of the army. As we move away from it, we demilitarize language. This demilitarization of language is conducted in many ways: a single language is pulverized; the boundaries between two or more languages are crossed; elements not strictly linguistic (graphical, musical) are introduced; etc. Translation becomes,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-3526867040265218232007-03-19T21:45:00.000-04:002007-04-14T12:53:06.251-04:00

Must brush away the layers of dust I've allowed to accumulate these past couple of months where I let this space sit idly while life continues to move ever faster and in more head-spinning ways. It has taken me over a year to get to this place in my head--back to reading, back to enjoying life and all its many surprises. So, I am glad to begin anew with some thoughts on my most beloved art form,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-75546800937779304112007-03-18T20:51:00.000-04:002007-06-21T06:14:17.029-04:00

It's March, 2007. A new year and a little over a year since I started up this little space. It's been quite a long while since I've had the time--and the time to think--to post here. So much has occurred in the past year, upon reading some of my previous entries again, it is almost as if none of it was me, even if all of it was intrinsically so. But now, back in the corner of my room, to this

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21563238.post-17505515380820146192006-09-28T05:29:00.000-04:002007-04-14T14:14:48.465-04:00

Ah, justice ... what comes around, comes around again, apparently ... and so, it seems that I've gotten myself another tag. This time courtesy of (parenthetical remarks). So here we go with My Favorite Things in no particularly significant order ...Things I'd like to do before I die1. Make love last2. Visit Russia3. Quit smokingI suppose I'm glad this was a difficult list to fill in. Means I've

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1