After visiting Aaron's Fishblog I decided to check out Emerson College's rankings. Here's what I found:

Emerson College's
Best 351 Colleges Rankings

Click on the list name to see all the schools on that list or
click the category name to see all the lists in the category.
Rank List Category
#19 Gay Community Accepted
#7 Students Ignore God on a Regular Basis
#1 Great College Radio Station
#1 Great College Theater
#5 Intercollegiate Sports Unpopular or Nonexistent Extracurriculars
#1 Nobody Plays Intramural Sports
#1 Dodge Ball Targets

Hmm. As an 'ERS d.j., Lions soccer player, & former Catholic, what should I think?
~
Haircut. Met knew teacher. No beer. School bike. Fish taco. Car at Linsky's. Pool: Amanda in, Zac & I play. Brother's birthday. Flava ice. Flava Flav. Cold lampin'. Hot & humid. Griff news Ball Square. Nearly four o'clock. SLEEPING on the Wing. The DELUXE TRANSITIVE VAMPIRE. Dred of ride home. Reactions to haircut. New keyboard. New hard drive. At school. Past four. Time to go. Miss you.

slan,
j.c.

Pack. Drive. Stop. Percolator. Portsmouth. Drive. Chinese buffet. Augusta. Drive. Answer. St. Croix, New Brunswick. Drive. Break. Young moose. Drive. Stop. Fredricton. Sleep. Dream. Wake. Drive. Sackville. Talk. Drive. Buy. Essays & Poems. Sackville history. Maps. Paper. Walk. Vegetables. Cheese. Wrap. Coffee. Walk. Library closed. Walk. Book. Drive. Buy. Sackville history. Drive. Amherst Shores, Nova Scotia. Camp. Walk. Swim. Walk. Percolate. Coffee. Sardines. Salad. Wash. Read. Write. Fire. Water. Sleep. Wake. Sleep. Wake. Sleep. Wake. Percolate. Coffee. Cook. Eggs. Bacon. Drive. Moncton, N.B. Walk. Coffee. Boston Cream. Walk. Buy. Canadian folkways. Bowering. Koch. Intimate History of New Brunswick. Notes. Walk. No albums. Walk. Consume. Stout. Poutine Rapees. Mussels. Walk. Coffee. Drive. Stop. Maritime folksongs. Fundy National Park. Tent. Walk out. Red squirrel. Red spruce. Mine residue. Red spruce. Red squirrels. Walk back. Cook. Garlic. Olive Oil. Onions. Black beans. Salad. Wash. Fire. Water. Sleep. Dream. Wake. Percolate. Coffee. Eggs. Bacon. Wash. Walk. Wash. Drive. Lake. Walk. Black spruce. Stream. Wade. Talk. Walk. Drive. Stop. Onion rings. Chowder. Burger. Shake. Past Sussex. Drive. Saint John. Check in. Drive. Carleton Martello Tower. Drive. Walk. Buy. The the. Sugar. Walk. Saint John Market. Acadia flag. New Brunswick flag. Nova Scotia flag. Strawberry shake. Sparkling water. Smell. Fish. Meat. Fruit. Vegetables. See. Trinkets. Drive. Read. Walk. Consume. Haddock w/ Mexican spices & mint. Margaritas. Walk. Sleep. Dream. Wake. Read. Eat. Pancakes. Fruit. Coffee. Drive. Walk. Talk. Maritime history. Loyalists. Book business. Buy. Irish in Canada. Walk. Drive. Stop. Machias, ME. Eat. Tuna melt. Fried clams. Drive. Stop. Belfast, ME. Walk. Drink. Iced Mocha. Eat. Lavender vanilla ice cream. Walk. Co-op. Pickled fiddleheads. Walk. Drive. Stop. Portsmouth. Friendly toast. Eat. Matt #2. Drink. PBR. Moxie. Drive. A. Piatt Andrew Bridge. Grant Circle. Washington Street. Stop. Annisquam, Gloucester, MA. Smell. Cooler. Clean. Sleep. Dream. Wake. Unpack. Drive. GHS. Talk. Principal. Email. Blogs. Type.

slan,
j.c.

Pack. Drive. Stop. Percolator. Portsmouth. Drive. Chinese buffet. Augusta. Drive. Answer. St. Croix, New Brunswick. Drive. Break. Young moose. Drive. Stop. Fredricton. Sleep. Dream. Wake. Drive. Sackville. Talk. Drive. Buy. Essays & Poems. Sackville history. Maps. Paper. Walk. Vegetables. Cheese. Wrap. Coffee. Walk. Library closed. Walk. Book. Drive. Buy. Sackville history. Drive. Amherst Shores, Nova Scotia. Camp. Walk. Swim. Walk. Percolate. Coffee. Sardines. Salad. Wash. Read. Write. Fire. Water. Sleep. Wake. Sleep. Wake. Sleep. Wake. Percolate. Coffee. Cook. Eggs. Bacon. Drive. Moncton, N.B. Walk. Coffee. Boston Cream. Walk. Buy. Canadian folkways. Bowering. Koch. Intimate History of New Brunswick. Notes. Walk. No albums. Walk. Consume. Stout. Poutine Rapees. Mussels. Walk. Coffee. Drive. Stop. Maritime folksongs. Fundy National Park. Tent. Walk out. Red squirrel. Red spruce. Mine residue. Red spruce. Red squirrels. Walk back. Cook. Garlic. Olive Oil. Onions. Black beans. Salad. Wash. Fire. Water. Sleep. Dream. Wake. Percolate. Coffee. Eggs. Bacon. Wash. Walk. Wash. Drive. Lake. Walk. Stream. Wade. Talk. Walk. Drive. Stop. Onion rings. Chowder. Burger. Shake. Past Sussex. Drive. Saint John. Check in. Drive. Carleton Martello Tower. Drive. Walk. Buy. The the. Sugar. Walk. Saint John Market. Acadian flag. New Brunswick flag. Nova Scotia flag. Strawberry shake. Sparkling water. Smell. Fish. Meat. Fruit. Vegetables. See. Trinkets. Drive. Read. Walk. Consume. Haddock w/ Mexican spices & mint. Margaritas. Walk. Sleep. Dream. Wake. Read. Eat. Pancakes. Fruit. Coffee. Drive. Walk. Talk. Maritime history. Loyalists. Book business. Buy. Irish in Canada. Walk. Drive. Stop. Machias, ME. Eat. Tuna melt. Fried clams. Drive. Stop. Belfast, ME. Walk. Drink. Iced Mocha. Eat. Lavender vanilla ice cream. Walk. Co-op. Pickled fiddleheads. Walk. Drive. Stop. Portsmouth. Friendly toast. Eat. Matt #2. Drink. PBR. Moxie. Drive. Stop. Annisquam, Gloucester, MA. Smell. Cooler. Clean. Sleep. Dream. Wake. Unpack. Drive. GHS. Talk. Principal. Email. Blogs. Type.

slan,
j.c.

This from Christina Strong:
Due to a major screw up on the east coast, I can't
check my email on my regular account. Please send all
love letters, controversies, real and imagined to
xtinastrong@yahoo.com.
~
Dreams. Coffee. Granola. Scan Globe. Search for tent. The Who Sell Out. Look at map. Pack for four day Maine & Canadian Maratime trip. Windshield wiper fluid. Imagine {side two}. John Wesley Harding. Email. Blog.

slan,
j.c.

No Blogging:

Some Lists {since last Wednesday}:

Gloucester {Annisquam, West Gloucester, Lanesville, East Gloucester, Downtown, Magnolia, points between}, Boston {Allston}, Danvers, Topsfield, Somerville, Salem, Peabody, Mansfield, points between; Amanda, Zac, Gerrit, Simon, Kari, Greg, Mike, Xtina, Mark, Chris, Joel, Dan, Tim, Ariane, Patrick, Tad, Tom, Susan, Susan's mother, Dana, Dino, John, Alec, Alex, others; The Jicks, Radiohead; Lost in La Mancha; The Hidden Injuries of Class, The Death & Life of Great American Cities, The Corrections, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone; Budweiser, Pabst, Guinness, Heineken; Famous Grouse Scotch; misc. red wine; The Kinvara, The Blackburn Tavern, The Rigger, McT’s, The Rhumbline, Pratty’s, The Crow’s Nest; 140, 95, 93, 1, 128/95, 128, 133, 114, others; Angels, Orioles, Athletics; Galaxie 500 {Today, misc.}, Leadbelly {misc}, Wilco/Tweedy {selection by Mike County}, Kinks {Kronicles}, Radiohead {Hail to the Thief, Kid A, Amnesiac, misc. Thom Yorke live}, R.E.M. {Fables of the Reconstruction/Reconstruction of the Fables}, Sonic Youth {Evol, Sister}, Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians {Respect}, Billy Bragg {Back to Basics, Don’t Try This at Home}, Belle & Sebastian {3.. 6.. 9.. Seconds of Light, Dog on Wheels}, Elvis Costello {My Aim is True}, The Sundays {Reading, Writing & Arithmetic}, Tchaikovsky {Symphony No. 6 [Pathetique]}, My Bloody Valentine {Loveless}, others; breast stroke, crawl, doggy paddle, side stroke, back stroke, treading water; mussels, scallops, cod, shrimp, tuna; yes, no, others.

I have a few moments before taking the commuter rail to Boston (to see Celtic play Kaunas of Lithuanian in a preliminary European Cup match). As Mike County noted at the Blackburn Tavern(?) on Sunday, riding the rails (& spending the afternoon in a bar) is also a good way to get some reading done. I'm taking...
* The Death and Life of Great American Cities (picked up in a book sale that Gerrit Lansing took me to at the Beverly Farms Episcopal Church {Thanks Gerrit.})
* & The Hidden Injuries of Class (a gift from Gerrit {Thanks again.})
* & (in case I feel too *closed in upon* by all that prose) Fanny Howe: Selected Poems.

I hope to finish those first two today & reread a section or two in the last. I'd love to hear what other's think about any of the books.

After reading the excerpts of my comments about Denis Johnson onAaron's blog, I feel compelled to note that Gerrit & a local writer Peter Anastas put me on to Johnson's work. (Some of you will know Peter's work from the book of Olson's letters to the Gloucester Daily Times that he edited.) Why mention this?
When I first moved to Gloucester & before I knew any of young(er) Boston area poets (except for fellow Emerson College alum Chris Rizzo!) whom I now see/read/hear/talk w/ regularly, Peter & Gerrit were lights in a dark forest.
Gerrit & I recently had a conversation about the evolution--even over the last eight years--of the *scene* that has been much discussed this week. I reminded Gerrit that our involvement w/ Boston-area poets began when he invited Amanda & I to one of the last Word of Mouth readings. (It was held in late '95 in the World Wide Building in Waltham.) Bill Corbett read an Isaac Babel short story. (Later, Peter Anastas put me on to more of Babel's work & a memoir about him & his disappearance written by a longtime companion.) In four years of attending readings at Emerson & in the Adams Room at Harvard, I'd never heard anyone read someone else's work. Gerrit read. Ange Mlinko read. Many others. Later or at about the same time, Gerrit put me on to Jim Behrle's reading series at Waterstones. It was there I heard & saw John Wieners for the first time. Also heard & met Diane DiPrima! & Eileen Myles! That lead us to Aaron Kiely's series at the Bookcellar. At about this time Patrick & Ariane (soon-to-be Doud) moved to Gloucester. Met them through Gerrit--as I've also met Ken Irby, Simon Pettet, & many, many, many others... There has also been the generosity of all who have opened their homes for readings & post-reading gatherings: Dan & Kate, Michael & Isabel, Joe & Molly, Bill & Beverly, etc.

Why go on about this? Chris reminds us that it is often not easy to find a community of like-minded but sufficiently diverse people w/ whom to read/discuss/eat/drink/etc. Sure many people cultivate isolation but many others want connections they can't find. In discussions such about community I want to avoid taking for granted the one I have now (but which continues to change). I also like to credit those who have made these connections possible. W/o them I'd be much more isolated & wld almost certainly find it much more difficult to continue w/ an active engagement w/ poetry amid the other pulls of life. Not that I wldn't. I can't imagine not reading & writing. But because of this community of friends who write & think, talk & drink, eat & listen, poetry is not (always) a separate life.

Bill Corbett's LeSueur review reminded me of this from Ginsberg's "City Midnight Junk Strains//for Frank O'Hara"...

"appreciated more and more/a common ear/for our deep gossip."

& this from Bill's review in the Phoenix...

"{O'Hara's} poems hold you attention the way gossip--meaty, juicy vitamin G--does."

& then

"Deep gossip is what Joe LeSueur, O'Hara's friend, roommate, and sometime sex partner gives uis in this memoir."

slan,
j.c.

Hmm...
My posts are cloning themselves.
~
Congratulations to Amanda for winning the Dante's Ass prize for this week. As always the selection came down to a coin flip.
~
Aaron asked Mark about the lack of women in our small MetroBoPo scene.
Except for linking to Amanda, Christina, and Shin Yu, I'll leave further speculation to others.
~
Poetry discussed on Sunday at the Grand (Union Square Somerville), Descent of Alette (Notley), "The Quietist" & "Introduction to the World" (F. Howe), and Loba (DiPrima). Also discussed: surf poetry, wiffle ball, kale recipes, Bill Corbett's Boston Phoenix review of LeSueur's O'Hara book, chapbook design, & many other things.
Optional homework assignment: read Alice Notley's talk about "voice" in poetry. (I'll bring copies Sunday too.)

slan,
j.c.

I reread "The Quietist" & "Introduction to the World" before sleep last night.
Had painful dreams. Then had lovely dreams.
~
I'm know leaving the panopticon of the ghost city for the couch at the Grand in Somerville...a soft part of the hard city.

slan leat,
j.c.

From the Boston Globe, Tuesday August 29, 2003

Poetry red in tooth and claw
AGNIESZKA BISKUP

Poems are duking it out in a Darwinian sense on David Rea's website. He's designed a computer program that allows poems to evolve. Starting with 1,000 random words culled fro "Hamlet," "Beowulf," and the "Iliad," among others, his program randomly assembles them to create a short verse. If you visit his website (www.codeasart.com/poetry/darwin.html), you are given two of these verses and you choose the one you like best. The unpopular ones are killed off, but the poems with the most votes get to "breed" with each other, exchanging words like genes. Rea has also programmed in a mutation, where every new poem has a one-in-a-thousand chance of having a dropped or added word, or a word shifting its place. The resulting off-spring poems are once again put up and voted on, and so on and so forth. After enough generations, Rea says on his site, "we should eventually start to see interesting poems emerge." One recent survivor of this (un)natural selection was "Hellhound the beds though to/Puppeteer shout ho recesses now/For in the sphere it is cricket curfews/With therein of stolen." Charmingly incoherent as it is, it looks like poetry requires a creator.

Also, visit the message board which in some ways is as interesting as the poems.
Back to work.
slan,
j.c.

hmm...
I'm having trouble w/ spaces.

Poem for Friends
has been revised.
It may reappear
under a new title.

Gata has come home!
She told me--in Spanish--that she had spent two days and one night expanding her "ciudad muelle."

Gata f she-cat; low-hanging cloud; Madrid woman; (Mex) maid, servant girl; a gatas on all fours, on hands and knees

Thought you might like to know. Also...

soft:
blando adj bland, soft; indulgent; flabby; sensual; cowardly; (ojos {eyes}) tender

muelle adj soft, voluptuous

There is also "mullido adj soft, fluffy".
~
In honor of Mark's post about translation, and in honor of the la luna in Lorca's Bodas de Sangre, and in honor of the tides {see Saturday's post} here's a translation from Lorca's La suite de los espejos:

Reflection

Lady Moon.
(Has someone broken the quicksilver?)
No.
What child has lit
the lantern?
A mere butterfly’s enough
to put you out.
Quiet … but is it possible!
That firefly is the moon!
That glowworm!
~
Back to work.
slan,
j.c.

Amanda has arrived in port.
~
I've gotten rid of only one of the Red Devil adverts above.
~
Solace for a poet after reading Plato's Republic X

Plotinus:
"We must bear in mind that the arts do not simply imitate the visible but go back to the reasons from which nature comes..."
~
"There's something unwholesome about flying a kite at night."
Marge Simpson
~
Visit the kids to read new poems.
~
I've been reading Hidden Injuries of Class which has inspired new thoughts about those questions I posed some weeks back.
~
For anyone interested in swimming in the Annisquam River this week. High tide can be found here. A time table for trains to Gloucester can be found here. I can be found by clicking above.
Swimming has also been known to occur at Half Moon Beach (see also: the cover of Butterick's Guide the Maximus Poems), Pavillion Beach, pools, & quarries.
"When it comes to quarries I'm known to swim."
~
Good luck to Jim & others playing Wiffleball{TM} in NYC tomorrow.
~
Good night!
Amanda is home!

slan,
j.c.
~

{This post has been redacted...}

Unfortunate Sport Content {sorry}:

The Celtic Football Club.

End of Sport Content.

Slainte.

I had forgotten about my weblog for a few days. (My last post--as you can probably see--was :42:54 into Tuesday, nearly 60 hours ago.) In that time I have talked about the ghost city more than I have visited it. Perhaps there's a danger in that too. Thank you Gerrit, Mike, & Mark for returning me to thoughts of the soft city, as I look out of the school window & am mindful of topography & friendships just across the cut. The soft city is, perhaps, a form in my mind--one that takes on new contours in dreams--but it's marks are found in the buildings, on the land, in the people I encounter in the hard city. This is why I agree w/ Mark that the soft city does not die w/ us--at least not immediately, but perhaps not ever. Our marks remain along the paths we've traced. Poems are, of course, a mark we leave. One w/ special properties.

Talking w/ an other poet after John Wieners passed away, I declared, as if it needed stating, that I thought John's poetry would last, that it would be read for years. I based this on the fact that I've had great success teaching his poems to high schoolers. More success w/ his poems than w/ anyone else except perhaps Blake or Yeats. Why these poets? I'm not sure. Many poets & poems I love {or tho't kids wld like or have work'd for other teachers} haven't yet yielded powerful experiences in the classroom. But back the conversation w/ the poet, I was almost immediately embarrassed at what I'd said. **Of course** John will be remembered, read, etc. That's how I interpreted the look I received. It was not a harsh look. It was in fact quite sympathetic but suprised that such a thing even needed to be sd. Or perhaps I was projecting something, or merely misinterpreting the look & stance.

Whatever the case, I know that I see Boston & other locales differently--my soft city has been affected--by John's poems {how can I not think of "Billie" when I see a sign for Revere Beach!?!} & the stories Jim Dunn has told me about John. John in his life traced paths around the city that we too sometimes have traced, are tracing, and will trace. Sometimes a few steps. Sometimes we follow him--separated only by time {only?}--for entire city blocks, perhaps matching him turn for turn. & his is but one soft city though one many of us care about deeply--even if we never knew him well.

Thinking about John's Boston has not only sent my mind into speculation about the Boston of others--Gerrit, my grandparents, Amanda before I knew her & while I've know her, many of you including friends now elsewhere--but I'm also mindful of Ulysses. Is it a form of false consciousness for me to be moved by walking along Gardiner Street, retracing the path of Leopold & Stephen? Or to visit the land upon which Joyce set the nighttown episode {though what is on that land has been greatly changed? What I am *remembering* is a fiction? Or are Joyce's own tracings of this land first w/ his feet & eyes & then w/ his remembering mind *enough*? I don't want to dismiss this question by saying it doesn't matter, what I felt I felt & can not change, etc. I {like Mike C. in a different way} want to grapple w/ this. I'm not explaining myself well & must get around to eating sometime soon but I could perhaps put it this way:

I'm somewhat haunted at the moment by Mike County's question: "Why should the closing of a supermarket make the eyes water?" When the supermarket goes part of our physical connection--standing in that supermarket picking out foods for dinner as John may have done--is gone. The ground remains & we may recall the paths he traced while standing on the ground but the connection is less vivid; what we physically experience through our immediate senses is now less like what John may have sensed while on the spot.

{Such erasures often, however, give us imaginative space though. We can--as poets--imagine a link between what was & what is or respond to the change in some other imaginative manner. Yesterday Gerrit confirmed for me that the Gloucester "Green" so important to the early settlement is now the main rotatry in town--Grant Circle--& part of the state highway system making it in someway not quite Gloucester anymore {or at least not exclusively *Gloucester* since the land belongs to the state too}. Obviously the implications are quite interesting. One could construct a response (a poem, etc.?) on those grounds, so to speak.}

So back to the Joyce question {I need to eat so I won't even get into the interwoven tracings of the Wandering Rocks section of Ulysses!}: marks of Joyce's soft city--born from the hard city: the topography, buildings, etc.--can be found in _Ulysses_. Or to put it another way: Ulysses_ is constructed upon a soft city which is itself based upon the hard city {Dublin} that any of us might visit. There are remnants still of Joyce's soft city & *all* of Joyce's soft city was founded upon the *ground*, though buildings may be gone. We feel closer--is this false?--by waking upon that ground & better still visiting places which might bear a more physical resemblance to his hard city. Thereby we hope to reconstruct {& even experience ourselves!}--as best we can--Joyce's soft city. Out of the intersection--the meeting--of the created city/the creator's soft city/& our own encounter w/ the hard city perhaps a new soft city is born.

This is a form of intimacy, no? A connection we might make w/ someone we've never known. Perhaps this is a non-electronic ghost intimacy? but not entirely spectral because there is an aspect of the experience that is physical... {Also, Is the intimacy false because it is not quite physically true & somewhat *imagined*--an act of creation? I don't **at all** think so but I do want to avoid self-delusion.} To return to Mike's question: we are saddened--we feel a loss--when the possible {or actual} site of an experience of intimacy--a supermarket, say--is destroyed.

I could go on about how I have been overwhelmed w/ sadness while visiting certain places--churches, say--because of a sudden feeling of loss {not necessarily loss of a person--as in a cemetery--but loss of a former version of oneself/someone else {though this might be seen as a form of losing a person} or loss of hope, belief, beauty, etc.

Again, thank you--Gerrit, Mark, and Mike--for starting these thoughts.)

I started this long ago. Now I will eat.

slan,
j.c.

Speech at the intersection of soft cities--in my kitchen {& around the pool table} in Gloucester on Saturday at the Grand Cafe in Somerville on Sunday--has sated my desire to write more {for the time being} about Bodas de Sangre. The gossip/arts section of the ghost city's near daily newspaper got scooped by scuttlebutt in the soft city. In other words, the play was brilliant but I'm all talked out.

{Warning: sports content.}
More brilliance: Pedro (the other San Pietro) & co. beat the Jays 9-4 yesterday. Friend Ben got tix off ebay so I was able to be there to watch the boys in red hose finally give Sr. Martinez a bit of run support.

Tomorrow Glasgow Celtic plays Manchester United in Seattle. There are now **four** Celtic supporter clubs in the Boston area. {At last check only Ontario has more & now w/ a new club in Salem maybe we've equalled the northern bhoys too.} Why didn't they play here? {Or in Ontario.} Guess they're expanding their supporter base... Regardless, I'm excited football is back. The first match that counts {a Champions League qualifier against a Lithuanian team} is next week. Start singing...
well it's a grand ole team to play for/& it's a grand ole team to cheer/& if/you know/you're 'istory/it's enough to make a heart go/fuck-the-Rangers/we don't care what the animals say/what the hell do we care/for we always know/that there's gonna be a show/& the Glasgow Cel'ic will be there/will be there/will be here/there/& every fuckin' where/for the Glasgow Cel'ic will be there.

After the Red Sox game yesterday,
{Sports content ended...}

picked up books at the Book Annex:
*The Selected Poems of Paul Blackburn
*Sweeney Astray, Seamus Heaney
*The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson {Have three different selected poems but no collected; I'd been looking for a used copy in good shape for nearly a year}
*Mexican Poetry: An Anthology, ed. Paz, trans. Beckett {Yes, that Beckett! I found a copy in Northampton earlier this year but didn't buy it. Then later in the winter I wanted to read it. Ach!}
*Poems and Antipoems, Nicanor Parra
*The Complete Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid (Vol 1 & 2)

& there was more I wanted to buy but didn't. Fiscal restraint? Hardly.

~
I was very happy to read the poems Mark posted on his weblog. {See sidebar for link. Some time soon I'll have to memorize how many hyphens are on either side of the 0. Is it ten?} I was a bit depressed, for various reasons, & Mark's poems provided surprising beauty in the movement of the human mind. A kind of dance, no? What poetry does that few other things can. Thanks Mark.
~
Mike County is moving to Gloucester.
~
Excellent conversation at Patrick & Ariane Doud's house Saturday night between Patrick, Ariane, Mitch Highfill, Zac {no "h"} Martin, Gerrit Lansing, and this reporter. {Gowan Doud made a few good points too.} The wide ranging conversation had two tethers: the (a)morality of humor & forgotten/overlooked/underappreciated poets/writers of the 20th century. Comments?

I'm off to meet a friend at the train station...

slan,
j.c.

Went to see Bodas de Sangre {Blood Wedding} in Chelsea last night. Amazing. The play was held in Mary O'Malley Park which is on the Mystic River. In the park I watched three futbol matches. Teams played on large boundry-less fields, each trying to hit the truck of a tree (marked by clothes hanging on the boughs. A few players were skilled & fit. Most were one or the other. Few if any fouls were called. The game was mostly about flow, though once the ball got near the marked tree the defenses (often seven or so backs) fell into a tight zone formation, making it very difficult for the attackers to squeeze the ball through. The players w/ the ball came up w/ some pretty inventive--if not always successful--solutions. Oh, & I forgot to mention that the trees were not necessarily in a line. They were just at opposite ends of the three large naturally shaped fields.

From the park I also saw various large freight carrying vessels. I could also see the Back Bay skyline.

But the play! The play!

The production of Bodas de Sangre (performed in Spanish, tonight it was to be performed in English but because of the rain earlier today they decided to hold it inside & by the time I got to the theatre there were no more seats--alas) took place in three locations w/in the park: on an outdoor stage (not raised), under some trees down toward the dock, & on the dock (w/ the Tobin Bridge looming ominously above us not a quarter mile off).

More comments still to come.

{For those interested--& I highly recommend the experience even for those w/o much Spanish since the plot is quite simple--the last show is tomorrow night at 730. Check out this link.}

New on the blurb blog...

This Creeley blurb (of sorts) was sent in by Jim Dunn. Creeley wrote it in response to a war poem by Jim.

Thinking of your thoughtful poem, I loved the classic line from Blake -- "Fire delights in its form..." -- which years later a friend told me came from Blake's French Revolution and referred to the gathering mob. But fires are lovely in that dancing as you say. Energy doesn't know what it's doing -- but it is, as Blake again says, "eternal delight." I guess it's up to us to keep the occasions specific. Onward!
~
Long conversation w/ Patrick Doud, Ken Irby, Gerrit Lansing & Chuck Stein last night about weblogs (& the internet more generally). Sparked by Mark Lamoureux's comments about the ghost city and ghost intimacy which interested both Gerrit & me. At the end of the post (Saturday 7/12), Mark asks the key question: "As the ghost city grows, does the soft city {one's experience of the city} shrink? Anyone?"

For me, not yet. My "soft city" continues to expand here in Gloucester & even more so in the Boston-area {though that hasn't been *my* city for eight years}. I've been talking to my grandmother, who grew up in Somerville, about her soft Somerville & comparing it to mine. {Again I'm a visitor--though a frequent one--& she lived there.} Perkins Street is my next Somerville destination. I also plan to walk from my greatgrandparents' first house in West Somerville (shared by relatives) to the next house in East Somerville (shared by even more relatives after layoffs). Here's to soft cities! I want to hear (either in the ghost city or the hard city) about yours!

My ghost city has expanded too. I read weblogs & visit websites created by people whom I will never meet anywhere but in text. This ghost city, however, serves a specific function in my life. When I'm working at home or at school, it provides a quick escape up into the friendly observation tower of a ghost city. The computer screen is a window out from my classroom box or study box onto the ghost polis. I peer over the shoulder of friends typing on their keyboards at home & work. I read the *underground newspaper* of the *ghost city* over the shoulder of commuters, profs, hipsters, grandmothers, immigrants, tourists, etc. in the ghost subway. (Jim's recent astral projection review of the Silliman/Berger reading was not entirely unlike something from the dream newspaper in Ben Katchor's Julius Knipel comics.) But then I set this world aside & return to grading papers or reading Italo Calvino's _Invisible Cities_ or driving/walking through the hard city. There are other escapes from the boxes. Opening a window onto the ghost city is one.

If given the choice I'd still much rather talk--eat, drink, walk, throw a frisbee on the Cambridge Commons, watch kids play with a box of toys at Gerrit Lansing's house, marching w/ tens of thousands through the Back Bay, etc.--in the hard city, while contemplating my (& guessing or asking about your) soft city than peer into the ghost city from my window in the observation tower. But there is a risk of spending more time w/ the later than w/ the former.

The risk of ghost intimacy is less real to me. My soft city (cities) is (are) filled w/ people w/ whom I am intimate in one way or another. Growing & changing intimacies keep this port city interesting--but I am also lucky to have a measure of stability too. I'm very thankful for this. I wonder what others think about all this. Mark's question is a very important one; it cuts to the heart of the polis.
O.K. off to the library: {an integral part of my soft city.}
~
Oh before I forget...I plan to return to the class thread at some point but I first want to read _The Hidden Injuries of Class_ which I've just borrowed.
~
&...
Lorca's Blood Wedding/Bodas de Sangre Free!!!
I plan to go tonight (for the original Spanish) & tomorrow night (for the English translation). I'm very excited! {Many thanks to Aaron Tieger for mentioning Macbeth on the commons--which reminded me of Bodas de Sangre on the Chelsea Waterfront--otherwise I'd've forgotten.

Here's the information:
These free performances of Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca are July 11-19, at 7:30pm. The production is staged environmentally in three locations in Mary O'Malley Park, Commandant's Way, on the Chelsea Waterfront (Admiral's Hill). English performances are Fri. July 11, Wed. July 16, and Fri. July 18. Spanish performances are Sat. July 12, Thurs. July 17, and Sat. July 19. In case of rain performances will be moved indoors to the Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St., Chelsea Square. For more information email us or call 617-887-2336.
~
from Blood Wedding
“This character does not appear in the cast.”


slan,
j.c.

This from Mike County in response to my Creeley blurb blog request.

Creeley on Bill Berkon's Serenade:

"Serenade manages to make a track of immaculate clarity through all the too familiar fogs of habit and human illusion. With generous affection and unflagging wit Bill Berkson never misses a step-or the words that, again, say it all"

On Joe Lease's Human Rights:

"...is a remarkable accomplishment, telling a complex story of human rites and their often painful authority with a range of resources any poet would be blessed to command. This singular book marks the beginning of what promise to be in all senses a brilliant career."

On Blackburn's Selected:

"...was the city poet par excellence....the range and authority of his own gifts, both as poet and translator, claim a company with Olson's, Duncan's, Levertov's....the power of his heart yields to none."

On Whitman's Leaves of Grass:

"Some really fucking long lines here. I enjoyed it, but liked the film better. Very human."

Would that it were so--that blurbs were like this last one...even sometimes.
slan