More Images from Resonance

Shouting

A recent visitor to the Resonance exhibit decided to use his or her own fat sharpie to respond to the sentence prompts on the walls. I wasn't there, but I saw the results today. It looks terrible. It looks like shouting. If I were a letterer in a comic book, this is how I would indicate a person who couldn't control the volume.

If these panels are metaphors for a public discussion about the arts, is this an indication of what can happen in a real discussion? Someone shouts? Someone, intentionally or not, makes his or her ideas louder than others? Should I simply let this go, because, hey, "This is what a discussion in real life might sound like?"Perhaps I should even feel a little bit of pride that the exhibit managed to recreate that aspect of real-life.

Or am I the director of a show? There is a significant element of performance to this show. Angela and I have talked about this. Are we not directing this space and the performance inside? Is the show called Cacophony, or is it called Resonance? Don't I have the authority to administer the hook or kill the lights if the plan begins to come apart?

I'm not asking for comments on this one readers. For me it comes down to intention. If this person intentionally wrote responses to be louder than everyone else's, than I will simply continue to wish upon them--for the next few days in which I purge this frustration--a short-lived mild flu or temporary skin rash. Petty, yes, I know. But man, that marker really hurts the aesthetic of the panels, and the world doesn't exactly need more blowhards these days. If this person made a mistake--people have been making all sorts of funny aesthetic missteps in this exhibit--I'll simply smile and hope that people still feel like buying a few of these panels anyway.

Of course, there's no reason why someone who buys a panel can't simply remove this response and replace it with another.

And, I'm also reminded of another saying that goes something like this: the arguing and the hand-writing is never so intense as when the stakes are so low.

As obnoxious as it is, I think the ugly marker stays up.

A Nice Feeling of Satisfaction

The show I'm working on with Angela Colasanti, Resonance, opened last night and it was a blast. I wrote detailed reactions over at the Resonance Artworks blog.

It's been a while since I've had writing out in the public sphere. It feels good. I had fun at the opening, and it seems as though visitors did too.


Perhaps more importantly, we achieved one of the goals of the show--to make art out of a public conversation about the arts.

Angela is the best partner a writer could ask for. She made this project great. I can't thank her enough for taking me on this ride that began in May.

Thanks to everyone who contributed last night. If you still want to interact with this exhibit--or if you just want see this for yourself--the gallery is open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. There's more information at studiobbb.org

Next stop: The Closing Reception on the 9th. Doors open at 5PM. Doors close late.

Just Six Days to the Opening of Resonance

With the exhibit less than a week away, I feel that it's time for another update.

The panels are almost complete and the marketing is done. If you receive a postcard, note that reception is listed as ending at 9PM. It won't. I think we might be there fairly late.

Here is a photo of me sanding a panel last week. And, yes, that's a decades-old Arts Expo t-shirt courtesy of Mark Stupak's artistically inclined hands. I'm dressed a little more professionally here in this television interview on BCTV.

The interview was a great way to talk about the exhibit and the arts in the public sphere. I owe thanks to Nick Lawrence and BCTV for providing us with this opportunity. The guests included Jane Stahl (representing Studio B), Jenny Hershour (representing Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania), and my partner on this project, Angela Colasanti.

We're really happy to have the support of Citizens for the Arts in PA. Programs like the Governor's Schools for the Arts might not return, but Hershour's organization works to support many other great arts initiatives in the public sphere.

The show opens Friday, August 26th at 5PM in Boyertown, Pennsylvania.

The gallery is open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays (other days by appointment). For more information about the exhibit, the gallery, gallery hours, and directions visit Studio B at studiobbb.org.

An Entry About the Sponsors of Resonance: Speaking for the Arts

The past three weeks have vanished in a storm of preparation for the exhibit. There was the interview on BCTV, purchasing the last of the materials, putting the finishing touches on all of the written material, and securing our sponsors. This post is about those sponsor organizations that have allowed me to do this great big exhibit with Angela.

Our sponsors are all locally owned businesses that reflect the values that Angela and I hope to celebrate with this exhibit. I'm talking abut the values of civic engagement, generosity, and communication.

For example, Citadel is a credit union—as a customer with as little as five dollars in a savings account, you are a member of this financial institution, and you have a say in important decisions. Can a financial institution reflect democracy? It can if it’s a credit union. citadelbanking.com

E.G. Landis Jewelers has been a part of our area’s economy for sixty years, and their financial support was generous and helpful. eglandisjewelers.com

Everything Postal and Printing supported us by printing a few critical banners and posters. everythingpostal.com

Penn Valley Construction provided us with a donation, and they have provided the region with highly respected masonry work for over thirty years. They can be reached at 610-896-7910.

A.D. Moyer Lumber, a pillar of a community business for decades, donated some critical materials for our panels. And, I recently learned from a trusted source that their Gilbertsville location helped out a neighbor who was building a wheelchair ramp. admoyer.com

And of course, the marvelous Studio B donated their space so that the entire region could express their feelings about art in their lives. studiobbb.org

The Manatawny Creek Winery is even helping us! Every community needs to relax now and then, no? manatawnycreekwinery.com

I guess what I'm trying to do here, is to say the following:

Making art is a tough business, and supporting it doesn’t make you any money. These organizations were generous, but they can’t afford to be Santa Claus all the time. Please take the time to consider using one of these great organizations for one of your future endeavors.

Dave Kessler

Huzzah, my friend Dave is working on a documentary and he's asked me to do some writing!

I don't want to jinx it by writing too much about the documentary or my part in it just yet, but here's a link to a page Dave created.

This documentary will be a collaborative effort, but Dave's vision is guiding all of us--I'm thrilled!

Ed Sabol

I think this is going to be a new section to the blog. The "lost entry" section can be amusing, but it doesn't cover those situations when I simply take two, three or four weeks to write about something that I've been meaning to write about. I think I'll call it "Running Late."

Innovative filmmaker, Ed Sabol was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on August 6th.

Coming from a large extended family of football fans, I grew up watching football frequently. It wasn't every Sunday and Monday, but it was close. And, as cable television expanded in the 1970s and 80s into the suburbs around Philadelphia, the number of channels on which I could watch sports highlights also expanded. Not that I was a big sports fan. I didn't have the discipline, size, or stamina to play. I also lacked the ability to stay focused--an important skill to have if one is going to be a serious fan.

What I did have was a set of working eyeballs, a pulse, and a brain susceptible to the cinematic rhetoric of Ed Sabol.

Sabol's ability to put together to moving images from critical angles, in slow motion and accompanied with a score designed to inspire feelings of heroism, competition, and struggle, made my heart race.

Here's an NFL Films look at the Dallas-Philadelphia rivalry. And, here's an NFL Films look at Philadelphia fans. I love it when Peter Nero, conductor of the orchestra, talks about a concert-goer wearing an earpiece so he can hear the game score as he listens to the orchestra on a Sunday afternoon. Of course, there's also this quote from Mark Bowden of the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Philadelphia Fans love football in a really dark and disturbing way. . ."

NFL Films apparently also knows how to do research.

Newsworks.org, the new WHYY news initiative here in Philadelphia, has this list of best NFL Films.

A Good Short Story for the Summer

CutBank, a cool literary magazine out of Missoula, Montana, just published its 75th issue. I recommend my friend Anne Ray's story, "Novio, Novia." You can buy issue 75 for ten dollars. It will be delivered to your residence. I make the additional claim that you will enjoy it.

Ray's story about a college girl trapped in a crappy summer job at the intersection of multiple cultures is funny, engrossing, and at times even a little anxiety-inducing. And, it's perfect reading for this hot summer we've been having. I love it. The craft is elegant but not distracting--it's as though you're immersed in a clear stream of narrative. In fact, when I picked it up off my nightstand this morning, it sucked me in so quickly and so thoroughly that I forgot to make my usual morning pot of coffee. Ray's story won CutBank's Montana Prize in Fiction.

You can buy it here through submishmash: http://cutbank.submishmash.com/submit/6242/account

Silent New York

On July 30th, I had the fortune of being in a strange and wonderful theatrical experiment, Silent New York. Playwright Matthew Freeman invited me to be in the show only a few days earlier, but he assured me there were no lines to learn, no blocking to learn—my part in this production was to simply be onstage as myself. When I received the complete “script” from Freeman, I saw what he meant.

In fact, “no lines to learn" was basically a commandment. There was to be no speaking, and it applied to hand gestures, facial expressions, taps, etc. My job as a participant was to be onstage for approximately ten minutes, and in that ten minutes I could stand, kneel, dance, sit, huddle under the desk onstage: whatever I wanted to do, so long as I didn't speak. I could stand and stare at a member of the audience, and if giggling or squirming developed in either me or the audience member, so be it. But, the point of my presence on stage was to simply be present. Yes, in a way I was “in dialog” with the audience, but at a level more primitive than speaking, even in Freeman’s broad interpretation.

The “script” went on to indicate that I was one of six people in the show: in addition to an announcer, there would be five other people that Freeman knew. Each of us would be announced, walk onstage, be present in that stage space for ten minutes, be thanked by the announcer, and then we would exit the stage. Our direction was to simply be ourselves in that space. I entertained the notion of getting some work done on my blackberry, but that was forbidden too. My job was to be on stage and be stared at by an audience.

I told you it was strange. But, it was also wonderful. When it was my turn on stage, I did a few different things, but I settled into one pose that felt very natural: standing with my big gut stretching my shirt out (I’ve been eating too much junk food this summer) and my hands resting on top of my gut, just below my heart. I stared at the back row of the theater, but I couldn’t ascertain faces. In the days leading up to the show, I had thought about doing many different things, but this was not one of them. However, after a few minutes on stage, it was just what overcame me. It felt right. What the audience was thinking, I didn’t know. I was just trying to find some comfortable space in which to be myself. When I did, I was happy.

As Freeman admitted in the script, Silent New York was more of an experiment. It was based on, and I’m paraphrasing here, the hypothesis that people in and of themselves—devoid of performance, entertainment value, gadgets, skill, eloquence--are worthy of appreciation. Not study, not examination--appreciation. The audience, asked to look at an individual sitting in a chair, or staring at the lights, standing in a corner, or sipping water, will at some point in that ten minutes—if only for a moment--consider that out there, on stage, is a real person. There’s a wonderful compassion, even love, in this simple experiment.

I had a friend tell me once, that he was concerned for the future of the students he was teaching. He basically said that many of them, not all, seemed to regard everyone around them as starring in a video that was either entertaining them (or not). What I love about Silent New York is that it responds, and to some degree rejects, the idea that everyone around us is only one event away from starring in a youtube video.

Yes, for a long, long time, audiences have been asked to recognize the inherent humanity in others, to appreciate their fellow humans, but Silent New York makes it a kind of strange exercise. I use the word exercise carefully here. I bet it was difficult for some to sit there and stare at someone not doing anything intentionally interesting for ten minutes, for ten minutes at someone simply being. It would be difficult for me to concentrate. But, I also think it must have been fascinating and weird. And that’s a good thing. We have, as a culture, travelled so far down into this cave where we see other humans as mere entertainment, it will be work to climb that distance back to the opening where humans are complex and special.

Full disclosure, Matthew Freeman is a friend of mine. I would have participated in this project for anyone who asked, and I would have seen the value in this project regardless of who organized it; I think I just came to these to actions more quickly for my friend.

If you attended Silent New York, please share your thoughts. If you were an audience member, what were some of the thoughts you had throughout the evening? If you were on stage, what was it like for you?

Privacy and Hotel Guest Lists

I can't afford a nice long vacation this summer, so a few short get-aways have become the substitute--and the conclusion of one get-away lodged itself in my conscience. I hope this post can help me work through it.

As I was checking out of my hotel, standing at the front desk signing paperwork, I overheard a local police officer ask the manager for a list of all the guests staying in the hotel for the upcoming week. The manager politely told the officer that she couldn't do that. The officer kept asking. The manager kept politely refusing. Once I signed the bill and sealed the maid's tip in an envelope, I felt like I should go.

This is why I'm writing this post. I felt like I should have said something, but I had little authority in this situation. As someone fascinated with privacy in our society (how we imagine it, define it, use it, abuse it, trade it, etc.) I wanted to offer my opinion. But what exactly was my opinion? My gut told me to tell the manager to stand her ground--that those guests had entered into a private business transaction with her hotel, and she had an obligation to those customers to protect their privacy. From another perspective, the hotel is in control of the names in its registry; is it much different from an old-fashioned registry on a counter? Perhaps it has the right to decide what it does with those names. Furthermore, if there truly is a security issue, perhaps the hotel has an obligation to the community to assist the police? But what evidence did the office have to show that the public safety or security was at risk and that this action was critical to protecting that? Then again, if there is a crime being investigated, perhaps the police can simply get a warrant for this information? Again, though, my interest in privacy is that of the amateur academic.

In the book Understanding Privacy, author Daniel Solove argues that privacy should not be conceptualized as the "individual" versus the "collective." He argues that privacy exists precisely because the collective recognizes the benefits and importance of privacy. Solove uses that point to argue that, therefore, we should conceptualize privacy differently: as a set of "protections against a plurality of distinct but related problems...information collection...information processing...information dissemination...invasion." Solove argues that this is a rhetorical shift away from trying to come to a common definition of privacy, with an agreed upon boundary, into which an issue must distinctly fall inside or outside. Instead, we are now free to talk about problems. And, yes, we still get to discuss whether a specific situation in the real world would be a privacy problem or not, but as Solove claims, this allows us to focus on what makes something a problem: harms (who or what was harmed? in what ways? to what degree? etc.)

For me, what I appreciate most from Solove's book is that in its closing pages he shows that this conceptualization of privacy is good for addressing systemic harms. He shows that, to a fault, U.S. law asks individuals to provide concrete evidence of injury regarding privacy issues. He suggests that that procedure allows too many important privacy problems to be ignored on the basis of receipts of payments made to a therapist (or lack thereof). Conversely, his conceptualization of privacy allows the courts (and legislatures) to consider how ways of life, behaviors, systems of interaction at the individual, group, and societal level are harmed in ways that are subtle, yet critically relevant and important.

In my gut, what I overheard at that hotel makes me conflicted. It seems that the cops were trying to catch criminals. That's good. As for me? I was checking out; I can't show injury. That's good, too. And, the upcoming guests of that hotel--if their names or other information were turned over to that officer were they all going to be rounded up and interrogated? No. So, can they show injury? But, and this is where Solove comes in, would something have been harmed if the hotel turned over all of those names? In my opinion, yes. The trust we place in a business transaction, the upfront way in which we fight crime, the balance we, as citizens, seem to feel between the ideas of "the long arm of the law" and our "that's-none-of-your-business" attitude--all of those realities become, to a degree, harmed by an act like this.

The other irony here, is perhaps too obvious. If the officer and the manager had only spoken privately. . .

There's humor in that, no?

In Honor of Burger King

A friend just told me that the Burger Kings in her area have veggie burgers. In response to this news, I want to honor Burger King's commitment to irony. Please enjoy the photo to your left. Yes, that's a defibrillator. Of course, this is a Burger King near Philadelphia. Here we are buried in cheese steak-lined coffins.

Recalling the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts

Let me tell you about a dream I had last night--no doubt inspired by this artistically-fulfilling summer I'm having. I was my seventeen-year-old self leafing through a book of poetry in a classroom at Mercyhurst college. It was a sunny afternoon sometime during my five-week enrollment in the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts. In the book I found a poem that directly spoke to the project I'm working on now--a poem that I actually only found two months ago. It was a moment of two realities coming together at a critical place in my past. All at once I was overjoyed--yet at peace. I woke up, made coffee, and recalled that the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts, actually none of the Pennsylvania Governor's Schools of Excellence, are in existence any more at any college in Pennsylvania. The program was terminated in 2009. I won't get into the politics of it here; I just want to note how successful it was. I can't name a single alum from PGSA not doing something amazing right now in the Arts or Sciences. The creative and problem-solving skills taught there served the students well. It's a loss to our state--to our nation--that that incubator for high school students with merit (not money) is no longer with us. As issues of money and art swirl in my head these days, I post this with the hope that a few of you PGSA alumni might post a short tale about an important/critical moment from your time there. Bittersweet nostalgia? Perhaps. Or maybe we'll have the schools back someday soon. Cheers.

Preparations Continue

The show I'm working on with Angela Colasanti (pronounced Cola-Sahntee) is going well. Saturday was a productive day. We tied-off the loose ends of design in the morning. That left us all afternoon to build.






And build we did. It's quite a wonderful change to work on something creative by using old-fashioned elbow grease rather than fingers on a keyboard.







Plus, all of the pieces in the show will have some amount of recycled product in them. Sure I use recycled paper in my printer, but there's nothing like scavenging for materials. Yes, old fence slats. I like the symbolism. More about that at the show.

Flirtation amidst Foreboding

This poem by CJ Evans, "Even the Smallest Paradise," impresses the hell out of me. I love the compression--love it. I love the way Evans focuses our attention in this narrative on the small trappings of order and decorum--and contrasts them to the larger symbols of change (and it doesn't seem like a good change) from the skies. The society that these trappings help symbolize is soon to be upset. Yes, we've all seen this scene in war films/action films dozens of times--often overwrought and often flavored with a hint of "They're about to get theirs!" But, here, we have Evans evoking something similar but more complex (do these people deserve what's coming?), in what, how long is this, 75 words? Wonderful. Thanks, Poetry Daily. And, thank you, Indiana Review.

Life on Mars

I've always been in love with space exploration. If I had possessed the discipline for overcoming the challenges I faced in the math classroom, I would have loved to work as an engineer in the aerospace industry.

I imagine that in an alternate reality, this Marshall exists. This would be a more mathematically-disciplined Marshall, who places his time and energy into an object that left the shores of Earth. Asleep, he would often have fitful dreams about the mission/about the object. Awake, he would follow the mission closely and he would often smile considering what knowledge humanity was adding to its universities, it colleges, it schools--considering how humanity was exploring for exploration's sake.

In this reality, I held onto space exploration only as a news item or long-form article that catches my attention and demands to be read over breakfast, or at lunch. I decided years ago to put my intellectual energies--small as they are--into writing. I found that I got a fair amount of pleasure in struggling to find the write words to express myself accurately. I learned to whittle long and ugly expressions, into ones short and elegant. I studied poetry. I studied how to teach writing. I used these skills to make a living. What it would have been like to work for NASA or JPL? I don't know, but I think about it.

I think about it mostly when I talk to my brother. My brother works in a lab that studies the ways in which light affects the endocrine system. The lab gets some funding, sometimes, from those organizations I mentioned. My brother even constructed a moonlight machine. It simulates, roughly he would say, the wavelength of light on the moon's surface--as though you stood there. He's not in space no, but I envy him. A moonlight machine.

All of this is to explain how excited I was to hear poet Tracy K. Smith read from her latest book, Life on Mars, last Friday on the PBS Newshour. Poetry. Space. I think I squealed. I love Smith's work for reasons that I won't go into here, and I know that's not much of a pitch, but I encourage you to buy and read her books. Jeffrey Brown interviewed her for a great segment. Here's video of the segment, and this link is web-only content of Smith reading her poems and talking about her work. As the shuttle program closes over the next few days, please re-consider the line between good art and good science. They share at least two qualities: discipline and exploration.

Spectacular Splitleaves Press

For me, one of the best things to come out of Drexel's Week of Writing during the last week in May, was the chance to meet the head of Splitleaves Press. (We got a chance to chat at Ladder 15 during Philadelphia's first Literary Death Match--organized by Painted Bride Quarterly.) Splitleaves is a new independent press in Philly. It's small, but it's doing good things and publishing cool releases. The truth is, a graphic designer that truly understands printing can take a good collection of poems and make it great. This press understands that. And, this press understands that the future of poetry isn't necessarily at chain bookstores, SP's work is carried at independent bookstores across the city. Bravo to Splitleaves Press.

A Week Since Ai Weiwei's Release, and Where Are Things?

Yesterday, the Newshour's Jeffrey Brown posted this interview with filmmaker Alison Klayman. Her upcoming documentary film on Ai has given her some access to the artist, and she has some updates on his situation.

It's better, he's out of detention, but it's still not good. According to the website of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (I found this group in an article by Human Rights Watch) this was most likely part of a larger crackdown against activists, writers, lawyers in light of fears of a jasmine-style revolution taking hold in China.

A friend of mine once asked me if individuals can suffer from paranoia, why not state entities? What would that look like?

Sorry folks, but as Independence Day approaches my mind is on liberty and human rights.

In my earliest memory of the arts, I am. . .

For those of you who know me in real life, a few of you know that I am working on a visual art project with my long-time friend, Angela Colasanti. We had our fourth (or was it fifth?) meeting yesterday and things seem to be going well. Actually, it's difficult to downplay my enthusiasm for this little endeavor of ours: things are going extremely well and our first official announcement is only a month away. The project combines my respect for words with my respect for activism, and if we pull this off, it could mean more exciting projects in the future. You'll here more about this project in the coming weeks. For now, mark your calendars for the evening of August 26th and September 9th.

And, how would you complete this sentence?

In my earliest memory of the arts, I am. . .

Lost Entry from May 23rd

From notes I scribbled down in my phone, and later, in another journal.

Longwood Gardens. My favorite room in the elaborate and palatial greenhouse is a room with enormous vaulted ceilings of glass and steel that fade away into the sky, above the true center and spirit of the room: an enormous marble pool--grey and silver--perhaps as large as an Olympic pool. Filled ever so slightly with just a coating of shimmering water, the pool nourishes clusters of ferns, orchids and small trees. That shimmer, that was what moved me. I yearned to walk down the stars into the pool and to walk on that film of shimmering water. There was a wooden bench in one tree-shaded cluster, a fern on one side, room for one to sit on the other. I could have spent an afternoon on that bench, by the fern, and under the shade of the tree, tapping my foot. Sending ripples out. All afternoon. A whole afternoon. Honestly.

Lost Entry from May 22nd

It's late Sunday night. I'm taking a break from the task of preparing for a short reading tomorrow at Drexel University. I'll be reading as part of a "marathon reading" where poets, fiction writers, and essayists read their work, one after another, all day long. There will be short breaks for the audience, and each reader will take questions from the audience. I am making a few notes about artist Ai Weiwei and poet Bei Dao so that I can bring attention to the work of writers and artists who are suffering for human rights. Ai Weiwei was arrested by the Chinese government on April 3rd for charges that only exist in paranoid and oppressive countries. Ai is an activist, trying to bring attention to social problems in China--problems that when simply spoken of often put him at odds with the government. Or, from their perspective, he is the social problem. Ai's story is a fascinating one: an artist who designed the most noted structure at the Beijing Olympics--the pride of the Chinese Government--is now under arrest. I plan to use part of my time during the marathon tomorrow to read three poems by Chinese activist and exile, Bei Dao, and a quote from Ai Weiwei's TED talk--his talk was actually delivered via a pre-recorded video that managed to make it out of China to the TED talks. Bei Dao's work is available online through a SALT / Jacket co-issue published in July of 2001. Here's Weiwei's quote.

"You need people who can act, who can give-up their opinions, who can talk to the young people, to try to find a way to encourage people to be involved. Only when you are doing that, can you have a civil society."

Orr Reviews Books from Matthew Zapruder and Rachel Wetzsteon

I don't have much to say here; Orr compliments their work and gives praise where praise is deserved. From the poetry section, April 22nd: "How Poets Achieve Their Styles"

the Lost Entry of March 18th

While spring-cleaning my phone last night, I found these notes (typed in 3/18 apparently). It was St. Patty's Day. I had taken the afternoon off to catch-up with a cousin I hadn't seen in a while. We had a few beers, traded stories, it was good. I typed parts of this into my phone while we were hanging out, and I typed the rest the next morning on the train.



Frontier Psychiatrist--
My cousin and I took an afternoon off to catch up. It's been awhile. He showed me the video for Frontier Psychiatrist (the MTV version is still floating around youtube). It brought back memories of how much fun it was to be pop-music lover during the crazy sampling days of the 90s and 00s. Pandora has a "Frontier Psychiatrist" station--not that one would ever catch that song on Pandora, but hey, the songs are fairly relevant. "You've got Maelstrom" by BlockHead on Music by Cavelight. The samples here include voice-work from a comic-book record--one of the Marvel or DC super-hero stories by a Power Records released in the 70s. I'm sure of it.

You know what, let's just do a running list of what I'm listening to. Bees on Mars now. Good stuff from TM Juke's album Forward. Then again, heroin can be good stuff too. So is a bottle of scotch. A pitcher of White Russian is good stuff too. DJ Shadow now.

There is a firm new way of being in the world now--the personal movie soundtrack. After 35 years (let's begin with the sony walk-man), it's easy now, almost expected that at certain times, all of us will want to have a clear helmet of music descend around our heads, and the sidewalks and streets turn into a backdrop--a landscape of faces only inches from us, but filtered through the soundscape of another planet.

I've been living this way for about two months now. I'm not sure there's anything wrong with this. Unless, of course, one doesn't know when to turn off the music and live more presently in the world.

Yes.

Deltron 3030.

Our Story Begins

I'm reading Tobias Wolff's 2008 collectionOur Story Begins. It opens with "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs." What a great story. The metaphor about higher education's glass ceiling's ability to cut/to hurt/to destroy is brilliantly delivered. It should be required reading for those in academe. Considering how I was exposed to it, perhaps it already is. And, considering the recent gains of women in academia, perhaps the use of the word Garden to describe academia is no longer a darkly ironic symbol. Or at least, not as dark.

"Bullet in the Brain" is also in here. Perhaps the most innovative way to develop a character, ever.

Eight Weeks

The past eight weeks have been some of the most exhausting of my life. So this post will be short. A thank you to the Band. You all were tremendously supportive with insightful criticism and suggestions on the draft of my chapbook. Hats off to you.

More from AWP: the poems of Morton Marcus

I thought I should share with you--to review, in a away--these excerpts from poems by Morton Marcus. Marcus died last year, and in his honor there was a memorial panel for the man and his work. I was not familiar with Marcus's work until this session. I was glad I went. White Pine Press was there (a good press recognizing good work), along with other poets (Gary Young for one), and Brian Clements was there representing the journal Sentence. Marcus's wife and other friends were also in attendance.

Before I begin, I must say that I found Marcus's work rich and deep in a transcendent way. For as easy as it is to enter (and be in) his poems, leaving the poem behind is not easy. His poems acquire that resonant frequency that hums in my mind after I have finished reading. And this also happened for me while listening to his poems--as it should. Many poets spoke to Marcus's ability to mentor and respect them as they grew into poetry. Clements had the funniest story. He explained how, as an editor, he had at first rejected a submission of Marcus's work. Marcus resubmitted a few weeks later with a note, that, according to Clements read, "That's ok. You'll come around." Many attested to his warmth and generosity, and I've found that in his work.

Here's a bit from Marcus's last book--something he worked on during the last years of his life. Not a collection of previously published work, the book is, as several on the panel attested, his best work. Here is an excerpt from the title poem to The Dark Figure in the Doorway. Marcus has focused on a single figure in the background of Diego Velazquez's painting Las Meninas.

...
the Spanish Golden Age
will sink into oblivion.
But like the figure
in the doorway,
we hesitate today,
caught between yesterday
and tomorrow, aware
as never before
that we stand with one foot
in the painting
and one foot out,
sure only of this moment
when we look into the room
where the king and queen
pose for the painter
who stands with his back
toward us,

Here we have a poem that, at first glance might be making some amateur moves--using a universal we, writing about a painting, centering a poem in the middle of a page--but it actually needs these moves help an audience think about what is comfortable and familiar--and to perhaps wake them from that trance. Marcus aids the audience in meditating on the dichotomies that we prescribe to our lives. Throughout the poem, in lines beyond the scope of this post, the reader is asked to examine near/far, public/private, powerful/weak, alive/dead, artist/non, our perspective/the other, doing/being, and on and on. A person in a doorway. Leaving? Entering? Being? All of those possibilities and their implications unfold in Marcus's poem. Spiritual? Yes. Boring? No.

Ok, here's one for Valentine's Day. Excerpts from "3 Poems that Make You Beautiful"

1.
Something--your hands
rummaging for dishes beneath the foam
while the white enameled stove
outlines the slope of your butt
...
That moment, that something,
when you raise your arms
and lift, shiny from the foam,
the dazzling edge of a plate.

2.
There is a loveliness
that goes as it comes:
water shadows, for one,
or your smile, darling,
...

3.
All over the apartment,
...
the looping pencil-lines of hair:
on desk, bathtub, dresser drawer--
...
so that your presence
would be with me
when I bathed, ate,
or wrote a poem.

If you're interested in more of Morton Marcus's work, go to White Pine Press.

The best-laid schemes...

Yes, astute reader, you may have noticed that I did not have those daily updates. The conference was more helpful and productive than I imagined--time to blog about it vanished. More on that soon. For now, dear readers, I will say this:

One can never have too large of a gathering of literary journals and small presses. Really. It just seems to get bigger ever year, and somehow they all still fit. It's like the Tardis.

and

Favorite Panel: The Essayist in the 21st Century. I felt this was incredibly relevant coming on the heels of Lapham's recent retirement of the Notebook section--and the final essay that occupied that last spot. Organizer: Randon Noble. If you get a chance to hear her/read her, do it.

I'm Off to AWP's Conference in Washington Tomorrow

These east coast meetings are a blast. New York in 2008 was insanely fun. I picked up Tracy K. Smith's second book, listened to Jan Beatty, heard an incredible panel on the writings of military service personnel, was enthralled by a panel on the writings of Mexican-Americans, and on and on. The book fair featured plenty of small presses from around the country, but there was a huge turn-out from innovative and creative presses around New York (especially in Brooklyn). All that, and I got a chance to see many of my friends from the writing programs at Carnegie Mellon and Pitt.

This year the schedule is packed with exciting presentations and panels--I still haven't decided what I will be attending. That said, I will spend some time at book fair. There are several small presses here in Philly that I haven't had the chance to talk to, and there are several journals that might like my work (I like their work, so we'll see, won't we?). I'll be updating the blog at least once a day with my notes from throughout the day.

If you're there, please stop by the Painted Bride Quarterly event on Thursday night. I'll be promoting other small presses tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

David Mills, Poet Extraordinaire!

Wow--I got a chance to see David Mills read some of his work yesterday at events in Philadelphia. It was a blast. Mills's work is engaging, full of energy, honest directness, compassion, and stunning imagery. One of his short poems even had a story that was mythical in its dimensions--amazing stuff. And, it's time to be honest with ourselves, it's not every writer who knows how to hold a live audience. Mills has extensive training as an actor, and he understands the difference between performance poetry and being able to perform poetry. His latest book is The Dream Detective. Fun stuff.

Messages from the Future!

Many of us have this feeling that the way we experience time is not the way time actually exists. And now here's an experiment--two actually--that have produced some almost sci-fi (or is that psy-fi?) results about time-traveling information. Here's more from Radiolab's Robert Krulwich.

Weird, huh? Well, I can't let this go untested, can I?

Every morning I talk to myself about the previous day, or I should say that I talk to my yesterday morning-self. My past self has a heads-up and an encouraging message about the day ahead. My present self is upbeat and, at some level, prepared for what will happen during the day about to unfold. And, my future self is getting out of bed and leaving me a message.

I do not believe that I am crazy.

Things You Need to Write

Freeman tells you what you need to write a play. It has an uncanny resemblance to what one needs to write poetry.

The Eagles 2010 Season Comes to a Close

Yes, I care. Sue me. This season--where, back in September everyone called this season a "rebuilding year," where the fans believed that the team wouldn't do more than have a few more wins than losses, where (in the pre-season) the team saw its best quarterback move to a rival team and then lost to that rival and then whupped that rival, where the team relied on a third string ex-con quarterback who took more punishment week after week than a boy at a British boarding school to keep winning game after game and place the team as NFC East Champs--was one of the greatest narratives in Eagles season history. Now it's over. My dreams of an all-Pennsylvania Superbowl fade yet again.

And yes, it ended in a familiar way. The team wasn't crushed by a superior defense. A superior opponent didn't take the team down. In the last minute of the game, our quarterback threw an interception instead of a game-winning touchdown. It's called choking. Like sometimes happens at wedding receptions--you know, weddings. Where there are bridesmaids. Bridesmaids who feel like they will always be bridesmaids, never...

My Phone Company Rocks

I've been with a phone company known as Working Assets for about 10 years now. I love them and I want to praise them. Working Assets is a phone company with progressive values. Back in 2000, when many companies were still on the fence about same-sex domestic partner benefits, Working Assets was fully committed to the practice. Fast forward to this past year: Working Assets donated over two million dollars to progressive charities.

It boils down to this: I love the fact that my phone company takes an active role in fighting for what I believe in. Unlike AT&T and Verizon, Working Assets does not donate money to politicians who are pro-war, anti-environment, anti-pro-choice, anti-universal health care. Working Assets prints their bills on recycled paper using soy-based ink. Yes.

Some details about the structure: Working Assets does long distance, but the mobile phone service part of its business is known as CREDO. There's also a credit card arm, and there's an arm known as the action network (a blog, facebook page, etc.).

Some details about the charitable giving: In addition to the money regularly donated by this corporation, whenever one pays a bill from Working Asetts or CREDO he or she can choose to round-up the payment to the nearest dollar, five-dollar, or ten dollar mark. That portion will be donated to a charity pool. At the end of the year, all working Assets customers vote on where the money in that pool goes. It's fun.

It feels good to crow about this company. Working Assets is not afraid to inform, write letters, and organize petition drives. The company has a commitment to democracy that's invigorating. If corporations have even more power these days, this is a corporation using its power for good causes. This is a corporation I can do business with.

Borders

Yes, I'm discussing the store that sells books. In 2009, when the company was going through a quite a bit of re-organizing, there was also a change in the atmosphere of selling at the store. I can only speak of the three Borders that I frequented, but it honestly seemed more important for booksellers to be friendly and pushy than to be knowledgeable. New faces appeared to sell me things, but their knowledge of genres and authors wasn't so hot. It was sad. Book retailing is just a difficult business, and it seemed like these were the death throws of a company--and a way of buying books.

2010, I am happy to say, brought a different atmosphere. The stores I frequent are no longer just pushing merchandise. There are booksellers, and they are selling books. It reminds me of a story heard on Marketplace a few weeks back that reported on businesses returning to old-fashioned customer service. While retail has had, and (with the death of wages tied to commission) will continue to have, those who are simply "point of sale transaction administrators," many businesses are returning to old-fashioned sales techniques to retain (and gain) customers. That is, knowing your wares, knowing your customers, and connecting your customers to what they want (or didn't know they wanted). Kudos to Borders for recognizing that the store had lost its way, and for returning to what matters.

I still purchase many books online, but if I'm just browsing, my local Borders stores have returned to a way of selling books that I thought was going to disappear.

Thinking About Corporations

With the new 2011 congress chocked full of of Republicans determined to slash spending on government programs that control, to some degree, the massive amount of power corporations already possess, and with year-end retrospectives focusing on the Supreme Court's decision to allow corporations the right to donate to politicians as human beings might, I thought it time to get around to two posts on corporations that I've been meaning to write for a while. Stay tuned.