Happy 50th Anniversary Mom & Dad
Today's my parent's 50th anniversary, madness i say. If i got married today I'd have to live to be 87 to make 50 years, and i don't see either of those happening. It's such a great love theirs is, one i want for myself someday.
Friday, February 27, 2004
Sunday, February 22, 2004
On Skimming through “Nice to See You: Homage to Ted Berrigan” or Marrying an Artist
On page 78
there is a plate, #20,
a black-and-white photograph of a beautiful woman I’ve
never seen before,
and Ted Berrigan.
He has on a 3-piece, pinstriped suit, with a dark shirt
and a tie done in what appears to be a Windsor knot
(though the angle is not very good,
and I’m not quite certain,
though it does look too wide to be anything other
than a Windsor knot).
Ted is on the young woman’s left,
his wayfarer-framed eyes angled rightward.
He takes her in,
focuses on the sheer white fabric at rest on her hair,
that appears to be a veil,
(though the angle is very good,
and I’m not quite certain,
though the photo caption tells me it is a veil, definitely).
The caption:
“20. Ted Berrigan escorting Angelica Heinegg to her wedding at
St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery, 1968.
Ted gave the bride away to Tom Clark.”
I grab a small sheet of memo paper,
And write:
CANDACE
I’d like
To marry
You here
Love, David
and bookmark the photo with my note,
take care of some small press details,
and shut the lights.
It’s almost 6am on Saturday,
so I change the alarm to 12:10pm,
to leave enough time to check the p.o. box before the
attended windows shut down,
and there’s no way to claim a package until Monday December 19,
the day before our first shared birthday together.
—you will be 22, I will be 28.
And I adjust my sleep position,
lay on my stomach, head beneath two pillows,
then to same position, except head on top of the pillows,
to how I’ve slept with you on your one-board broken futon
the past seven weeks,
I face Fifth Street and lay on my left side,
you face Sixth Street and lay on your right,
before I turn to Sixth Street with you,
my left arm draped ’round your belly.
Through all four of these different attempts at sleep without you
in my parents’ Long Island home,
I think about marrying you at St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery
(I have always liked those dashes, by the way,
In dash the dash Bowery).
Typical American society mandates a proscribed period of courtship,
followed by an engagement of a suitable length, and then marriage.
The whole lengthy and drawn out process sucks the emotion out,
feeds the wedding planners coffers.
In the end, I’ve never wanted a big wedding.
I wanted it outdoors,
like one my sister attended in Santa Rosa in the early ’80s.
All the men wore black 501 Button Flys and Converse Chuck Taylors.
The food was byo main dish,
and this being California, almost everyone brought some type of salad.
But after looking at the picture of Angelica Heinegg and Ted Berrigan
on the day of her wedding to Tom Clark,
I no longer want an outdoor wedding.
I want to get married in the church,
in the main sanctuary.
The first Poetry Project event I attended,
was Christopher Funkhouser’s reading on a Monday
in the spring of 1993.
I bought him a sunflower and placed it by his side before he read.
He forgot it later on at a Ukrainian restaurant,
after a near dozen of us gathered for conversation and coffee.
The first event I attended in the sanctuary
was the 20th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Reading in 1994.
I was not yet a regular, and the mystique was there
(I was unaware that Gregory Corso’s name on the schedule meant he might appear).
I had read and clipped The Village Voice listings for years,
recognized the mainstream names,
and wanted to go see Allen and Yoko, as an old picture promised.
But 1994 was the first one I made,
the first time I entered the room where I would like your father
to walk you
to me.
I’m looking at the picture of
“Ted Berrigan escorting Angelica Heinegg to her wedding at
St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery,” again,
and wonder if Angelica and Tom Clark ever made it last
(probably not I guess).
I wonder if anyone connected to Nice to See You had a nice, long marriage for life.
I read the book’s final piece of words
“For Ted”
by Ed Sanders,
about Ed and Ted, and shared mimeo machines in the early ’60s
of
“America, where bad
teeth cost as much
as a Honda
where poverty
the curse of Chatterton
& Edmund Spenser
still eats
the marrow
of poets.”
And I realize,
That Ed,
who is one of my favorite people in this world for many reasons
—accessible, caring, political—
That Ed,
whose words to me I keep in my wallet,
“Ed Sanders to me
at 24 @ 11:22 p.m.
on April 26, 1991
‘Don’t give it up. It’s
easy to be idealistic in
your 20s, it’s what
you do 20 years from now
that counts’”
That Ed,
who shared his d.a. levy letters with me,
though we hardly knew one another,
That Ed,
who counseled me on how to get into my Ph.D. program
after they’d rejected me once,
That Ed,
who taught me the Egyptian term sesh,
the art creation tool kit,
and the need for a portable one
so you never deflect a creative impulse,
That Ed,
who each time I hear read reinvents himself
and plays yet another, new homemade instrument,
That Ed,
whose daughter and son-in-law I helped move from their
Albany State Street apartment,
on Labor Day Sunday of 1992,
after the previous night’s unstaged reading of “Cassandra”
in the Bearsville Theater,
That Ed,
whose theatrical adaptation of “Cassandra”
I saw performed in a natural amphitheater in July of 1993,
as tiki torches illuminated the Rockies,
and the Boulder city lights shined beneath us,
That Ed,
is able to be
an artist
and monogamous
and in love,
and a man,
That Ed,
and his wife Miriam,
drive cross-country to his gigs,
and live in the same house,
That Ed,
has a nice long marriage for life.
I’m looking at the picture of
“Ted Berrigan escorting Angelica Heinegg to her wedding at
St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery,” again,
And thinking:
CANDACE
I’d like
To marry
You here
Love, David
Postscript: Tom Clark and Angelica Heiniegg still have a nice, long, marriage for life.
On page 78
there is a plate, #20,
a black-and-white photograph of a beautiful woman I’ve
never seen before,
and Ted Berrigan.
He has on a 3-piece, pinstriped suit, with a dark shirt
and a tie done in what appears to be a Windsor knot
(though the angle is not very good,
and I’m not quite certain,
though it does look too wide to be anything other
than a Windsor knot).
Ted is on the young woman’s left,
his wayfarer-framed eyes angled rightward.
He takes her in,
focuses on the sheer white fabric at rest on her hair,
that appears to be a veil,
(though the angle is very good,
and I’m not quite certain,
though the photo caption tells me it is a veil, definitely).
The caption:
“20. Ted Berrigan escorting Angelica Heinegg to her wedding at
St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery, 1968.
Ted gave the bride away to Tom Clark.”
I grab a small sheet of memo paper,
And write:
CANDACE
I’d like
To marry
You here
Love, David
and bookmark the photo with my note,
take care of some small press details,
and shut the lights.
It’s almost 6am on Saturday,
so I change the alarm to 12:10pm,
to leave enough time to check the p.o. box before the
attended windows shut down,
and there’s no way to claim a package until Monday December 19,
the day before our first shared birthday together.
—you will be 22, I will be 28.
And I adjust my sleep position,
lay on my stomach, head beneath two pillows,
then to same position, except head on top of the pillows,
to how I’ve slept with you on your one-board broken futon
the past seven weeks,
I face Fifth Street and lay on my left side,
you face Sixth Street and lay on your right,
before I turn to Sixth Street with you,
my left arm draped ’round your belly.
Through all four of these different attempts at sleep without you
in my parents’ Long Island home,
I think about marrying you at St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery
(I have always liked those dashes, by the way,
In dash the dash Bowery).
Typical American society mandates a proscribed period of courtship,
followed by an engagement of a suitable length, and then marriage.
The whole lengthy and drawn out process sucks the emotion out,
feeds the wedding planners coffers.
In the end, I’ve never wanted a big wedding.
I wanted it outdoors,
like one my sister attended in Santa Rosa in the early ’80s.
All the men wore black 501 Button Flys and Converse Chuck Taylors.
The food was byo main dish,
and this being California, almost everyone brought some type of salad.
But after looking at the picture of Angelica Heinegg and Ted Berrigan
on the day of her wedding to Tom Clark,
I no longer want an outdoor wedding.
I want to get married in the church,
in the main sanctuary.
The first Poetry Project event I attended,
was Christopher Funkhouser’s reading on a Monday
in the spring of 1993.
I bought him a sunflower and placed it by his side before he read.
He forgot it later on at a Ukrainian restaurant,
after a near dozen of us gathered for conversation and coffee.
The first event I attended in the sanctuary
was the 20th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Reading in 1994.
I was not yet a regular, and the mystique was there
(I was unaware that Gregory Corso’s name on the schedule meant he might appear).
I had read and clipped The Village Voice listings for years,
recognized the mainstream names,
and wanted to go see Allen and Yoko, as an old picture promised.
But 1994 was the first one I made,
the first time I entered the room where I would like your father
to walk you
to me.
I’m looking at the picture of
“Ted Berrigan escorting Angelica Heinegg to her wedding at
St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery,” again,
and wonder if Angelica and Tom Clark ever made it last
(probably not I guess).
I wonder if anyone connected to Nice to See You had a nice, long marriage for life.
I read the book’s final piece of words
“For Ted”
by Ed Sanders,
about Ed and Ted, and shared mimeo machines in the early ’60s
of
“America, where bad
teeth cost as much
as a Honda
where poverty
the curse of Chatterton
& Edmund Spenser
still eats
the marrow
of poets.”
And I realize,
That Ed,
who is one of my favorite people in this world for many reasons
—accessible, caring, political—
That Ed,
whose words to me I keep in my wallet,
“Ed Sanders to me
at 24 @ 11:22 p.m.
on April 26, 1991
‘Don’t give it up. It’s
easy to be idealistic in
your 20s, it’s what
you do 20 years from now
that counts’”
That Ed,
who shared his d.a. levy letters with me,
though we hardly knew one another,
That Ed,
who counseled me on how to get into my Ph.D. program
after they’d rejected me once,
That Ed,
who taught me the Egyptian term sesh,
the art creation tool kit,
and the need for a portable one
so you never deflect a creative impulse,
That Ed,
who each time I hear read reinvents himself
and plays yet another, new homemade instrument,
That Ed,
whose daughter and son-in-law I helped move from their
Albany State Street apartment,
on Labor Day Sunday of 1992,
after the previous night’s unstaged reading of “Cassandra”
in the Bearsville Theater,
That Ed,
whose theatrical adaptation of “Cassandra”
I saw performed in a natural amphitheater in July of 1993,
as tiki torches illuminated the Rockies,
and the Boulder city lights shined beneath us,
That Ed,
is able to be
an artist
and monogamous
and in love,
and a man,
That Ed,
and his wife Miriam,
drive cross-country to his gigs,
and live in the same house,
That Ed,
has a nice long marriage for life.
I’m looking at the picture of
“Ted Berrigan escorting Angelica Heinegg to her wedding at
St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery,” again,
And thinking:
CANDACE
I’d like
To marry
You here
Love, David
Postscript: Tom Clark and Angelica Heiniegg still have a nice, long, marriage for life.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Swoosh
I bought and read Catcher in the Rye before it was ever assigned
because I saw in Tennis magazine that it was
John McEnroe’s favorite book.
John McEnroe,
I owned your racket
and your Nike gear
and you wouldn’t even give me an autograph,
Jets vs. Dolphins,
opening day at Shea, 1982,
telling me each time to come back to you
between quarters, at half-time,
jerking my chain for your lady friend
one day after Lendl dissected you
a thousand yards away in the Open semis.
It was a cruel awakening seeing you in your poster outfit—
brown leather bomber,
white t-shirt, Levi’s, and
white,
low-cut Nikes,
with a light blue
sw-oo-oo-oo-sh-hhh
Watching the Jets play the Dolphins
at the same time as
Connors and Lendl played at
Flushing Meadow to see who
would take the crown
you’d held for three years.
Shea Stadium had just gotten the Diamondvision screen earlier that year,
Mitsubishi zeroing in on fans visions.
The operator placed the Open final’s scores upon the board,
and after last rebuff,
after offering up my U.S. Open program I’d bought next door pre-game,
the next time they put up the scores
Barry Goldstein and I would yell it to you
at the top of our lungs—
Connors 6
Lendl 3
McEnroe NOTHING
and begin balling up the aluminum foil
that had wrapped our kosher turkey breasts on club
and begin throwing them within inches of your skull
and then slink a bit lower in our seats,
the crowd rooting us on against your punk ass.
You left at half-time
and I haven’t worn Nikes since.
I bought and read Catcher in the Rye before it was ever assigned
because I saw in Tennis magazine that it was
John McEnroe’s favorite book.
John McEnroe,
I owned your racket
and your Nike gear
and you wouldn’t even give me an autograph,
Jets vs. Dolphins,
opening day at Shea, 1982,
telling me each time to come back to you
between quarters, at half-time,
jerking my chain for your lady friend
one day after Lendl dissected you
a thousand yards away in the Open semis.
It was a cruel awakening seeing you in your poster outfit—
brown leather bomber,
white t-shirt, Levi’s, and
white,
low-cut Nikes,
with a light blue
sw-oo-oo-oo-sh-hhh
Watching the Jets play the Dolphins
at the same time as
Connors and Lendl played at
Flushing Meadow to see who
would take the crown
you’d held for three years.
Shea Stadium had just gotten the Diamondvision screen earlier that year,
Mitsubishi zeroing in on fans visions.
The operator placed the Open final’s scores upon the board,
and after last rebuff,
after offering up my U.S. Open program I’d bought next door pre-game,
the next time they put up the scores
Barry Goldstein and I would yell it to you
at the top of our lungs—
Connors 6
Lendl 3
McEnroe NOTHING
and begin balling up the aluminum foil
that had wrapped our kosher turkey breasts on club
and begin throwing them within inches of your skull
and then slink a bit lower in our seats,
the crowd rooting us on against your punk ass.
You left at half-time
and I haven’t worn Nikes since.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
2004 Mets Tix for Sale/Call for Baseball Poems
I just renewed my Sunday plan for the upcoming Mets season and I thought I'd see if any of you might be interested in buying some of the tickets. I've been sitting in the same section for the past six, now seven, years--mezzanine, sec. 2 (behind home plate). I have two tickets for each game (prices below are per pair), and they're under the overhang, so u don't get burned in the sun or wet in the rain.
If you're interested in buying any tickets you can email me (editor at boogcity dot com). (The Mets charge diff. prices for diff. opponents, so you'll notice, for example, the Braves game costs more than the Brewers game.)
*
and, separately, the april issue of boog city is going to have a bunch of baseball content, including a page of baseball poetry and a baseball poem on the cover. you can email baseball poems to me (editor at boogcity dot com) by Thursday March 11.
best,
david
----------
all dates are Sundays
May 9 vs. Milwaukee Brewers $46
(mother's day visor, all women 13+)
July 25 vs. Atlanta Braves $54
(build-a-bear workshop day, first 12,000 kids 12+)
Sept. 26 vs. Chicago Cubs $54
I just renewed my Sunday plan for the upcoming Mets season and I thought I'd see if any of you might be interested in buying some of the tickets. I've been sitting in the same section for the past six, now seven, years--mezzanine, sec. 2 (behind home plate). I have two tickets for each game (prices below are per pair), and they're under the overhang, so u don't get burned in the sun or wet in the rain.
If you're interested in buying any tickets you can email me (editor at boogcity dot com). (The Mets charge diff. prices for diff. opponents, so you'll notice, for example, the Braves game costs more than the Brewers game.)
*
and, separately, the april issue of boog city is going to have a bunch of baseball content, including a page of baseball poetry and a baseball poem on the cover. you can email baseball poems to me (editor at boogcity dot com) by Thursday March 11.
best,
david
----------
all dates are Sundays
May 9 vs. Milwaukee Brewers $46
(mother's day visor, all women 13+)
July 25 vs. Atlanta Braves $54
(build-a-bear workshop day, first 12,000 kids 12+)
Sept. 26 vs. Chicago Cubs $54
I had sent some older poems to my friend Jill recently, and she mentioned the different, yet similar, voice. So i looked on my powerbook to send her the oldest poem i had on it and found this one I wrote while living in Albany, N.Y. in 1991 and 1992. (I have older ones that are trapped on old Apple iic discs i printed out from years ago, and in too many notebooks, as yet untyped.) No introduction's necessary. As Quincy Troupe says, "I don't come with the poem." Enjoy.
--------
garysomething
I just saw Gary on thirtysomething die
and right now you’re
all probably shaking your collective heads at me
wondering how I can care about some character
in some television show
when there’s a war going on
but I saw Gary on thirtysomething die last night
and part of me died with him.
Gary was me, what I’d like to be anyway,
a college professor, politically correct,
loved by all, with a waif of a wife,
and part of me wanted to be Gary,
riding a bicycle to work,
stocking cap tucked over his long strawberry blonde hair,
without a care in the world
and then he died
just like that,
this fictional myth I wanted to grow into died
and it was over,
he did however leave and oh-so beautiful corpse,
and friends keeping a place in their minds for his memories.
Could be worse, though.
1st Epilogue
Gary has been appearing in flashbacks,
in Michael’s life, the character who knew him,
and mine, a real person who thought he did,
when I go to the CD rack I think,
“What would Gary have liked to listen to?”
and then choose the discs accordingly,
there’s a Coltrane, an Elvis Costello collection,
and a Van Morrison that
sits patiently upon my right speaker,
waiting for the Carole King to finish,
so it can be placed in one of the empty slots.
As I sit down to postpone a bit longer the 25-page paper on South Africa
which has yet to be written or edited or printed out,
which is just another rough thought, another rough draft resting on a floppy, unprinted,
I think “What would Gary have done?"
not how would my parents have handled this situation,
or what my best friends would tell me or do on their own,
I try to imagine this mythical icon,
this mythical icon I half-jokingly long to be,
and wonder what he would tell me,
what he would do if placed in the same situation I was in at this very second,
would he sit and scribble some thoughts across the screen,
leaving his paper aside, till he felt so inclined to resume,
probably not, he’d be doing the same thing,
only he’d be doing it with a white legal pad
— the yellow ones aren’t recyclable —
or would he set aside the four-week-old-funk he’d been working himself into instead of out of,
and churn out something, anything,
as long as it was handed in typed, double-spaced, and properly margined,
yes, it all sounds a bit innocuous
when there are Kurds gathered up on too-small-not-their-own tracts-of-land,
and it seems a bit too naive or simple
to wonder what some amalgamation
of some other writers friends,
or perhaps completely conjured up in that same writers’ mind,
character
to wonder what that character is thinking
and use that character as some sort of guidepost
to some of the decisions that you make,
either the writers have done a good job
helping me rediscover a person I feared I had lost,
or I’m just plain nuts,
either way,
I saw Gary on thirtysomething appear last night,
in a vision to Michael
as his life’s problems became too many,
and today, to me,
as my simple struggle to finish another day,
another word,
grew a bit easier.
2nd Epilogue
I haven’t tossed Gary away, as perhaps I should have,
maybe he’s like my paternal grandmother
(although she was real)
to be thought of every so often,
not in some sort of calculated way,
but when your hands are dirty,
and you remember that Grandma Minnie taught you how to clean them,
one finger at a time,
soaping one hand completely,
and then pulling up each finger
with the opposite hand closed in a circle,
or when you’re sitting in class
and your professor asks
who was president after Van Buren,
and you say “Harrison”
and he asks you which one,
and you say “Benjamin or William Henry”
but aren’t sure which one it is
because when Grandma Minnie taught you the presidents
she taught you to remember their last names,
not their first, or how long they served for,
shit, you were five or six,
she died when you were almost seven,
right after the Mets lost to the A’s in the World Series,
and you answered the phone,
but they wouldn’t tell you what happened,
you just knew that you saw Grandma the night before,
she was supposed to sleep over your apartment,
and at the last minute she changed her mind,
she insisted, fought your mom and dad
until they took her home,
and then the next day you answered the phone,
and they asked if there was anyone else home,
and you passed the phone to your 10-years-older sister
who they thought was old enough to hear the news first hand
and ever since then you couldn’t sleep well when you went into a funk,
and you blamed the Mets for losing the World Series,
as your six-year-old mind somehow convinced you that
if the Mets had only won the World Series then
Grandma Minnie would still be alive,
to tell you how to wash your hands,
and which Johnson came before Lincoln.
3rd Epilogue
So Gary’s not real,
so you never actually sat down and talked to Gary about his problems with getting tenure,
and how you expect to have the same problems one day,
and you never really sat down to tell him that you couldn’t commit to much either,
but that you wanted to commit to everything,
and how until Judy you never thought you’d find
any sort of love,
and how you want to put a ring on her finger
before you fuck it up,
or how everytime you have to sit down and write a term paper
you could never do what you thought, or knew,
all the good students were doing,
work on the paper from the day it was assigned,
and arrange those little three-by-fives according to each section of your outline,
so you could just assemble the paper
like one giant jigsaw puzzle,
and hand it in a week ahead of time,
instead of your way,
picking a neat topic,
getting approval after you’ve grabbed two armfuls of books
and an oh-so simple understanding of the subject,
only to postpone the work until you only had a week left,
I’m a good enough writer,
I can just churn something out in a week and still get a B,
and after all, that’s all you need,
you were never able to get an A,
never wanted to work that hard,
and neither did Gary,
content to get a C in a class he knew better than most,
content to read books and write papers when he felt like,
content not to fit into the system
until he realized that if he ever wanted to graduate he’d have to
because you can’t make up your own rules
when the requirements stare you in the face,
you can only postpone completion so long,
until, finally, you realize you’re just postponing yourself,
until you look at all your friends with jobs, and marriages,
and general lifeplans
when all you have is this really neat, idealistic view
that you want to be a teacher,
but didn’t know ’til last week what a doctorate required,
you just knew that to be a teacher you needed one,
and that was that, you’d get one,
and you’d find out later on how you did that,
just keep plugging ahead until you came to that step,
and then you’d stop and ask somebody,
and they’d tell you and you’d do it,
hopefully not waiting ’til the last week
to try and sum up your past 20-some-odd years of schooling
hopefully writing the dissertation you knew you should,
but know you won’t,
knowing you’re gonna become a prof somehow,
and forgetting about the office politics,
knowing that some day you’ll be up for tenure
and you’ll offend some member of that committee
and that’s that, all those years down the drain,
and now it’s time to pick up the pieces,
time to figure out which way the next step takes you,
and thinking all the while,
“What would Gary do?”
and looking into the mirror and seeing your own Gary.
4th Epilogue
So Gary is dead,
so Judy has left you
and you never did put that ring around her finger
but it wasn’t your fault
so a year later you care for two small children
although you can’t care for yourself,
although your life is still muddled
and you’re throwing money to people who need it less than you,
so you’re alone,
and hating it,
and that thesis you did all the research for is coming due
and you still haven’t opened your marble composition notebook to type your notes up,
and know you’ll wait ’til the last week
how you’ll get away with it,
have been since junior high,
and haven’t been caught yet,
won’t be either you say,
and so you’re alone
and loving it,
and you’ve interviewed 23 people for your thesis
and have 45 pages of notes that all you need to do is type up,
they’re sitting there right in that marble composition notebook,
you just want to wait until the last week so you can do it all at once,
so you’re all alone,
sitting in the house during the day watching thirtysomething on tapes, gleeful that Lifetime is airing reruns,
learning more from Gary,
brought back to life
as beautiful as ever,
and listening to some Art Blakey
getting ready for snow’s end and basketball in Washington Park,
lacing up your hightops just for fun,
spinning red/black basketball
and dribbling on the oak floors while
you’re all alone.
5th Epilogue
So you’re doing no work in your classes this term
thinking all the doctorate applications are in
no need to work
no need to maintain last year-and-a-half’s good grades
easier to toss it away and play a bit
poetry and hoops
lots of tv and junk food
and every so often open a textbook
for show
then you call CUNY-Grad and they tell you
thanks
but no thanks
and you realize Columbia is going to do the same
and you’re back again
at step one
muddled life
no girl
lots of knifes in the kitchen
but you were always too squeamish
so you do it your own way
ignoring assignments
not showering
or sleeping much
then you don’t stop figuring out options
while laying on floral print couch,
’neath itchy blanket
watching gary on afternoon reruns
while nursing cold,
and for moments visions of profdom dance away
and back and forth
as you debate many options,
working in bookstore down block
from new NYC apartment
waiting tables
or slaving at copy shop,
maybe even find another job in publishing
or journalism,
though you’ve grown tired of them both,
then you call your advisor
clueless and helpless as you
and he’s okay ’cause it isn’t his life
so maybe you’ll apply to other NYC grad schools,
or trash history prof vision totally,
though, if just to show CUNY guy up, you won’t give in,
and as watching gary in all his beauty,
you comfortably resting
pondering too many options
and planning on move away from all,
downing some drowsy cold pills
and falling off.
--------
garysomething
I just saw Gary on thirtysomething die
and right now you’re
all probably shaking your collective heads at me
wondering how I can care about some character
in some television show
when there’s a war going on
but I saw Gary on thirtysomething die last night
and part of me died with him.
Gary was me, what I’d like to be anyway,
a college professor, politically correct,
loved by all, with a waif of a wife,
and part of me wanted to be Gary,
riding a bicycle to work,
stocking cap tucked over his long strawberry blonde hair,
without a care in the world
and then he died
just like that,
this fictional myth I wanted to grow into died
and it was over,
he did however leave and oh-so beautiful corpse,
and friends keeping a place in their minds for his memories.
Could be worse, though.
1st Epilogue
Gary has been appearing in flashbacks,
in Michael’s life, the character who knew him,
and mine, a real person who thought he did,
when I go to the CD rack I think,
“What would Gary have liked to listen to?”
and then choose the discs accordingly,
there’s a Coltrane, an Elvis Costello collection,
and a Van Morrison that
sits patiently upon my right speaker,
waiting for the Carole King to finish,
so it can be placed in one of the empty slots.
As I sit down to postpone a bit longer the 25-page paper on South Africa
which has yet to be written or edited or printed out,
which is just another rough thought, another rough draft resting on a floppy, unprinted,
I think “What would Gary have done?"
not how would my parents have handled this situation,
or what my best friends would tell me or do on their own,
I try to imagine this mythical icon,
this mythical icon I half-jokingly long to be,
and wonder what he would tell me,
what he would do if placed in the same situation I was in at this very second,
would he sit and scribble some thoughts across the screen,
leaving his paper aside, till he felt so inclined to resume,
probably not, he’d be doing the same thing,
only he’d be doing it with a white legal pad
— the yellow ones aren’t recyclable —
or would he set aside the four-week-old-funk he’d been working himself into instead of out of,
and churn out something, anything,
as long as it was handed in typed, double-spaced, and properly margined,
yes, it all sounds a bit innocuous
when there are Kurds gathered up on too-small-not-their-own tracts-of-land,
and it seems a bit too naive or simple
to wonder what some amalgamation
of some other writers friends,
or perhaps completely conjured up in that same writers’ mind,
character
to wonder what that character is thinking
and use that character as some sort of guidepost
to some of the decisions that you make,
either the writers have done a good job
helping me rediscover a person I feared I had lost,
or I’m just plain nuts,
either way,
I saw Gary on thirtysomething appear last night,
in a vision to Michael
as his life’s problems became too many,
and today, to me,
as my simple struggle to finish another day,
another word,
grew a bit easier.
2nd Epilogue
I haven’t tossed Gary away, as perhaps I should have,
maybe he’s like my paternal grandmother
(although she was real)
to be thought of every so often,
not in some sort of calculated way,
but when your hands are dirty,
and you remember that Grandma Minnie taught you how to clean them,
one finger at a time,
soaping one hand completely,
and then pulling up each finger
with the opposite hand closed in a circle,
or when you’re sitting in class
and your professor asks
who was president after Van Buren,
and you say “Harrison”
and he asks you which one,
and you say “Benjamin or William Henry”
but aren’t sure which one it is
because when Grandma Minnie taught you the presidents
she taught you to remember their last names,
not their first, or how long they served for,
shit, you were five or six,
she died when you were almost seven,
right after the Mets lost to the A’s in the World Series,
and you answered the phone,
but they wouldn’t tell you what happened,
you just knew that you saw Grandma the night before,
she was supposed to sleep over your apartment,
and at the last minute she changed her mind,
she insisted, fought your mom and dad
until they took her home,
and then the next day you answered the phone,
and they asked if there was anyone else home,
and you passed the phone to your 10-years-older sister
who they thought was old enough to hear the news first hand
and ever since then you couldn’t sleep well when you went into a funk,
and you blamed the Mets for losing the World Series,
as your six-year-old mind somehow convinced you that
if the Mets had only won the World Series then
Grandma Minnie would still be alive,
to tell you how to wash your hands,
and which Johnson came before Lincoln.
3rd Epilogue
So Gary’s not real,
so you never actually sat down and talked to Gary about his problems with getting tenure,
and how you expect to have the same problems one day,
and you never really sat down to tell him that you couldn’t commit to much either,
but that you wanted to commit to everything,
and how until Judy you never thought you’d find
any sort of love,
and how you want to put a ring on her finger
before you fuck it up,
or how everytime you have to sit down and write a term paper
you could never do what you thought, or knew,
all the good students were doing,
work on the paper from the day it was assigned,
and arrange those little three-by-fives according to each section of your outline,
so you could just assemble the paper
like one giant jigsaw puzzle,
and hand it in a week ahead of time,
instead of your way,
picking a neat topic,
getting approval after you’ve grabbed two armfuls of books
and an oh-so simple understanding of the subject,
only to postpone the work until you only had a week left,
I’m a good enough writer,
I can just churn something out in a week and still get a B,
and after all, that’s all you need,
you were never able to get an A,
never wanted to work that hard,
and neither did Gary,
content to get a C in a class he knew better than most,
content to read books and write papers when he felt like,
content not to fit into the system
until he realized that if he ever wanted to graduate he’d have to
because you can’t make up your own rules
when the requirements stare you in the face,
you can only postpone completion so long,
until, finally, you realize you’re just postponing yourself,
until you look at all your friends with jobs, and marriages,
and general lifeplans
when all you have is this really neat, idealistic view
that you want to be a teacher,
but didn’t know ’til last week what a doctorate required,
you just knew that to be a teacher you needed one,
and that was that, you’d get one,
and you’d find out later on how you did that,
just keep plugging ahead until you came to that step,
and then you’d stop and ask somebody,
and they’d tell you and you’d do it,
hopefully not waiting ’til the last week
to try and sum up your past 20-some-odd years of schooling
hopefully writing the dissertation you knew you should,
but know you won’t,
knowing you’re gonna become a prof somehow,
and forgetting about the office politics,
knowing that some day you’ll be up for tenure
and you’ll offend some member of that committee
and that’s that, all those years down the drain,
and now it’s time to pick up the pieces,
time to figure out which way the next step takes you,
and thinking all the while,
“What would Gary do?”
and looking into the mirror and seeing your own Gary.
4th Epilogue
So Gary is dead,
so Judy has left you
and you never did put that ring around her finger
but it wasn’t your fault
so a year later you care for two small children
although you can’t care for yourself,
although your life is still muddled
and you’re throwing money to people who need it less than you,
so you’re alone,
and hating it,
and that thesis you did all the research for is coming due
and you still haven’t opened your marble composition notebook to type your notes up,
and know you’ll wait ’til the last week
how you’ll get away with it,
have been since junior high,
and haven’t been caught yet,
won’t be either you say,
and so you’re alone
and loving it,
and you’ve interviewed 23 people for your thesis
and have 45 pages of notes that all you need to do is type up,
they’re sitting there right in that marble composition notebook,
you just want to wait until the last week so you can do it all at once,
so you’re all alone,
sitting in the house during the day watching thirtysomething on tapes, gleeful that Lifetime is airing reruns,
learning more from Gary,
brought back to life
as beautiful as ever,
and listening to some Art Blakey
getting ready for snow’s end and basketball in Washington Park,
lacing up your hightops just for fun,
spinning red/black basketball
and dribbling on the oak floors while
you’re all alone.
5th Epilogue
So you’re doing no work in your classes this term
thinking all the doctorate applications are in
no need to work
no need to maintain last year-and-a-half’s good grades
easier to toss it away and play a bit
poetry and hoops
lots of tv and junk food
and every so often open a textbook
for show
then you call CUNY-Grad and they tell you
thanks
but no thanks
and you realize Columbia is going to do the same
and you’re back again
at step one
muddled life
no girl
lots of knifes in the kitchen
but you were always too squeamish
so you do it your own way
ignoring assignments
not showering
or sleeping much
then you don’t stop figuring out options
while laying on floral print couch,
’neath itchy blanket
watching gary on afternoon reruns
while nursing cold,
and for moments visions of profdom dance away
and back and forth
as you debate many options,
working in bookstore down block
from new NYC apartment
waiting tables
or slaving at copy shop,
maybe even find another job in publishing
or journalism,
though you’ve grown tired of them both,
then you call your advisor
clueless and helpless as you
and he’s okay ’cause it isn’t his life
so maybe you’ll apply to other NYC grad schools,
or trash history prof vision totally,
though, if just to show CUNY guy up, you won’t give in,
and as watching gary in all his beauty,
you comfortably resting
pondering too many options
and planning on move away from all,
downing some drowsy cold pills
and falling off.
Monday, February 16, 2004
Here’s a poem I wrote for my big brother for Presidents Day in 1989. At the time he was giving bumper stickers away at his business that said “Be American, Buy American. Support Your Country, Not Theirs,” alongside a cartoon of Uncle Sam kicking an Asian man in the ass. I was 22, and wanting to please my big brother, and so I wrote this poem.
best,
david
-----------
“I can not tell a lie,” or Successful exploitation of mindless,
concerned Americans, by foreign countries—It works!
On the day of our founding father’s birth,
we remember him, by celebrating,
nothing—
but sales.
We don’t contemplate what he meant to us, or even recite his achievements
—we left that behind in grade school.
Now we just pay homage to our founding father by investing in foreign lands
—as our producer power falls from our hands.
Nissan Sentra Washington Birthday SALES,
as Kamikaze cars hit Detroit’s shore.
Americans go to the Ford Dealer,
and they tell themselves they deserve more.
Volkswagen says, “It’s what George always wanted,”
as they plug their latest small cars.
The media finally informs us the economic war has started,
but it seems that their economies have won.
In honor of presidents’ day, our factories close,
as we fall prey to a war with no guns.
The people wonder why others are out of work and hungry,
as the man next door turns the key in his Mitsubishi,
and I ask myself “Why?”
best,
david
-----------
“I can not tell a lie,” or Successful exploitation of mindless,
concerned Americans, by foreign countries—It works!
On the day of our founding father’s birth,
we remember him, by celebrating,
nothing—
but sales.
We don’t contemplate what he meant to us, or even recite his achievements
—we left that behind in grade school.
Now we just pay homage to our founding father by investing in foreign lands
—as our producer power falls from our hands.
Nissan Sentra Washington Birthday SALES,
as Kamikaze cars hit Detroit’s shore.
Americans go to the Ford Dealer,
and they tell themselves they deserve more.
Volkswagen says, “It’s what George always wanted,”
as they plug their latest small cars.
The media finally informs us the economic war has started,
but it seems that their economies have won.
In honor of presidents’ day, our factories close,
as we fall prey to a war with no guns.
The people wonder why others are out of work and hungry,
as the man next door turns the key in his Mitsubishi,
and I ask myself “Why?”
Sunday, February 15, 2004
another excerpt from The February Project
The poet Gina Myers and I are emailing each other a letter a day for the entire month of february, and will be reading them all on leap year day, Sun. Feb. 29, at 4:30 p.m. at the Bowery Poetry Club, with musical intermissions by Aaron Seven.
Here’s my letter from yesterday.
2.14.04 - 11:50 p.m.
Dear Gina,
A few days before Prozac led Abbie Hoffman to suicide in April 1989, he spoke at Vanderbilt University. He talked about the battles that he waged in the 1960s against racism, poverty, and the vietnam war. He ended the speech, "We were young, we were reckless, arrogant, silly, headstrong - and we were right. I regret nothing." I went with Ian to the memorial they held at the old Palladium night club on E.14th street--where NYU dorms now sit next to the P.C. Richard appliance store. Inside the club they were handing out programs, with pictures of ’60s and ’80s Abbie facing each other, and that quotation on the reverse.
It's a simple sentiment, no regrets. I say I have no regrets, though I know I do. But like you I know that all these choices, good and bad, have made me me, and though at times I'm indifferent to me, I never hate me and I like the way I treat people, even if I don't treat myself so nicely all the time.
*
saw my friend alan semerdjian play music tonight at a hippie cafe near my parents' house. i don't tell anyone i'm going to attend their events anymore. I always say I'm going to do my best to be there, if i say anything at all. i've been disappointed too often by people who tell me they're coming to some of two thousand events, the best always being the day-of call for directions and time it's really starting and then not showing up. priceless. nowadays when people apologize to me for not making one of my events i simply tell them, "don't worry about it. i throw so many events, the only person who should be at all of them is me."
but this not telling people you're going to their events is also fun, especially for the events that they wouldn't ever think you're going to. like tonight at this hippie coffee house the cup in long island, i show up and alan is all startle-excited to see me and he reaches out with his hand and pulls me in for a hug. it's valentine's day and i'm alone but i'm not really thinking about it, but here I am writing about it, so, okay, it was on my mind. but i mean, i pay it no heed as i haven't been in love on this day since 1995, so i'm used to it.
alan started the night with elvis costello's "alison," one of two songs I played on permanent repeat for hours, for days right after first ex-gf did the ex-ing of me. and the girl at the table next to mine asks if i know alan after he and i head nod toward each other. "I'm Amy" she says, puts out her hand for me to shake and the rest of the night she and I and her friend Beth are talking, amy and i smiling at each other throughout the show. it's a nice tonic on another night without love.
"what if I were Romeo in black jeans
what if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth
maybe she's just looking for
someone to dance with"
--Michael Penn
xo
david
The poet Gina Myers and I are emailing each other a letter a day for the entire month of february, and will be reading them all on leap year day, Sun. Feb. 29, at 4:30 p.m. at the Bowery Poetry Club, with musical intermissions by Aaron Seven.
Here’s my letter from yesterday.
2.14.04 - 11:50 p.m.
Dear Gina,
A few days before Prozac led Abbie Hoffman to suicide in April 1989, he spoke at Vanderbilt University. He talked about the battles that he waged in the 1960s against racism, poverty, and the vietnam war. He ended the speech, "We were young, we were reckless, arrogant, silly, headstrong - and we were right. I regret nothing." I went with Ian to the memorial they held at the old Palladium night club on E.14th street--where NYU dorms now sit next to the P.C. Richard appliance store. Inside the club they were handing out programs, with pictures of ’60s and ’80s Abbie facing each other, and that quotation on the reverse.
It's a simple sentiment, no regrets. I say I have no regrets, though I know I do. But like you I know that all these choices, good and bad, have made me me, and though at times I'm indifferent to me, I never hate me and I like the way I treat people, even if I don't treat myself so nicely all the time.
*
saw my friend alan semerdjian play music tonight at a hippie cafe near my parents' house. i don't tell anyone i'm going to attend their events anymore. I always say I'm going to do my best to be there, if i say anything at all. i've been disappointed too often by people who tell me they're coming to some of two thousand events, the best always being the day-of call for directions and time it's really starting and then not showing up. priceless. nowadays when people apologize to me for not making one of my events i simply tell them, "don't worry about it. i throw so many events, the only person who should be at all of them is me."
but this not telling people you're going to their events is also fun, especially for the events that they wouldn't ever think you're going to. like tonight at this hippie coffee house the cup in long island, i show up and alan is all startle-excited to see me and he reaches out with his hand and pulls me in for a hug. it's valentine's day and i'm alone but i'm not really thinking about it, but here I am writing about it, so, okay, it was on my mind. but i mean, i pay it no heed as i haven't been in love on this day since 1995, so i'm used to it.
alan started the night with elvis costello's "alison," one of two songs I played on permanent repeat for hours, for days right after first ex-gf did the ex-ing of me. and the girl at the table next to mine asks if i know alan after he and i head nod toward each other. "I'm Amy" she says, puts out her hand for me to shake and the rest of the night she and I and her friend Beth are talking, amy and i smiling at each other throughout the show. it's a nice tonic on another night without love.
"what if I were Romeo in black jeans
what if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth
maybe she's just looking for
someone to dance with"
--Michael Penn
xo
david
Saturday, February 14, 2004
I’ve been getting a lot of playful jabs the last few days from my best friend Ian (one of two people i call my best friend, Risa the other) over my blog posts, complaining that he was only a sidelight to my long stories. (“I was only in the parentheses.”) Well here, motherfucker, you are now a star.
Welcome to 1987, the defining year in my life, the year I’ve been meaning to write about since, well, 1987, but haven’t.
dear ian,
i just realized why i haven't written about 1987 much, although i want to. it was a great year, but not an easy one for me.
1987 for me goes from the spring of 1986 to the spring of 1988, beginning with my semester at Hofstra where i got two f's and two incompletes on through arrests with Abbie Hoffman, my friends and family not being there when i had to go back to new hope to surrender, getting fired from my Village Voice internship because they thought I was on coke, manic-depression related breakdown, stopping going to my Columbia Journalism Review internship, Janey's abortion, and getting suspended from Hofstra for credit card fraud.
It also included some amazing things, organizing and leading antiapartheid demos, finding out Hofstra lied about divesting and writing about it on the front page of The new voice, working with you on the Chicago 8 book outline and my Timothy Leary article for the Voice, the latter my first paid piece of journalism, getting that internship at the Village Voice, meeting and wooing Janey (though i was more then a bit relentless in my pursuit), almost getting The nation internship, getting the Columbia Journalism Review internship, the anti-Nixon supplement of The new voice to coincide with his gang coming to Hofstra for a conference on his presidency, first time made love (as the hooker in the back of my 1971 Buick Skylark on Father's Day ’85 i don't think was in love with me), discovering Albany, and, oh yes, the 1986 Mets.
and after writing this note to you i guess i have my outline now.
xo
dak
Welcome to 1987, the defining year in my life, the year I’ve been meaning to write about since, well, 1987, but haven’t.
dear ian,
i just realized why i haven't written about 1987 much, although i want to. it was a great year, but not an easy one for me.
1987 for me goes from the spring of 1986 to the spring of 1988, beginning with my semester at Hofstra where i got two f's and two incompletes on through arrests with Abbie Hoffman, my friends and family not being there when i had to go back to new hope to surrender, getting fired from my Village Voice internship because they thought I was on coke, manic-depression related breakdown, stopping going to my Columbia Journalism Review internship, Janey's abortion, and getting suspended from Hofstra for credit card fraud.
It also included some amazing things, organizing and leading antiapartheid demos, finding out Hofstra lied about divesting and writing about it on the front page of The new voice, working with you on the Chicago 8 book outline and my Timothy Leary article for the Voice, the latter my first paid piece of journalism, getting that internship at the Village Voice, meeting and wooing Janey (though i was more then a bit relentless in my pursuit), almost getting The nation internship, getting the Columbia Journalism Review internship, the anti-Nixon supplement of The new voice to coincide with his gang coming to Hofstra for a conference on his presidency, first time made love (as the hooker in the back of my 1971 Buick Skylark on Father's Day ’85 i don't think was in love with me), discovering Albany, and, oh yes, the 1986 Mets.
and after writing this note to you i guess i have my outline now.
xo
dak
Here's one from my archives.
xo
dak
-------
On love and baseball
Through 12 adult Valentine Days
I've had a lover 5 times,
a .417 average if love were baseball.
I'd've been the first .400 hitter
since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941
But love ain't baseball
and the last time up
I went down swinging.
xo
dak
-------
On love and baseball
Through 12 adult Valentine Days
I've had a lover 5 times,
a .417 average if love were baseball.
I'd've been the first .400 hitter
since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941
But love ain't baseball
and the last time up
I went down swinging.
Friday, February 13, 2004
an excerpt from The February Project
The poet Gina Myers and I are emailing each other a letter a day for the entire month of february, and will be reading them all on leap year day, Sun. Feb. 29, at 4:30 p.m. at the Bowery Poetry Club, with musical intermissions by Aaron Seven.
Here’s one of my letters from this week.
2.11.04 - 2:05 a.m.
Dear Gina,
I can’t handle the fucking jazz tonight, so it’s in utero, some nirvana to wake up this half-slumbering boy (i’ve been playing my titanium powerbook like jerry lee lewis, smashing down at end of thoughts emphasizing something, sometimes).
it’s insane what i feel when nirvana plays, how it’s so my own but when i step back i realize it’s like this for millions. that’s art, capital A.
here’s the thing lady, when i’m manic i commit to publish the moon, when i fall into depression and reality happens there’s a whole lot of peddling backward, a whole lot of not returning phone calls to authors, of emails unanswered, of, “oh yeah, i’m on top of that, no problem” statements. i always tell people you could build a damn fine small press with all the titles i never published—anne waldman, jordan davis, kent taylor, wanda phipps, ed sanders, and many more. i’ve always published these folks in some way, and so they’ve been cool, especially because this is the world of the small press and we’re all living in broke city, fronting our own $. Part of it is also that many people know my cycles and have grown to accept them, the accomplishments and the failures, or not failures, but withdrawals. I’ve always wondered when i finally can’t play the manic-d card, when it finally happens where someone goes, “motherfucker, you’re 37 years old, either try to get some help or don’t fucking pull this shit again. ‘oh, i’m manic, oh i’m depressed, oh, whatever.’” it’s been about 11 months since i pulled myself out of last hole, and into therapy and onto the lithium. the lithium, like i’m fucking letterman or something. “so drew, i hear you’ve been taking the lithium. how’s that been working out for you?”
i have to stop going to readings until i get my sleep patterns fixed. so far two readings in two days. charles bernstein and kari edwards yesterday in brenda iijima and alan sondheim’s series at casper jones in brooklyn, and tonight matvei yankelevich and rachel levitsky in africa wayne’s bar reis series, also in brooklyn. i went because i wanted to support people who support me. brenda’s always been a dear friend and collaborator, kari took out a coupla ads in boog city which helped us print and came to my oakland boog reading, matvei goes to so many of my gallery events, and i’ve known rachel long time. but the thing is, when you don’t sleep at home u have to sleep somewhere, so i now do it at readings. see, if you’re ginsberg and pushing 70, and you wrote, i don’t know, howl, you can get away with going to the back of a reading venue, and sprawling across desks or the floor and going to sleep. me? i don’t got the juice. so my head nodding during bernstein’s reading and matvei’s was so much bullshit on my part, because, the truth is, no matter how much people support me, if their work sucks i wouldn’t leave my apartment. hell, i’ve got digital cable, 180 channels, something’s on that’s better than a shit poet. and i wanted to be present for their readings and wasn’t fully. i guess the breaks during each reading helped because i took in kari and rachel better, sitting up straight, shaking head like mad, deep breathing through nostrils.
the way i feel now i’m not hitting the auster/hunt reading. i need to sleep, relax, tend to self. plus, that place is going to be scenester hell, and they’re even holding it in the sanctuary, not the parrish hall, in anticipation of the madness. yr auster class sounds amazing, never had any such class. had to do the immersion myself, the saturation job as ed sanders calls it, on the authors i’ve dug/dig, the requisite twentysomething kerouac phase, the requisite i’m a jew philip roth phase, among others.
aaron came over and helped me clean tonight. then we had dinner, went to the reading, and bickered on the subway. it seems like we are dating, except we are not having sex.
xo
dak
The poet Gina Myers and I are emailing each other a letter a day for the entire month of february, and will be reading them all on leap year day, Sun. Feb. 29, at 4:30 p.m. at the Bowery Poetry Club, with musical intermissions by Aaron Seven.
Here’s one of my letters from this week.
2.11.04 - 2:05 a.m.
Dear Gina,
I can’t handle the fucking jazz tonight, so it’s in utero, some nirvana to wake up this half-slumbering boy (i’ve been playing my titanium powerbook like jerry lee lewis, smashing down at end of thoughts emphasizing something, sometimes).
it’s insane what i feel when nirvana plays, how it’s so my own but when i step back i realize it’s like this for millions. that’s art, capital A.
here’s the thing lady, when i’m manic i commit to publish the moon, when i fall into depression and reality happens there’s a whole lot of peddling backward, a whole lot of not returning phone calls to authors, of emails unanswered, of, “oh yeah, i’m on top of that, no problem” statements. i always tell people you could build a damn fine small press with all the titles i never published—anne waldman, jordan davis, kent taylor, wanda phipps, ed sanders, and many more. i’ve always published these folks in some way, and so they’ve been cool, especially because this is the world of the small press and we’re all living in broke city, fronting our own $. Part of it is also that many people know my cycles and have grown to accept them, the accomplishments and the failures, or not failures, but withdrawals. I’ve always wondered when i finally can’t play the manic-d card, when it finally happens where someone goes, “motherfucker, you’re 37 years old, either try to get some help or don’t fucking pull this shit again. ‘oh, i’m manic, oh i’m depressed, oh, whatever.’” it’s been about 11 months since i pulled myself out of last hole, and into therapy and onto the lithium. the lithium, like i’m fucking letterman or something. “so drew, i hear you’ve been taking the lithium. how’s that been working out for you?”
i have to stop going to readings until i get my sleep patterns fixed. so far two readings in two days. charles bernstein and kari edwards yesterday in brenda iijima and alan sondheim’s series at casper jones in brooklyn, and tonight matvei yankelevich and rachel levitsky in africa wayne’s bar reis series, also in brooklyn. i went because i wanted to support people who support me. brenda’s always been a dear friend and collaborator, kari took out a coupla ads in boog city which helped us print and came to my oakland boog reading, matvei goes to so many of my gallery events, and i’ve known rachel long time. but the thing is, when you don’t sleep at home u have to sleep somewhere, so i now do it at readings. see, if you’re ginsberg and pushing 70, and you wrote, i don’t know, howl, you can get away with going to the back of a reading venue, and sprawling across desks or the floor and going to sleep. me? i don’t got the juice. so my head nodding during bernstein’s reading and matvei’s was so much bullshit on my part, because, the truth is, no matter how much people support me, if their work sucks i wouldn’t leave my apartment. hell, i’ve got digital cable, 180 channels, something’s on that’s better than a shit poet. and i wanted to be present for their readings and wasn’t fully. i guess the breaks during each reading helped because i took in kari and rachel better, sitting up straight, shaking head like mad, deep breathing through nostrils.
the way i feel now i’m not hitting the auster/hunt reading. i need to sleep, relax, tend to self. plus, that place is going to be scenester hell, and they’re even holding it in the sanctuary, not the parrish hall, in anticipation of the madness. yr auster class sounds amazing, never had any such class. had to do the immersion myself, the saturation job as ed sanders calls it, on the authors i’ve dug/dig, the requisite twentysomething kerouac phase, the requisite i’m a jew philip roth phase, among others.
aaron came over and helped me clean tonight. then we had dinner, went to the reading, and bickered on the subway. it seems like we are dating, except we are not having sex.
xo
dak
Thursday, February 12, 2004
A Blog Post 10 Years in the Making
It’s January 1994. My sister’s nanny Jane had just split and since I had nannied for a 5-yr-old girl and 2-yr-old boy, while I was doing my master’s in Albany, she asked me if I could pinch-hit. So I drove 35 minutes each morning from my folks place in Long Island to my sister’s in Forest Hills, Queens, to be there by 8 a.m., watched my niece Michelle all day, subwayed to the city to take classes in my doctorate program, subwayed back to pick up my car and drive back to long island, before waking up 6ish the next morning to begin it all again.
My friend Risa, one of two people I call my best friend (Ian the other), was working in the music business and had gone to San Francisco for some music convention. I got a call from her and she was more depressed than I’d ever heard her. She wanted me to come to San Francisco, because I lived in the area for a little bit and had been there many times because of all my family there and I knew my way around, and, mostly, because she wanted to have some fun with a friend amid the maelstrom. So used her frequent flier miles to buy me a ticket.
My brother-in-law David drove me to the airport in the morning, leaving me there at 6ish for my 8 am TWA nonstop to SFO. I had time to kill and a cross-country flight, so I bought all the NY papers. I opened the Times, was reading through it, and hit the obits, always one of my favorite parts of the paper to read, when I saw the following:
David Kirschenbaum Dies at 99;
A Leading Dealer of Rare Books
by Rita Reif
David Kirschenbaum, a dealer in rare books and manuscripts, who was regarded as the dean of American booksellers, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 99.
And it talked of this man who led a real full life, running a bookstore, the Carnegie Book Shop, for 72 years; in the 1920s opening the first NY bookstore to specialize in selling remainders; and acquiring many famous manuscripts, most notably the log of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that bombed Hiroshima, and George Washington's copy of The Federalist, to be sold at auction
Now I’m not an easy flyer to begin with, never really enjoying takeoffs and landings, but now this? The entire flight I held out pictures of my three nieces for good luck, not putting them away until the plane landed in San Francisco.
Risa and I had a fun coupla days, doing some touristy stuff like going to Alcatraz and Fisherman’s Wharf, each of which are fun even though the locals won’t say they are, and just walking through different neighborhoods. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming into town, because I only had 42 hours there, and knew I’d have to disappoint almost all my 60+ relatives and many friends. I did call my cousin Kenny and we all had lunch together, and I borrowed Risa’s rent-a-car and drove to Petaluma to go to a party with my pal, the most excellent person and poet Trane DeVore.
About three years later, in March of 1998, I threw a vernal equinox party to kickoff the Chelsea apartment I had moved into the previous November. I went to a neighborhood framing shop, Manhattan Art Gallery on 6th Avenue and 18th St., and had a bunch of things framed, among them David Kirschenbaum the book dealer’s obituary.
In August of 1999 I was in touch with Mark Fisher, who I met the previous year at the first annual Boston Alternative Poetry Marathon, the festival that Aaron Kiely founded and ran. Mark was on the board of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac (LCK), an organization in Jack Kerouac’s birthplace that puts together a festival each fall to celebrate his life and work. He saw the instantzine, JiffyBoog, that I had put together overnight during the festival with work from many participants--among them Lisa Jarnot, Lewis Warsh, Sean Cole, Dan Bouchard, and Kristin Prevallet--and was wondering if I might be willing to do something similar for the Lowell festival to help them raise money. I told him sure, I just wanted to be able to have my transportation and accommodations paid for. And Mark said no problem.
So we spent the next few weeks putting together a Kerouac issue of my litzine Booglit. Mark sold ads, all of the revenue from which went to LCK, I made the zine and solicited work from the festival’s participants. When all was done we had poems by ex-White Panther Party head John Sinclair, Eliot Katz, and Danny Shot, among others; a collage by Wendy Kramer; my mentor Doug Brinkley (buy his new John Kerry book today) with an introduction to Jack’s unpublished Washington D.C. Blues; and two killer interviews, of Robert Creeley and David Amram, conducted by everyone’s favorite librarian, Michael Basinski of Buffalo fame. I even got permission to use on the cover Allen Ginsberg’s classic Kerouac with the brakeman’s manual in his pocket photo from Bob Rosenthal, Ginsberg’s literary executor, who I go to synagogue with (though he goes there much more often). And, the whole issue could never have happened without the tireless coconspiratorial presence of Don Goede, a Soft Skull editor and Kinko’s man extraordinaire, who designed all the ads, and printed the issue at a ridiculous discount. Hell, he even hand-delivered them to Lowell.
So I fly into Boston on LCK’s dime, Mark picks me up, and I get to Kerouac’s Lowell and get a nighttime tour of the Grotto from Dr. Sax that I just can’t describe. It was an amazing weekend, being treated like visiting publishing star, seeing all these people I admire perform and talk, reading my work and getting great response, and watching in the airport on my way home the Mets game and finding out that they had miraculously caused a one-game playoff with the Reds, and my brother-in-law and I just might have postseason tickets after all (which we did, and it was amazing, Ventura’s Grand Single among the games).
During the Saturday of the festival, the local library held a small press fair and open reading. It was mainly small press editors reading back and forth to each other, but it was swell nonetheless, us all reading in this real old, high-ceiling room. I had someone watch my table. I went up, read a few poems, and sat back down to hock wares for LCK and Boog, when this guy walked up to me from across the room, and says:
“My name’s Doug Holder. I had an uncle named David Kirschenbaum, he just died a few years ago. He was a rare book dealer.” And I went on to recount to Doug this whole tale, eventually asking him to write me some words about his uncle.
This morning, my body got me up at 4:50 and I stayed up, doing some Boog housekeeping and reading through Katie Degentesh’s ms, when I saw my email in envelope flashing. This is what was there:
The Last Time I Saw Uncle Dave
by Doug Holder
I always wondered where I got my love of books, and why I was always at pains to lend them out or part with even the most undistinguished of tomes. My late Uncle Dave may be the answer. My Uncle Dave to coin a phrase, was the last of a dying breed. David Kirschenbaum was born to Jewish immigrants, and as a young man sold books from a cart in the teeming streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the early part of the century. By the time of his death, he was a prominent rare book dealer, and a well-known face at the tony auction houses of Christies and Sotheby. Because of Dave my house was always supplied with enigmatic first editions, with wonderfully florid illustrations. Children’s books, ancient books on ancient history, literally littered our attic when I was a kid. On holidays, when I got to see Dave, he was as mysterious and fascinating as the books he gave us. He was a creature of the Old World, solemn and formal, with a hint of a Yiddish twang in his voice. He talked in a studied manner, and had a slow, deliberate cadence to his speech. Every time we conversed I felt he was about to tell me some fantastic tale, even if what he had to say concerned the most banal aspects of life.
I think the last time I saw Uncle Dave was about 10 years ago at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The family got together for mother’s birthday. I remember sitting in the handsomely appointed dining room when Uncle Dave arrived. He was wearing some kind of Derby, and used a cane to help him walk. We all stood up as this distinguished, but diminutive, 96-year-old man crossed the room to our table. I felt like I was a cast member in some Merchant/Ivory production, as this Old World figure took his seat. He reminded me of some well-heeled figure that I encountered in an Isaac Bashevis Singer or Saul Bellow story. He had an elfin twinkle in his eyes, and seemed to take in the surroundings like he was approaching an old book or manuscript. He summoned me to his side of the table like a benevolent king to a beloved subject. After talking to him for a little while I felt a profound sense of loss. I regretted that I was so self-involved in my own life that I never took up his invitations to have lunch or spend some time talking with my Dave. Interacting with this man I became aware of his great expanse of experience and knowledge. I could see the traces of the scrappy Lower East Side kid pushing a cart, and the self-educated man-of-the-world he had become. He was the last man who will ever tell me that “Gershwin was a nice kid.” But Dave knew George Gershwin when they were mere kids in the city.
Dave had appraised libraries all over the world, and had conversations with everyone from Robert Frost to William Faulkner. Dave had survived the passage from Poland to Ellis Island, the vagaries of the Depression, and lived through the many of the manic swings of the last century. Near the end of our conversation I asked Dave what made him decide to become a book dealer, he said with his characteristic understatement “I had to make a living.” I realized that this man was as rare as the things he sold. He was the last glimpse of another era, a time I had only the vaguest idea of. He was part of a world where men sat in cafeterias and sipped tea through sugar cubes held tightly by their teeth. He was as mysterious as the mumbled and, at times, lyrical Yiddish, my grandparents exchanged, tit-for-tat in the cramped apartment in the hinterlands of the Bronx. He was a link to what I am, where I came from. I will miss him.
It’s January 1994. My sister’s nanny Jane had just split and since I had nannied for a 5-yr-old girl and 2-yr-old boy, while I was doing my master’s in Albany, she asked me if I could pinch-hit. So I drove 35 minutes each morning from my folks place in Long Island to my sister’s in Forest Hills, Queens, to be there by 8 a.m., watched my niece Michelle all day, subwayed to the city to take classes in my doctorate program, subwayed back to pick up my car and drive back to long island, before waking up 6ish the next morning to begin it all again.
My friend Risa, one of two people I call my best friend (Ian the other), was working in the music business and had gone to San Francisco for some music convention. I got a call from her and she was more depressed than I’d ever heard her. She wanted me to come to San Francisco, because I lived in the area for a little bit and had been there many times because of all my family there and I knew my way around, and, mostly, because she wanted to have some fun with a friend amid the maelstrom. So used her frequent flier miles to buy me a ticket.
My brother-in-law David drove me to the airport in the morning, leaving me there at 6ish for my 8 am TWA nonstop to SFO. I had time to kill and a cross-country flight, so I bought all the NY papers. I opened the Times, was reading through it, and hit the obits, always one of my favorite parts of the paper to read, when I saw the following:
David Kirschenbaum Dies at 99;
A Leading Dealer of Rare Books
by Rita Reif
David Kirschenbaum, a dealer in rare books and manuscripts, who was regarded as the dean of American booksellers, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 99.
And it talked of this man who led a real full life, running a bookstore, the Carnegie Book Shop, for 72 years; in the 1920s opening the first NY bookstore to specialize in selling remainders; and acquiring many famous manuscripts, most notably the log of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that bombed Hiroshima, and George Washington's copy of The Federalist, to be sold at auction
Now I’m not an easy flyer to begin with, never really enjoying takeoffs and landings, but now this? The entire flight I held out pictures of my three nieces for good luck, not putting them away until the plane landed in San Francisco.
Risa and I had a fun coupla days, doing some touristy stuff like going to Alcatraz and Fisherman’s Wharf, each of which are fun even though the locals won’t say they are, and just walking through different neighborhoods. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming into town, because I only had 42 hours there, and knew I’d have to disappoint almost all my 60+ relatives and many friends. I did call my cousin Kenny and we all had lunch together, and I borrowed Risa’s rent-a-car and drove to Petaluma to go to a party with my pal, the most excellent person and poet Trane DeVore.
About three years later, in March of 1998, I threw a vernal equinox party to kickoff the Chelsea apartment I had moved into the previous November. I went to a neighborhood framing shop, Manhattan Art Gallery on 6th Avenue and 18th St., and had a bunch of things framed, among them David Kirschenbaum the book dealer’s obituary.
In August of 1999 I was in touch with Mark Fisher, who I met the previous year at the first annual Boston Alternative Poetry Marathon, the festival that Aaron Kiely founded and ran. Mark was on the board of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac (LCK), an organization in Jack Kerouac’s birthplace that puts together a festival each fall to celebrate his life and work. He saw the instantzine, JiffyBoog, that I had put together overnight during the festival with work from many participants--among them Lisa Jarnot, Lewis Warsh, Sean Cole, Dan Bouchard, and Kristin Prevallet--and was wondering if I might be willing to do something similar for the Lowell festival to help them raise money. I told him sure, I just wanted to be able to have my transportation and accommodations paid for. And Mark said no problem.
So we spent the next few weeks putting together a Kerouac issue of my litzine Booglit. Mark sold ads, all of the revenue from which went to LCK, I made the zine and solicited work from the festival’s participants. When all was done we had poems by ex-White Panther Party head John Sinclair, Eliot Katz, and Danny Shot, among others; a collage by Wendy Kramer; my mentor Doug Brinkley (buy his new John Kerry book today) with an introduction to Jack’s unpublished Washington D.C. Blues; and two killer interviews, of Robert Creeley and David Amram, conducted by everyone’s favorite librarian, Michael Basinski of Buffalo fame. I even got permission to use on the cover Allen Ginsberg’s classic Kerouac with the brakeman’s manual in his pocket photo from Bob Rosenthal, Ginsberg’s literary executor, who I go to synagogue with (though he goes there much more often). And, the whole issue could never have happened without the tireless coconspiratorial presence of Don Goede, a Soft Skull editor and Kinko’s man extraordinaire, who designed all the ads, and printed the issue at a ridiculous discount. Hell, he even hand-delivered them to Lowell.
So I fly into Boston on LCK’s dime, Mark picks me up, and I get to Kerouac’s Lowell and get a nighttime tour of the Grotto from Dr. Sax that I just can’t describe. It was an amazing weekend, being treated like visiting publishing star, seeing all these people I admire perform and talk, reading my work and getting great response, and watching in the airport on my way home the Mets game and finding out that they had miraculously caused a one-game playoff with the Reds, and my brother-in-law and I just might have postseason tickets after all (which we did, and it was amazing, Ventura’s Grand Single among the games).
During the Saturday of the festival, the local library held a small press fair and open reading. It was mainly small press editors reading back and forth to each other, but it was swell nonetheless, us all reading in this real old, high-ceiling room. I had someone watch my table. I went up, read a few poems, and sat back down to hock wares for LCK and Boog, when this guy walked up to me from across the room, and says:
“My name’s Doug Holder. I had an uncle named David Kirschenbaum, he just died a few years ago. He was a rare book dealer.” And I went on to recount to Doug this whole tale, eventually asking him to write me some words about his uncle.
This morning, my body got me up at 4:50 and I stayed up, doing some Boog housekeeping and reading through Katie Degentesh’s ms, when I saw my email in envelope flashing. This is what was there:
The Last Time I Saw Uncle Dave
by Doug Holder
I always wondered where I got my love of books, and why I was always at pains to lend them out or part with even the most undistinguished of tomes. My late Uncle Dave may be the answer. My Uncle Dave to coin a phrase, was the last of a dying breed. David Kirschenbaum was born to Jewish immigrants, and as a young man sold books from a cart in the teeming streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the early part of the century. By the time of his death, he was a prominent rare book dealer, and a well-known face at the tony auction houses of Christies and Sotheby. Because of Dave my house was always supplied with enigmatic first editions, with wonderfully florid illustrations. Children’s books, ancient books on ancient history, literally littered our attic when I was a kid. On holidays, when I got to see Dave, he was as mysterious and fascinating as the books he gave us. He was a creature of the Old World, solemn and formal, with a hint of a Yiddish twang in his voice. He talked in a studied manner, and had a slow, deliberate cadence to his speech. Every time we conversed I felt he was about to tell me some fantastic tale, even if what he had to say concerned the most banal aspects of life.
I think the last time I saw Uncle Dave was about 10 years ago at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The family got together for mother’s birthday. I remember sitting in the handsomely appointed dining room when Uncle Dave arrived. He was wearing some kind of Derby, and used a cane to help him walk. We all stood up as this distinguished, but diminutive, 96-year-old man crossed the room to our table. I felt like I was a cast member in some Merchant/Ivory production, as this Old World figure took his seat. He reminded me of some well-heeled figure that I encountered in an Isaac Bashevis Singer or Saul Bellow story. He had an elfin twinkle in his eyes, and seemed to take in the surroundings like he was approaching an old book or manuscript. He summoned me to his side of the table like a benevolent king to a beloved subject. After talking to him for a little while I felt a profound sense of loss. I regretted that I was so self-involved in my own life that I never took up his invitations to have lunch or spend some time talking with my Dave. Interacting with this man I became aware of his great expanse of experience and knowledge. I could see the traces of the scrappy Lower East Side kid pushing a cart, and the self-educated man-of-the-world he had become. He was the last man who will ever tell me that “Gershwin was a nice kid.” But Dave knew George Gershwin when they were mere kids in the city.
Dave had appraised libraries all over the world, and had conversations with everyone from Robert Frost to William Faulkner. Dave had survived the passage from Poland to Ellis Island, the vagaries of the Depression, and lived through the many of the manic swings of the last century. Near the end of our conversation I asked Dave what made him decide to become a book dealer, he said with his characteristic understatement “I had to make a living.” I realized that this man was as rare as the things he sold. He was the last glimpse of another era, a time I had only the vaguest idea of. He was part of a world where men sat in cafeterias and sipped tea through sugar cubes held tightly by their teeth. He was as mysterious as the mumbled and, at times, lyrical Yiddish, my grandparents exchanged, tit-for-tat in the cramped apartment in the hinterlands of the Bronx. He was a link to what I am, where I came from. I will miss him.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Erica Kaufman read the other day in the Frequency series here in NYC and was asked to write an introduction for herself (as many curators ask). She wasn't into it and I didn't like what she wrote, so I wrote her this intro, which they used--
I have here a statement from Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum:
Hi, wish I could be here with all of you, but my 10-yr-old niece Michelle is in Fiddler on the Roof as we speak.
Erica Kaufman is one of my favorite people. She’ll kickbox toward your head as soon as she’ll write a poem for each of the frogs in her cubicle at the Jewish nonprofit where she works (and I temp). She will play one song on permanent repeat for hours and write acrostics for days. She’s the only poet I know who on an almost daily basis tells me about a new book of poetry they’ve just read and why they do or don’t dig it. She’s been published in CanWeHaveOurBallBack.com, Puppyflowers.com, The Mississippi Review, Bombay Gin, UnpleasantEventSchedule.com, and is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly. Along with Rachel Levitsky, she co-curates Belladonna*, a reading series and small press dedicated to experimental women writers.
I’m not one to introduce poets and describe their work, I figure their work can do that on its own. Let’s just say that I read her poems on an almost daily basis, and it’s one of the best parts of my day.
I have here a statement from Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum:
Hi, wish I could be here with all of you, but my 10-yr-old niece Michelle is in Fiddler on the Roof as we speak.
Erica Kaufman is one of my favorite people. She’ll kickbox toward your head as soon as she’ll write a poem for each of the frogs in her cubicle at the Jewish nonprofit where she works (and I temp). She will play one song on permanent repeat for hours and write acrostics for days. She’s the only poet I know who on an almost daily basis tells me about a new book of poetry they’ve just read and why they do or don’t dig it. She’s been published in CanWeHaveOurBallBack.com, Puppyflowers.com, The Mississippi Review, Bombay Gin, UnpleasantEventSchedule.com, and is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly. Along with Rachel Levitsky, she co-curates Belladonna*, a reading series and small press dedicated to experimental women writers.
I’m not one to introduce poets and describe their work, I figure their work can do that on its own. Let’s just say that I read her poems on an almost daily basis, and it’s one of the best parts of my day.
Saturday, February 07, 2004
aaron and sean came over last night, kiely and cole, sean in town to do work on a public radio story. it's the first time the three of us have spent an extended period of time together in a longtime, so long that i have to think about it. there were 20 minutes in sean's car in january, a few minutes at the boston poetry marathon this past june. before that i was basically housebound with depression from may 2002-march 2003. before that we were together at a new year's eve event i threw in dec. 2001, but sean's lady mary ellen was there. hmmm. i really can't remember the last time it was just the three of us in one place for an extended period of time acting the fools. and it kinda pisses me off, both the us not hanging by ourselves, which is always so dumb fun as was apparent last night, but me not remembering a date, me, fucking date boy, ugh!
sean and i got some italian food delivered--though he didn't take my advice and ordered a gyro, which he wasn't all that happy with. (my folks taught me you don't buy baked ziti in a diner, because that's not what diners are good at making.) And then we watched Tanner '88 on the Sundance channel. It's this great ex-HBO series from 1988 that Doonesbury's Gary Trudeau wrote and Robert Altman directed about a fictional presidential candidate on the campaign trail. It even features a young, hippy-esque Cynthia Nixon from Sex and the City as the candidate's daughter. I really enjoyed watching it back then while my friend Ian was doing a lot of work on the Dukakis campaign and I was pitching in a bit, too. And it's still swell now, though sort of time capsuley.
Aaron told me he's only voted once and we got into a pretty long argument-discussion once i told him that he could no longer complain about Bush, since he didn't even vote in the election. Sean acted the referee. So what do you think oh loyal readers? If you don't vote can you complain about the elected officials? let me know: editor at boogcity dot com
After that we watched this Sofia Coppola short I taped off IFC, Lick the Star, that she did before The Virgin Suicides. And then they were off to Aaron's place in Harlem, me to stay up too late and start figuring out small presses to invite for the 2004-2005 renegade press series, as the gallery and me just reupped for another year, and write my daily email to gina as part of our february project.
sean and i got some italian food delivered--though he didn't take my advice and ordered a gyro, which he wasn't all that happy with. (my folks taught me you don't buy baked ziti in a diner, because that's not what diners are good at making.) And then we watched Tanner '88 on the Sundance channel. It's this great ex-HBO series from 1988 that Doonesbury's Gary Trudeau wrote and Robert Altman directed about a fictional presidential candidate on the campaign trail. It even features a young, hippy-esque Cynthia Nixon from Sex and the City as the candidate's daughter. I really enjoyed watching it back then while my friend Ian was doing a lot of work on the Dukakis campaign and I was pitching in a bit, too. And it's still swell now, though sort of time capsuley.
Aaron told me he's only voted once and we got into a pretty long argument-discussion once i told him that he could no longer complain about Bush, since he didn't even vote in the election. Sean acted the referee. So what do you think oh loyal readers? If you don't vote can you complain about the elected officials? let me know: editor at boogcity dot com
After that we watched this Sofia Coppola short I taped off IFC, Lick the Star, that she did before The Virgin Suicides. And then they were off to Aaron's place in Harlem, me to stay up too late and start figuring out small presses to invite for the 2004-2005 renegade press series, as the gallery and me just reupped for another year, and write my daily email to gina as part of our february project.
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Boog City 13, February 2004
Now available
The issue includes a 16-page clip-n-fold insert of
The Tangent (#14, February 2004),
a zine of politics and the arts based in St. Mary's City, Maryland
with a pub party on
Thurs. February 19, 7:00 p.m., $5
The C-Note
157 Avenue C. (& 10th St.)
NYC
with Tangent contributors reading,
followed by a live performance of
Nirvana's In Utero
(detailed info to follow next week)
---------
Inside Boog City 13
the Boog City portion features:
--Columnist-at-large Greg Fuchs interviews Steven Cuiffo, a.k.a. Russello, The New Hot Conjurer
--East Village editor Merry Fortune interviews sculptor Eddie Boros
--Tsaurah Litzky remembers her friend, poet Enid Dame
--Music editor Jon Berger on Simone White's debut CD
--Eugene Lim on Kevin Davies' Lateral Argument
Poems from:
--David Harrison Horton
--Yuri Hospodar
--Cassie Lewis
---------
The Tangent portion features:
Art from:
--Philippe Boisnard
--Colby Caldwell
--Erika Weaver
Essays from:
--Max Boykoff on "Global Warming and Its Discontents"
--Neal "Backstreet" Sand's "Impressions of a City:
Film Geek Takes a Bite out of the Apple"
Poems from:
--Susana Gardner
--Semezdin Mehmedinovic
--Chris Nealon
--Tom Orange
--Frank Sherlock
The Tangent editorial collective is
Jules Boykoff
Max Boykoff
Kaia Sand
Neal Sand
http://thetangentpress.org/
---------
Please patronize our advertisers:
Bowery Poetry Club * www.bowerypoetry.com
The Sincere Recording Company * www.sincererecording.com
----------
You can pick up Boog City for free at the following locations:
East Village
Acme
alt.coffee
Angelika Theater
Anthology Film Archives
Bluestockings
Bowery Poetry Club
Cafe Pick Me Up
CBGB's
CB's 313 Gallery
Cedar Tavern
C-Note
Continental
Lakeside Lounge
Life Cafe
The Living Room
Mission Cafe
Nuyorican Poets Cafe
The Pink Pony
Religious Sex
See Hear
Shakespeare & Co.
St. Mark's Books
St. Mark's Church
Tonic
Tower Video
Other parts of Manhattan
ACA Galleries
Here
Hotel Chelsea
Poets House
Revolution Books
in Williamsburg
Clovis Press
Earwax
L Cafe
L Cafe to Go
Sideshow Gallery
Spoonbill & Sugartown
Supercore Cafe
Now available
The issue includes a 16-page clip-n-fold insert of
The Tangent (#14, February 2004),
a zine of politics and the arts based in St. Mary's City, Maryland
with a pub party on
Thurs. February 19, 7:00 p.m., $5
The C-Note
157 Avenue C. (& 10th St.)
NYC
with Tangent contributors reading,
followed by a live performance of
Nirvana's In Utero
(detailed info to follow next week)
---------
Inside Boog City 13
the Boog City portion features:
--Columnist-at-large Greg Fuchs interviews Steven Cuiffo, a.k.a. Russello, The New Hot Conjurer
--East Village editor Merry Fortune interviews sculptor Eddie Boros
--Tsaurah Litzky remembers her friend, poet Enid Dame
--Music editor Jon Berger on Simone White's debut CD
--Eugene Lim on Kevin Davies' Lateral Argument
Poems from:
--David Harrison Horton
--Yuri Hospodar
--Cassie Lewis
---------
The Tangent portion features:
Art from:
--Philippe Boisnard
--Colby Caldwell
--Erika Weaver
Essays from:
--Max Boykoff on "Global Warming and Its Discontents"
--Neal "Backstreet" Sand's "Impressions of a City:
Film Geek Takes a Bite out of the Apple"
Poems from:
--Susana Gardner
--Semezdin Mehmedinovic
--Chris Nealon
--Tom Orange
--Frank Sherlock
The Tangent editorial collective is
Jules Boykoff
Max Boykoff
Kaia Sand
Neal Sand
http://thetangentpress.org/
---------
Please patronize our advertisers:
Bowery Poetry Club * www.bowerypoetry.com
The Sincere Recording Company * www.sincererecording.com
----------
You can pick up Boog City for free at the following locations:
East Village
Acme
alt.coffee
Angelika Theater
Anthology Film Archives
Bluestockings
Bowery Poetry Club
Cafe Pick Me Up
CBGB's
CB's 313 Gallery
Cedar Tavern
C-Note
Continental
Lakeside Lounge
Life Cafe
The Living Room
Mission Cafe
Nuyorican Poets Cafe
The Pink Pony
Religious Sex
See Hear
Shakespeare & Co.
St. Mark's Books
St. Mark's Church
Tonic
Tower Video
Other parts of Manhattan
ACA Galleries
Here
Hotel Chelsea
Poets House
Revolution Books
in Williamsburg
Clovis Press
Earwax
L Cafe
L Cafe to Go
Sideshow Gallery
Spoonbill & Sugartown
Supercore Cafe