I’ve been interviewed over at Kate Greenstreet’s kickingwind.com as part of her interviews-about-first-books series. Take a look.
December 2006
Monthly Archive
Tue 26 Dec 2006
Sun 24 Dec 2006
1. Elizabeth Arnold’s Civilization is an exceptional collection of poems, the force of which lies in her ability to shape both quotidian & unique crises with great care:
I Take a WalkI take a walk, look up (a siren goes by), down,
the grounda large conducting body (Earth),
our magnet, us its,with the sky’s pressures’ shiftings
grabbing clouds and twisting.
The poem is a more coherent version of the walk than the walk itself likely would have been. One of the chief, & often misunderstood, advantages of poetry is its capacity for truthfulness as opposed to realism. Did she actually consider gravity during a walk? Perhaps she did but what matters more is that she brings a tonal & structural intelligence to bear on the creation of the walk she describes; that is, if she didn’t become suddenly aware of gravity during a walk, she imagined the possibility of such a walk. This latter imagination is what I think makes Civilization such a wonderful book.
2. Where much contemporary poetry is geared towards an accretion of juxtaposed adjectives & unconventionally-placed nouns (not syntactically oddly-placed but rather oddly-placed in the poem’s mise-en-scene), Arnold opts for a thoughtful gathering of subjects & objects whose conventional veracity is beside the point.
3. Hers is a generous poetry & her poems are likely to resonate as much among readers as they do each other. At the root of her accomplishment is a balance of style & skill through which she emphasizes a sense of possiblity over a sense of actuality. The result, poem after poem, is a gracious comprehension of situations that would otherwise be out of reach.
Tue 19 Dec 2006
K. got me this terrific warm-up jacket for Chanukah. I’m stoked.
Tue 19 Dec 2006
My friends J. Robbins & Janet Morgan need some help. Their son, Callum, has S.M.A. (Spinal Muscular Atrophy). Kim & Bill at DeSoto Records have set up a page through which you can learn more about Cal, S.M.A., & how to make a donation to help cover Cal’s medical bills. Click here to do the right thing.
Tue 19 Dec 2006
Talk Talk is probably best known in the U.S. for their early ’80s hits, ‘Talk Talk,’ & ‘Dum Dum Girl.’ Some remember ‘Life’s What You Make It‘ from the transitional The Colour of Spring LP but for the most part that’s the end of it. What goes largely unacknowledged is one of the most intriguing progressions in pop music history: Talk Talk, due to the mutual influence of keyboardist Tim Friese-Greene & singer Mark Hollis, became a band whose aim was, apparently, to not make any sound. The group went to great lengths to accomplish this goal, most notably, effectively, & perhaps ironically, by way of improvisation & expanded instrumentation.
‘Myrrhman’ opens Laughing Stock, their final effort as a group.
Recommendations: The Colour of Spring (EMI, 1986); Spirit of Eden (EMI, 1988); Laughing Stock (Polydor/Verve, 1991); Mark Hollis (Polydor, 1998/Pond Life, 2000).
Tue 19 Dec 2006
Fri 15 Dec 2006
Depending on what your interests are, you might have come across Michael Snow as a visual artist, a musician, or a filmmaker. My own interest in his work was sparked by his friendship with Hollis Frampton. The two appeared in or lent voice to each others’ work (Frampton in Snow’s Wavelength; Snow as the narrator of Frampton’s (nostalgia)) & were closely associated as artists & peers.
‘Blues with Beer, Magazines, Table, and Chair’ was recorded in 1998 & included on Ghosts and Monsters (EMF) , a collection of musics spanning the 20th Century compiled by & for the Leonardo Music Journal. I found the track at ubuweb.
Fri 15 Dec 2006
Fri 15 Dec 2006
‘Tribute’ appears on the 2-disc Dark Woods Ensemble Live Wood set, the contents of which were recorded over the course of a European tour in 1996. The line-up for this tour was Marty Ehrlich, winds; Erik Friedlander, cello; Mark Helias, bass. The group has elsewhere included percussion, guitar, & other instrumentation.
I first saw Ehrlich perform in Andrew Hill’s sextet at the Knitting Factory in 1998. It was among the best shows I’ve ever seen, in no small part because of Ehrlich’s versatility & range, to say nothing of his attention to the other musicians. He is a consummate performer: assertive & gracious to both audience & bandmates.
Other recommendations: Dark Woods Ensemble, Sojourn (Tzadik, 1999); Marty Ehrlich, News on the Rail (Palmetto, 2005); Andrew Hill, Dusk (Palmetto, 2000).
Thu 14 Dec 2006
Mon 4 Dec 2006
l to r: Kevin McKendree, Delbert McClinton, Declan MacManus, some guy
