recovery day

because I wasn't quite up to snuff I didn't go to the gym yesterday. I stayd home & did some scattershot reading. first up was a return to Jim Cory's 1994 interview with James Broughton ( American Writing 9 ). it's good to see a serious discussion of a body of work too often considerd lightweight.

then I pulld a forgotten figure from the shelves. during my student days everyone read Growing Up Absurd. its author Paul Goodman was considerd a major literary figure but I don't hear him mentiond much now. his startling book Five Years was the blog of its day. I took down his 1967 collection of poems Hawkweed. I didn't read straight thru but pickd around. altho I found some fine moments   the work seemd less exciting to me as poetry than I'd rememberd. my younthful attention to it may have been for its boldness of subject matter. I don't think it was usual for Random House to be publishing at that time graphic poems abt sex with hustlers.

my evening pattern is to watch a movie. last nite it was Raoul Walsh's delightful "Going Hollywood" (1933). the title derives from one of its songs which includes the line "out where they say 'let's be gay' I'm going Hollywood." the film's gayest moment was when absinthe-hungover Bing Crosby croons "Beautiful Girl" to an adoring Sterling Holloway.