masters pass

Bergman & Antonioni

afternoon storm

shut down computer

turnd off electricity

filld gopher holes

musical visitors in town

HK Gruber


Sonny Rollins

speaking of The Arcade

Regina arrives for her annual opera visit in 2 days. so I'm in the final stages of housecleaning. in the process I discoverd a cache of unorganizd snapshots (remember pre-digitial?). this one is of that great Cleveland landmark. if you squint you'll see me in my room above the sign. (& before you go there Vera -- that's a lampshade   not a hat.)

Cleveland rocks

my 1st favorite city was featurd on the "Early Show" just now. there was Les Roberts in the Arcade. & Laura Taxel talking abt pierogies. coverage of West Side Market & Sokolowski's. the magnificent Terminal Tower. & of course the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.

chamber music festival

best bargain in town is the noon concert. timeless music presentd by world-class musicians. today it was the extraordinary Zuill Bailey performing Beethoven's "Cello Sonata No. 3 in A Major."

suicide

understandable -- but always shocking.

first there was Jerry Hadley who I'd heard sing Jay Gatsby.

now Theresa Duncan & Jeremy Blake.

from the archives

with P. Craig Russell

The X Bolex

I've mentiond young Cleveland composer Nate Scheible before. I wrote some words for him for his current project. he just sent me the CD. I haven't had time to listen to the whole thing yet but of course immediately playd "my" pieces. the one which is pure autobiography is esp poignant to me. here are the words:

CHURCH

I don’t remember
when we had to go to church
but it was late
& the service
lastd forever

the cousins had to try hard
not to laugh
when the old man
in the choir
sang so low
the pews shook

the littlest cousin
fell asleep

power outage

Qwest faild again. since I had no internet this ayem &nsbsp; I went to town early. took another look at New Mexico paintings of Hartley & Sloan before imbibing in Mozart.

Laszlo Kovacs (1933-2007)

just months ago we chattd abt his surname which approximates my mother's.

fallen angels

Dominick Dunne informs us that Lana Clarkson & that weird music man on trial for her murder were watching "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" in the backseat of a Mercedes on the final nite of her life.

why does this tidbit tantalize me. because it's an intersection of tragic Hollywood lives. the leading lady of that film noir was Barbara Payton who went from stardom to the depths in her short life. Payton fascinates me. Clarkson less so but only because I don't know her work. I've seen some of the films in which she had bits but with no memory of her. I did come across her grave on my last visit to Hollywood Forever.

maybe only my tinseltown-soakd mind wd add to the stew Lana Turner. one presumes Clarkson was named for the MGM star who was involvd in one of the most famous Hollywood murders. Turner lost her virginity to playboy lawyer Greg Bautzer who later was engagd to Payton.

Hollywood after all is a small town.

high drama

when my next door neighbor's roof caught fire shortly after the deluge I presumd it was a lightning strike. when I learnd it was causd by a gas leak I was too afraid to sleep.

monsoon season arrives

I was an hour into a movie when the storm hit. it knockd out satellite so I turnd off the tv & went out to the back portal. I was there less than 30 seconds when a lightning bolt struck so close to the house that the concrete beneath me shook & there was a burnt smell in the wet air. I dashd inside   tintinabulous aftershocks surrounding my whole body. the rain became torrential   flooding my patio. then I cd hear the roar. Arroyo Chamisa once more became a river.

after an hour of hard rain   we're in a lull. but I can still hear my temporary river.

my ears aren't pretty

but they are acute.

cdn't get to sleep last nite. kept hearing something. I presume it was a bug.

Tom & I

at my retirement party 14 years ago

h.b. T. B.

today is Tom Beckett's birthday. I can think of no better present you can give him than to purchase a copy of Unprotected Texts. altho I'm familiar with much of the work in this collection   encountering them afresh is an infusion of oxygen. Tom wd blush if I sd many of his poems make me giddy. but he's one of the funniest poets out there. & he's one of the sexiest. he gets in yr underpants & won't move out. but he's also a serious artist & a thinker who makes his readers think.

let me offer a quick quote:

Seldom

used dildo.

I know. I'm lifting a few words from a long piece. but that's Beckett. the long piece is a castle made of many rooms. & this one deserves a reservation. I cd write reams abt it.

anyway Tom... I'm sorry we were unable to connect during my few hours in Kent. I love to laugh with you.

just remember yr age & don't spit on the cake when you blow out the candles.

what a dame

Joe.My.God. alertd us to the hot new Shirley Bassey video on You Tube.


here I am with her in Beverly Hills in 1992 when we both had more hair.

Emmy noms

competing for Best Song are "Dick in a Box" & "Guy Love."

"check out her gams"

it's taking me a while to catch up on blogs. Richard Lopez postd his poem "pulp noir" just as I was winging to Ohio (tues 10 july).

I'm honord   my friend.

better late than

after 37 years of neglect Kent State University has finally erectd a sign at the site of Robert Smithson's "Partially Buried Woodshed."

time with Dad

after 34 busy hours in Kent   David drove me to Elyria. the purpose of this trip was to celebrate my father's 89th birthday. it's still more than a week away but I'm unable to be there for the actual day so we did an early party.

I made the mistake of asking Dad if he had any projects for me. welllllllllllll   a branch from the huge maple in the backyard crashd onto the roof of the greenhouse which he built as an attachment to the house years ago. sounds like easy work. it took 2 days. I'm an acrophobe. so there I was on a ladder trying to extract a sheet of broken glass which had been well-puttied for eons. & the hardest part was lifting a heavy awkward new piece of glass up the ladder & into place.

the actual celebration was a small family affair. Mom askd Julia Ally to use a garden vegetable motif for one of her famous cakes.

past & present

rather than bore or irritate you with an explanation of all my hours spent in Chicago Midway on both ends of the trip I'll go straight to Kent.

David Meredith pickd me up at the airport & after 3 hours sleep I spent a day researching in Special Collections at KSUL. among the things squirreld away in my papers were a set of photographs actor Kevin McCarthy took in my Twin Lakes home in 1976. here's one of me in the livingroom:



from work I went directly to a lovely little party Alfred Cavaretta threw me on his porch.



here he's serving hors d'oeuvres to watercolorist Henry Walker   sculptor Brinsley Tyrrell   weaver Lillian Tyrrell & poet Maggie Anderson.

flying sucks

l-o-n-g weather delays
going out
AND
returning

back to Ohio

where Dad will turn 89...

strange doings

we're not getting that heat wave here but the electricity went off briefly this morning & my computer turnd itself off this afternoon.

so when I think

abt how hot it is in Phoenix I think first of Charles Jensen. I've never met Charles Jensen. but I've read him. both as poet & as blogger. & we've correspond'd. so it seems natural that when the news tells me it's hot in Phoenix I think abt Charles Jensen.

when given sevens

heel against wood. this is a sauna. so wood is hot. heel becomes hot. no one else there. no one to feel my heat. I have been hot alone before. I have been so hot the mind begins to drift. there is a beginning to a serial poem in that drift. there is a joy to know the heat creates a word the heart hasn't met. the word enters my heel. I will tell no one. when the word swims to my mouth I will spit it into the shower. the cold shower that ends the hour. if it sinks into the drain I will forget as I towel my parts. but if it sticks to a toenail I'll bring it home.

sometimes poems come from shaking my feet. but I don't reveal that to professors. if they knew that they'd wire me requests to lick my feet. I'm getting old. I can't hold joy in buckets anymore.

Mr & Mrs Arnoldi

to open Charlotte Jackson's Project Space today Charles Arnoldi showd some of his arc paintings



Katie Arnoldi awaits publication of her second novel

dead letter

Guy Davenport died a year & a half ago but I got an e-mail from him yesterday.

it turnd out to be spam. where do they find these names? are there robots reading my blog to discover words to send me?

#1000

I remember approaching my toothbrush with the consideration of joining that horde of blogging poets.

that was written on 10 nov 04: part of my first entry. & here we are at the thousandth.

it's been a trip...

pancakes on the plaza

Roberto Marquez with the Century Dimes

"Altered Books"

Silliman's mention today of Dan Waber's project remind'd me of one of my scarcest titles.



mine may be the only surviving copy of a xerox edition I did nearly 30 years ago. some time after putting out Three Stories in an edition of 100 I took 3 pages of that book & blackd out most of the text to make a trio of poems for an actor friend.



unfortunately this copy is too small to be readable. but you get the idea.

coincidence?

shortly after posting my last entry someone from Department of Justice visitd my site.

if they return: Gonzales is a prick too.

no jail for Scooter

President Worst Ever has done it again.

what a sad sad time this is.

over the weekend

I sat with John Ericson & wife for a screening of Sam Fuller's "Forty Guns." hard to believe it's been 50 years since its original release. it's one of the few times in his career that John got to play nasty (he shoots Hank Worden for crissakes) & he loved it.

bird brain

when I got home from the cinemateque just past 10 last nite a bird flew into the house. I opend all the doors & askd it to leave. 3 and a half hours later it flew out. in the inbetween time I wore myself out. I tried to nudge it out with a broom. I had no intention of hurting it. I just wantd it out so I cd go to bed. I tried a larger expanse of a sheet. I know the bird was scared. that's why it kept shitting all over the place. it simply wdn't exit. it flew from the top of the frame on the Joe O'Sickey across the livingroom to the Richard Larson & back to the Mary Ann Begland. I was certain it'd shit on a painting & became crosser & crosser. at times it perchd on the door   inches from outside but didn't have the intelligence to fly out. I guess I finally wore it out shortly before it did me in. it was abt 2 by the time I hit the pillows. I had to get up early for breakfast with neighbors.

if this day wasn't made for a nap none has been.