30 December 2019

a curiosity

I was going thru the worn album which holds many of the smaller movie star photos I collectd as a child.

MGM sent pictures of their stars in envelopes. but Universal-International & others sent post card images instead of actual photographs.  I was checking the later to establish dates for the collection.

& that's how I found this. it's on the back of the postcard from Eddie Fisher who I don't remember liking all that much. he was one of the few recording stars in the album which explains why this was sent from the east coast.



besides the useful information from the postmark I'm amused by the signature of 10-year-old me. why I signd the back of the postcard is a mystery. but why I did such a fanciful signing is even stranger. but I find it a sweet look back at little Alex.

& to those who still look in on this site which I fear I've neglectd of late may I wish you a happy new year. a whole new decade.


13 December 2019

let us keep on

it's been more than 3 decades since I met Tony Trigilio when he was a student at Kent. our circles overlapped in library & town. I remember us reading on campus together. & when he left we kept in touch. he was one of those whose work we chose to include in A Gathering of Poets. & I sent him one of my ties for the piece "Tie One On."

today he is a celebrated poet & writing teacher in Chicago where I last saw him for breakfast too many years ago.  & he has become famous for his series of poems based on the tv series "Dark Shadows."

I now have the third book of these poems -- Ghosts of the Upper Floor. & what an utter joy to find myself quoted in Tony's collection. of course I had to include this in Alex in Movieland. I love this layering or what Tony calls an accumulation. it's there in my long serial work & in his.

thank you old friend. & let us both keep on accumulating.

(from "Tie One On")