Hello Beta

How many strolls along the surf line have I taken in my life? Hundreds and hundreds. And how many shipwrecks have I come upon? None . . . until this Labor Day . . . when the remains of the British schooner Beta appeared in the waves. The ship foundered in April 1886, while en route to Boston from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Three lives were lost, including two young sisters, ages 8 months and 3 years, who "were torn by the sea from the arms of their mother and drowned."

Golf Gods

Last summer, after too long a hiatus, I began regularly tormenting myself on the golf course again. The only good thing about my game was the company I kept while watching my ball fly off course (literally, sometimes): two actuaries and my son. We've had a lot of fun chasing par over the past two summers. Unfortunately, good things do apparently have to end. Rob (one of my favorite actuaries of all time!) is moving to Atlanta this fall. The game will simply not be the same without him. The group portrait above was taken at the conclusion of our final round together: September 5, 2009. A bittersweet day indeed. Sanjay, Drew, and I will miss you, man.

Observations on the Parade Outside the BPL

Sitting on the granite steps outside the Boston Public Library, after being evicted from the blessedly air conditioned Bates Reading Room at 5 PM, I am appreciative of the slight breeze and the parade of people passing through Copley Square this late afternoon . . . the intricacy of detail on Trinity Church across the way.

Apocalypse seems quite remote . . . though a woman with an African accent and a baby in a stroller continues to wander back and forth in front of me proclaiming that God loves and that Christ can provide a better night's sleep and safety upon waking. It's easy to fabricate some horrific past for this woman, in a country where death and torment are more overtly present.

It's easier yet to observe the reactions of those who pass her as she makes her rounds. I particularly appreciated the neanderthal dude who turned and yelled at her, "What the hell are you yelling about?" . . . and, in doing so, lost control of the unlit cigarette dangling from his yap. It fell directly and irretrievably into a crevice between the walkway's granite slabs. God works in humorous ways at times!

Just now, a little fellow with the most gigantic curly mane and a white button-up shirt and a terrific smile has found the statue near where I am sitting fascinating and worth the effort to climb the steps to be near. The exuberant inquisitiveness of childhood is infectious. He really likes this statue! I have no idea what he is saying as he comments on this public work of art, but he is enthusiastic in his assessment.

So many iterations of our human carnival available for perusing. I've been working on revising my long poem "These Days Appear Particular" this afternoon, and sitting here just makes it clearer how particular each of our experiences truly is . . . familiar, similar, yet particular in its details. Billions of story lines all wavering and weaving their way on this small blue marble.

What the Brain Can Do

It's always interesting when our assumptions about what (and how) we understand are challenged. I came across the book "My Stroke of Insight" in an airport bookstore recently. Imagine being a brain scientist and getting to experience your brain's reaction to a severe stroke. Imagine if the stroke damaged the side of your brain with which you do all of your thinking and understanding of yourself and the world. Imagine having only the side of the brain that can allow you to connect with and perceive yourself as an energetic being intertwined with the universe and its teeming life force still functioning. This happened to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, and she's never been the same since . . . but in an unexpectedly positive way.

Instant Expert: Quantum World - New Scientist

I do believe that one of the things about the quantum that fascinates is that it represents so many possibilities. For the imaginative, inquisitive person this is not unlike a cosmic kaleidoscope on the one hand . . . any number of combinations could delight. But the quantum goes further, into the undefinable. And, for the mathematically incompetent (like me), it allows for interpreting and theorizing from a foundation of nothing more substantive than one's imagination. How cool is that? 

Instant Expert: Quantum World - physics-math - 04 September 2006 - New Scientist

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Exit the King

I'm not a fan of traveling for business (at least domestically). I've done it for too long, and any novelty long ago vanished. The two exceptions to this rule are New York and San Francisco. Both are still quasi-wonderlands to me. I try to plan alone time whenever I visit either. Time for exploring, wandering, observing.

When I stay in Midtown, I like to get to a play. I am a novice theater aficionado, but I enthusiastically seek to be transported. I got on a lucky bus last night, when I went to see Geoffrey Rush in his translation/interpretation of Eugene Ionesco's "Exit the King" on Broadway.

I knew nothing about Ionesco (beyond recognizing his name) or this particular piece. I was excited to see the stars (Rush, Susan Sarandon, Lauren Ambrose) perform in a well-reviewed play, and to get away from the business-of-business that had dominated my day.

And then the lights went down . . . and poetry began to resonate all the way to the last row of the Barrymore Theater where I was seated. I was engaged from the first lines to the good king's inevitable death, two-plus hours later.

The play considers the narcissism which sustains all humans and particularizes it to a sovereign who would see every fellow human gone, if it meant he could survive. Ionesco was a master of the theater of the absurd, according to the biographical sketch in my Playbill.

The absurd in this work is the absurdity with which we squander life and covet it, unrelentingly, when we sense its impending departure. And it's about so much more.

"Exit the King" has all the great attributes that I admire in effective poems. The language is layered, original . . . the words are somehow cajoled into performing acts of reflection and illumination that spark the audience's consciousness toward some new vantage point.

The world may not seem much clearer from where this play takes one, but it surely seems more multi-faceted and magnificent to behold . . . like diamonds scattered across a field, with the sun burning through the overcast of the quotidian.

Celebrity Sighting Update

Earlier this evening, I saw Adam Sandler on Newbury Street as I was walking to Trident (a local, independent bookstore cafe). He was with two little girls, who I mistakenly thought were his own (as was pointed out to me by the guy sitting next to me at Trident, who had also seen Sandler, when Adam apparently borrowed these two tykes from their parents and began dancing with them on the sidewalk of the aforementioned Newbury Street . . . too bad I missed that!). Then, not two hours later, on my way home from Trident, I happened to glance over at the outside tables at a Newbury Street dining establishment called Piatini and made eye contact with . . . Adam Sandler. He quickly looked away, understandably . . . for I would've definitely gone over and tried to get a fist bump from him otherwise!

Vegas, Baby!

I am back from my 22 hour visit to Las Vegas, America's Gomorrah. It was a little like Scrooge being visited by the ghosts of American Culture Kitsch. 

A hotel with its entire facade emblazoned with an image of Donny and Marie Osmond; the ubiquitous non-English speaking "girls direct to your room in 7 minutes" card dealers who have colonized every street corner; the ever-expanding invasion by Cirque du Soleil; taxis with ads for machine gun shops on their tops. 

It's good to be back in New England.

Revision and Reading

I've been working on revisions in earnest today. I am in the midst of drafting a ten-part poem, in conjunction with a ten-week workshop I signed on to participate in this spring. So it's helpful to counterbalance the new with the familiar.

Also, trying to read even more . . . lately I've been drawn to Charles Harper Webb (someone I don't know) and back to Reginald Shepherd (someone I have read over the years). There are so many poets whose work I only glancingly know.

Jason Shinder's Pending Posthumous Collection

On his blog, Mark Doty offered up a poem from Shinder's last collection.

I am particularly partial to another of Shinder's late poems, which I feel is filled the power and energy that we spend a lifetime tamping down. We all would do well to let it rip, while we are able. 

This Blog Needs More Photos!

From the reflecting pool at the Mother Church in Boston.

On Returning to the Blog

So much time since my last entry. Typical, in a way. I tend to go through spells where my writing lies fallow. Though I have been working on revisions to many poems . . . some from nearly a decade ago. Such a lot of effort over so long a period, to produce little that seems appealing to any reader beyond myself. 

Well, it's a labor that demands and, in many personal ways, rewards all the effort. I went with a friend last night to see Natalie Goldberg read and discuss her book on writing memoir. When asked about the practice of writing, she offered the same advice that I heard Grace Paley once give: If you need to write, write . . . if you don't, don't . . . there's lots of other stuff to do in this world. 

I guess I really need to write.

We'll see if I recommit to doing some of that writing on this blog.

On Poetic Greatness - D. Orr in NY Times

Want to start a row amongst a bunch of word nerds? This piece by David Orr in the NY Times could be your catalyst.

That the parameters for greatness in poetry are more subjective than in many other endeavors is (perhaps) the one thing we can all agree on.

Orr contrasts Robert Lowell, who he cites as a less-talented but more ambitious poet, with Elizabeth Bishop, who wrote relatively few poems but labored over each meticulously.  And he declares that Bishop is now considered closer to greatness. 

Let Round One begin.

I like Orr's jab at the tendency to swoon over the amazingness of poets from beyond the U.S.A.'s borders. I can think of one young female poet who seems a current manifestation.

Ultimately, what any poet or artist can do is to write, to paint, to compose, to sing, etc. What's great about anything that results from these efforts will sort itself out (and probably change with time and new generations). 

Challenging ourselves as poets to write well . . . to not fall into repetitiveness or tediousness . . . is the crucial element for creating a body of work that might seem great to someone someday.

 

Good for the Mess!

At one of the Starbucks I frequent, I'm always bemused by the variety of items left on the bar where coffee patrons sip, read the paper, and type industriously.

It's almost a still life model of the mundane, incongruous, and odd. 

This evening there were five rolls of toilet paper (one of which was unwrapped from its green packaging); three really large bags of coffee beans in spaceship-silver sacks; a cardboard box stuffed with 1,200 Sugar(s)-in-the-Raw; a plastic bottle of some clear flavored syrup (its label turned away . . . imagination could have converted it to olive oil or mouthwash); an empty pitcher that still appeared stained with tea at its bottom; and (finally) a square of blue plastic emptied of whatever pastries had been delivered in it. 

I find this curious, in that I could well imagine a scene similar to this in my place of residence. Things just end up on top of surfaces randomly, haphazardly. It's very unlikely anyone from the general public will ever witness this private clutter. But at Starbucks it seems strange. 

I'm not offended. And actually I am more amused than bemused. 

The rest of the store seems organized, with things seemingly where they're meant to go. It's just this narrow neighborhood that appears disheveled . . . like a lock of hair that keeps standing up above a part. 

So, I suppose this is actually a cheer for the non-homogeneous, for less-than-meticulous appearance, and an attitude that doesn't seem to care . . . I mean, every time I come here there's always a display on the bar. 

Good for the mess! This Starbucks is like no other. 

Seasonal Shifting on the Horizon

The snow banks in Boston have come down to knee high from waist high. Walking to the gym this morning, it almost seemed that winter was over. It's not, of course. In New England it goes on awhile into what would be spring in other places. 

I am not complaining. I like winter. 

Though when we enter that transitory period between winter and spring, when the white melts away to black underneath, and ponds of rock-salted muck appear, I think everyone's ready to fast-forward.

Before winter does disappear, I want to mention one of its unexpected beauties. 

A couple times over the past weeks, as I've been walking to work after a snowfall, the wind has stirred the snow from the roofs of buildings along my path and thrown a swirl of crystals up against the morning sun. The effect is stunning, like a daylight fireworks display. 

The mundane canyons downtown transform to alpine peaks for an instant, and I feel confirmed in my willingness to notice such brief displays. I wonder if anyone but me has looked up from our determined burrowing toward the day's pending work.

More Window Photos

A small suite of windows showing off in Amsterdam.

Get your painted-wooden-shoes-in-the-form-of-comfy-slippers or dildos at one of the city's ubiquitous souvenir shops . . . or perhaps a windmill or an S & M figurine. Variety is not an issue.

This was a unique dollshop (among other things). It reminded me of J. F. Sebastian's workshop in Blade Runner.

While every window arguably is its own type garden, this one represents the more literal version. 

How many Mao dressed-like-your-dad statues have you seen? The details in the chair and the cigarette and the baggy skin beneath the eyes make this more interesting than one might initially believe.

 

Windows Catch the Photographer's Eye

I was showing a friend some of the thousand photographs I've taken over the past 5 or so years, and it became clear that one of my photographic fetishes is windows . . . more specifically what is visible through windows. Windows serve a dual function, of course . . . to see from and to show off. I like to capture what's being shown.

The shot above is a window on a street off of Christopher Street in Manhattan's West Village. New York is the ultimate cornucopia of windows. 

I like the peacock feathers draped in the background of this display. They seem a reminder that layered on the bland skeletal superstructures of our world is beauty . . . an odd but fascinating blessing.

On John Updike

Much will be written about John Updike. Everyone who loves literature feels a little saddened.

I was traveling back to Boston from New York when I heard the news. A day filled with business had kept me from learning that Mr. Updike had passed away.

The times I ran into Mr. Updike were mostly when I was traveling to and from New York. I should clarify that I didn’t run into Mr. Updike in the way that a friend or acquaintance does . . . rather, I mean that I was the only one who recognized that it was John Updike walking through baggage claim or sitting on the Delta Shuttle editing a manuscript.

I used my quasi-encounters with Mr. Updike as catalysts or elements in poems through the years. It was always a thrill to pass near recognizable genius.

Though never a true devotee, I was always dazzled by Mr. Updike’s eloquence. Now that he has finished with his work, many will discover or rediscover or delve deeper into the huge variety he’s left us. We’ll be dazzled further . . . and we’ll wish we had a chance to say thanks in a more direct, personal way.

On the Posting of Revisions

My brother, Walt, suggested it might be interesting to use the blog as a tool for posting revisions to initial drafts I've composed on the blog. I am still experimenting with the use of the blog as a catalyst for creating drafts. Over the past month I've tended not to use it for creating initial drafts (back to using pen, paper, and/or computer files) . . . with the exception of my thoughts on the inauguration . . . captured in the form of a short poem.  

This afternoon I pulled up a copy of an initial draft I composed on the blog on Christmas Day. I find that I can look at new efforts for the first time after about a month. I still haven't got enough distance to revise them objectively (and harshly) enough, but I can start at that process. 

For whatever unclear reason, I've decided to put this initial revision on the blog. 

Messiah Matters

Rooms along the street 
filled with evergreen fragrance
temporary as youth. Promise
day: promised hope 
to celebrate, 
appreciate. The day marks 
another rung to hold the foot on 
before waking 
to a new neighborhood 
of descent. We carve away
the pink flesh from a pig's bone, 
while the more au courant 
bless tofurkey 
to evolution's halting struggle. 

Over prayers, it's strange
to recall that the Argentine air force
would fly drugged innocents 
over the Atlantic, strip them
to skin and toss
them into the blue.
Words welded into weapons,
the military turned every nuance
black and claimed it beauty.
Such a litany, a liturgy
for the redemptive urge
of paranoia. Junior officers
pardoned years later, to walk
the streets with mothers searching
shop windows for children's reflections.
Wouldn't we be shocked 

to find a trench coat and unmarked
van outside the front door?
The whirlwind hovers
in history's porous murk, ready
to snuff civility's lantern.
In the minds of disgruntled cousins,
a mantra regains voice . . . break
the necks necessary
to restore the balance that others
hoard in their vaults
and mansions. Here comes
a new year. Maybe harmony
will bubble forth, all judgments
postponed, salvation's broken tire
patched, and the journey turned
into just the adventure 
each child senses 
living might become. 

"Origin Blues: An Elegy" by Eliot Khalil Wilson

From the New England Review, a poem by Eliot Khalil Wilson that sings with language and emotion. It echoes Whitman, to my ear.

Origin Blues: An Elegy

for Harley Wilson (1900–67)


I come from the leaning jack and the shattered rib,
the blasting cap and the phantom thumb;
I come from the chorus sway of pine, the boat ramp baptisms
and the great black skillet of relentless June.

I come from a long line of blighted cotton,
squinting through years of just plowing sand.
I come from the robbing land, the great pyramids
of fire ants, the tar paper, the tin can shingles.

I come from the coffee and Chesterfield dawn,
I come from the tender-mouthed crappie and the warmouth perch;
afraid of bankers, afraid of police car spotlights,
skies turning green and packs of wild dogs in the corn at night

And I believe what they say about my blood:
a tick’s grip, mule resolute, hacksaw spined,
overtime on the foundry’s knock-out line,
the bottom dog, the oysterman fighting the tide
though every night the tide gathers its things and leaves.

              So old man, grandfather, dead forty years,
              I know too well what hangs in our toolshed souls.

              Not in the ground only are your spavined bones,
              not in the ground only is the white rind of your skull.

I come from the barbed-wire pasture
and the horse’s punctured throat: I come from water oak;
I come from the beached blue crab cornered by gulls.
My not going back and your not leaving, exactly the same.

I come from rented land
though you planted clear to the kitchen door,
though the furrows matched the whorls of your thumb.

And I will tell you the most of my memory
of you now that you live in the mirrors of your kin:

            Five years old and I stood on your shoulders
            up through the green light of the burdened trees
            to reach the hidden sunset peaches.

            You held my calves to the side of your head, held me fast,
            and, though the wasps on the ground stung you
            and stung you, you would not let me fall.

Season to Come

In the middle of winter, it's nice to remember what's ready to happen as the sun progresses back to the north. Magnolias along Comm Ave in Boston are, I am sure, busy preparing buds for the blossoming times ahead. Something nice to contemplate when there is a foot of snow on the ground!

Inauguration Day

Asked only by ego to provide
a few words, I would say
our new President has

magical powers. People like
hope, and nothing churns up
hope like a confident leader.

From the crest of hope’s blue
wave our new leader sees clearly
just how improbable an outcome

success will become. It might be
worth bending time’s jumpy fabric
to see the look four years ahead.

Though we’ll comply with the rules,
and let flesh and wonder play
out their melodrama. It’s glorious

to be on the game board when
enemies and opportunity whirl
in the shadows and a new leader

finds the torch. Follow me,
he commands, and we will
give hope another roll down

the demise of days we can’t wait
to pin like campaign buttons
to the chapters that include us.

Aquarium Adventuring

A week ago, my daughter Beth and I went to the New England Aquarium on a snowy Sunday afternoon. It was her last weekend before returning to college (via a detour in D.C. for the inauguration of Mr. Obama). 

Having spent months on a beach in Crete helping newly hatched sea turtles find their way to the sea, the emphasis on sea turtles at the Aquarium held special appeal for Beth. We wandered the whole afternoon around amazing displays, getting our Sea Turtle Passport stamped along the way, and seeing how the actual other half lives beneath the surface that covers most of our planet.   

Beth's reflection in the main aquarium's glass makes it almost seem she's entered the tank, doesn't it?

This is the world's laziest sea turtle . . . he slept all day, except for this one instance where he woke and swam straight to the surface to get a hit of oxygen.

The aquarium has an assortment of sharks, menacing but apparently kept docile by regular feedings from aquarium staff.

This crusty Emperor seems to be hitchhiking. 

One of my favorite displays . . . you have to look close for the sea dragon (aka, horse) in the middle. No more than two inches long, these delicate creatures motor about with beguiling grace.

Sunday Serenity

To be inside on a Sunday morning, with coffee, while it snows outside, is among the most serene and subtle blessings. It's so easy to forgo appreciation for such a simple and essential pleasure . . . to be, in this moment, safe and warm and able to appreciate, contemplate. 

I walked through the Public Garden late last night, nearing 2 AM, when the snow had just begun to fall in large, swirling flakes . . . creating a sense of buoyancy and light. Though I was distracted, unfortunately . . . victim to the avaricious mind . . . there was still a sense of balance and beauty and even magic infusing my stubborn consciousness.

This morning I am trying to just be, in this moment, appreciative and pleased to watch the snow drift past the giant blue, monolithic Hancock Tower. It's like finding oneself in the midst of a snow globe, a whirl of white and quiet. A city transformed, a mind paused, in the presence of a snowfall. 

Neil Young: Advice to Artists

In this interview, Neil Young is asked if he's interested in reaching out to new fans, and his answer seems to me to be the essential advice that every artist should bear in mind: "I'm always interested in reaching out to anyone who wants to listen, but really I'm doing it for myself."

"So it's really been coincidence. I'd have a big hit record and then I'd have what some people would say 'it flopped, miserable, terrible record' . . . and I'm going what a great record that was. I really liked it because it's going against the grain, it's got an individual thing, and it's not trying to be anything other than what it's doing."

I'm always intrigued by poets who say they write for an audience. I know we all do. Though for most of us the primary (and often only) audience we have is ourselves. 

Write things you enjoy, make them as well-crafted as possible, and have fun revising and revisiting your poems . . . in the process someone else may stumble upon and enjoy them, too. 

Let's see if I can heed my own advice.

Conflict in Copley Square

Walking from Back Bay Station tonight toward home, I had to pass through a microcosm (or maybe it was more a reenactment) that characterized the intransigence of the situation in Gaza. Two throngs, one supportive of Israel and the other of the citizens of Gaza, were being held apart by Boston police officers in Copley Square. 

While held apart physically, each side nevertheless pummeled the other with taunts and chants indicting one another as perpetrators, cease-fire breakers, child murderers, terrorists, etc. I just wanted to get home . . . it was cold. 

Should I indict myself as one of the masses who care, but not to the point where I want to be enmeshed in the debate by taking a position?

Quiet News

I am watching the news on mute, which actually is about as informative and is less irritating. I can tell that a man wants the kidney he donated to his wife back, as they are divorcing. This is a story I really don't need the details on. A Boston firefighter who died in a ladder truck crash the other day, when the brakes failed, apparently will be buried soon. It's going to snow more this week and get very cold. Governor Patrick has something to say, and I am free to speculate on what that may be. There was a fire in Braintree today. Jim Rice has been elected to baseball's hall of fame. Fifty-nine cars were involved in a chain reaction collision in the snow in New Hampshire yesterday, and it appears I could listen to the 911 emergency call recordings if I wanted to turn the sound back on.

But I am not turning the sound on. I am happy enough to listen to my own interpretation of the news and to jot this down, as I do. We get a lot of auditory clutter throughout our days. It's kind of nice to have the click of keys on a keyboard be the only thing audible besides the tinnitus in my ears.  

Aliens in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a cool place on many levels. I enjoy the leaning architecture particularly. In the U.S. we'd probably have endless lawsuits from new owners who didn't realize their houses lean that much. The new, generally, doesn't match the old's quirkiness and charm. But that's not to say that there are not exceptions. I caught this visiting space alien in a window of a new structure not far from the train station. I was an alien, of course, from just over an ocean, rather than a galaxy or two. But we shared a moment . . .

Paris?

No, Quebec City. Closer and charming. I encourage visits. The Old City is easily navigated. There is wonderful food. Seriously, go!

"Coming to the Battlefield: Stone-Cold Robot Killers" - Washington Post, January 4, 2009

Be afraid, very afraid . . . and write your representatives in Congress! This is absurdly, horrifically, undeniably insane. Killer robots at our beck and call? If we progress in this manner, there's even less hope that we can resist the very, very small minority of sadistic, delusional, egomaniacal tyrants who have and always will try to rule (ruin) the world.

Creche Art

Passing by in Cambridge yesterday on a walk, I was attracted by this contrast of colors against the snow's white. I don't really have a religious response to record. More just an observation that people's compulsion to express beliefs (whatever those may be) in art (however kitschy) continues in this new millennium. And that seems a good thing.