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NauenThen

From the vault

I was an activist all the way back in high school.

And early to understand the usefulness of a concocted quote. We wrote that, the few of us "radicals" who were at the meeting, but I was the only one who would put my name to it. "My parents would kill me" is what I remember everyone else saying. After this article came out in the Argus, I got hate & "turn to Jesus" mail from around the state.

I remember around the same time going door to door in a driving rainstorm trying to get people to sign a petition to free? reconsider? Thomas White Hawk, in the state penitentiary for murder. People were very polite to a bedraggled baby-faced teen but no one signed.

So many memories of my early activism. A girl in my class who declared that all the Indians were drunk. "And don't think I'm prejudiced. I'm not—it's true." A fund-raising walk (for Indians from South Dakota and India, if I recall correctly) I organized and walked the whole route in—on crutches. Sneaking out with my boyfriend Ken to drive to Vermilion to hear Julian Bond.  Read More 
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Barbara Barg (1947-2018)

Oh damn, it happened so fast, oh damnit to hell Babs, what are you doing dying on us? I keep thinking of your sharp wit, your Arkansas drawl, your complete acceptance of who you are, your hilarity, how you made yourself into the charismatic singer of Homer Erotic, of you as one of the Joans of Arc in our play from 1979, of how rare & pleasing it was to truly surprise you, how long we've all known each other, another bit of the texture of our world thinned out. Yes yes I know it happens & will keep happening but so what. This is now.  Read More 
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Books books books

Every once in a while I am struck again by how totally great it is that there are endless piles of books that I haven't read yet. Great books, riveting books, illuminating books, books on subjects I'm amazed someone took the time to think through.

I once understood mortality to mean that life wasn't long enough for me to ever read Ivanhoe.  Read More 
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I heart my neighborhood (#516,218)

Joe, the "Santa Claus of bread," as he referred to himself.
I was hanging out in the rain in front of my building when a guy came by & offered James the belt man a baguette. He turned around. "How many more baguettes are in my bag?"

"Two," I said.

"Do you want one?"

I did indeed.

Joe lives near Vancouver, Canada, where he is currently in IT but is in NY for a couple of months to learn bread-making. He walks home every day distributing the loaves he's made during the day. A happy man making others happy.  Read More 
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Ready to go

The moment before the processional... is everyone ready? are you nervous?

The flower girl was stoic, the ring bearer reluctant, the marriage went fine.

I'd never seen anyone jump the broom before.
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Albuquerque II

Rio Grande Nature Center State Park.
Random thoughts about New Mexico...

So clear & dry, I didn't wheeze the whole time I was in New Mexico.

Did the people of the pueblos have any idea that their homes would be abandoned? Do I believe that one day people will stare at the ruins of Manhattan & not believe the population estimates? ("It says here that over a million people lived on this one island. Ha.") I know it's true but it's hard to fathom.

I think there are the people who see something different—for both Mark and me as small children it was Albuquerque's Indians, sitting outside La Placita on blankets, selling turquoise jewelry—and feel the world get bigger & more compelling, imagining themselves as part of that bigger world. And some folks already know their place & don't have any desire or intention to see where they might fit differently—the world is other. I guess you are  Read More 
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Monday Quote

Nothing ever becomes real till experienced — even a proverb is no proverb till your life has illustrated it.
~ John Keats Read More 
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Alabama Av

To have lived in New York all this time & never been on the J.
To never have heard of Alabama Av
Or that there was an Alabama Av stop.

I was homesick for somewhere else.
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Albuquerque I

This would look more like the roadrunner you expect if its tail was up.
There's a lot I love about Albuquerque, & I had a fantastic time eating New Mexico food (cheese enchiladas with onions!), seeing ruined pueblos & churches, breathing the piney air, seeing a roadrunner! I have much to say about all of this & I will.

But the real reason I went was to be able to have as long a conversation as I needed with my old friend Mark. I feel like Tietjens in Parade's End saying the reason you get married is to be able to finish a conversation. Phone just isn't enough.

In that regard, it was the  Read More 
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Lal! II

I was honored to be asked to introduce Michael Lally at the Poetry Project last night. Here's what I said:

I love the close harmonies of old country blues singers, in particular brother acts like the Blue Sky Boys, the Louvins, the early Everly Brothers. The way these siblings sing together is sometimes called blood harmony.

In a way, you could think of Michael Lally as being in blood harmony with the whole world—the  Read More 
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Poem (Mark)

Mark had this poem, which I have no memory of writing. How long we have loved each other!

Hi Mark
If I had 3 hours to write your birthday poem
it would take that long,
If I had 3 years I couldn't say enough,
If I had 3 $ million I would buy you a radio station,
a river
& a snowstorm.  Read More 
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Hello from Albuquerque

Posting this in advance to say I won't be writing here till Wednesday, May 9, because I'm on vacation, sans laptop. I'll be hanging out with mi primo Markos, going to see the Isotopes (the Rockies' AAA team), & in generally breathing deep of that piney air of New Mexico.
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Could I love NYC more? II

I came across this plaque on East 13th St, a little hidden behind decorative ironwork, which is possibly why I hadn't seen it before.

Here's the text:
The French forces that occupied Mexico were bitterly defeated on May 5, 1862, in the battle of Puebla. They nevertheless captured the capital and Napoleon III imposed Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Hapsburg as emperor of Mexico. While leading the resistance to the victory that restored Mexican sovereignty in 1867, President Benito Juarez sent his wife Margarita Maza de Juarez to New York, where she lived, from 1864 to 1867, in a house that once occupied this site.

Since I leave off blogging on Saturdays, I can't post this on the 5th. A day ahead will have to do.  Read More 
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The meaning of toast

I love toast as much as the next breakfast eater but I don't have deep thoughts about it.

However, an academic named Arthur Asa Berger sees toast as a "miniature stage on which the homogenization and industrialization of the United States is played." He sees the toaster as a sign of the end days for American bread and even diversity.  Read More 
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Could I love NYC more?

Do people elsewhere find treasures like this in their backyards? It seems unlikely. I don't know which neighbor threw it out. I don't know which neighbor has just realized THIS is what she needs most in all the world. There are some pans too. I think you could move into a Manhattan apartment & furnish it entirely from stuff you find on the street. In fact, I know you can, because that's what I did. I moved in to an empty flat & brought home mirrors, books, a couch, and dishes that people had tossed.  Read More 
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On 17th Street

These were built almost 200 years ago & are on the National Register of Historic Places. We stopped to admire them & a yongish man said, Want to buy one?

Yes!

He paused, posed, & said: It's no coincidence there's always a contractor's truck parked out front. Think about it.

He tipped his cap & went back to work.
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Monday Quote

Here's two from Francis Bacon:

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
[hope that's true]

& this great anecdote, which I believe comes from a Reddit question:
When I was young my father said to me: "Knowledge is Power - Francis Bacon."

I understood it as "Knowledge is power, France is Bacon."  Read More 
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Lal!

Michael Lally at Howl gallery, April 25, 2018. I know he looks like an alien but that's just my bad photography.
What an excellent poet he is & how great to have his giant new book Another Way to Play: Poems 1960-2017, published by my old friend Dan Simon at Seven Stories. Bob Holman introduced him & then Lal sat down at the piano & played some lovely riffs—he used to play in bars, he reminded us. He read old & new work, the older work deepened by age & health troubles, all of it as straight-on as ever.

If you missed this event, he's at the Poetry Project on May 9. Read More 
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New poem

Poem Made of Lines

c’mon c’mon who’s got a dollah?
who’s got two?
who’s got five?

the evidence is on my face
my face like the tread of new tires

confidence in beauty is a kind of genius

the pretty girls, man, I can’t say nothing to them

one minute I’m me, & then I’m still me

a red-winged blackbird silent on a wire

anywhere I had never been was where I had to be
elsewhere: the most beautiful & saddest word I know
the light’s not shining on you but through you
where will I lay my head tonight?

c’mon c’mon who’s got a dollah for me? Read More 
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New poem

Starting the Day with a Poem

& by “start” I mean before noon
    I’ve been up since 5
& by “day” I mean it’s raining
    & dogs are barking
    & I can’t wake up & can’t back to sleep
    & I missed 10 o’clock class & am on track to miss 12:30
& by “poem” I mean it reveals something above human nature
    or how language drives us like rock
    or how to step carefully on this one path
    or why I’m loved
    or not
& by “headache”* I mean I don’t know if it will help
    to take a Claritin
    *sneeze
& by “the cat” I mean can’t he stop with the toe nibbling
& by “music” I mean Johnny Cash, the Louvin Brothers, & the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet
& by “see ya later” I mean see ya later  Read More 
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Feathered friends

Suddenly I love pigeons! It was seeing some gorgeous pinups, & subscribing to Cornell's Ornithology whatever, which I barely look at but it's put birds on my brain, & the love of so many friends for birds, & this article from Mental Floss. C'mon! They are smart & quick & NOT flying rats! Also, we don't get a lot of wildlife here in the city, & I am never gonna fall for rats, I'm quite sure.

Every year there's a few days of blooms for this tulip tree. I finally took a picture. How many more springs will I have to enjoy this tree? Read More 
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A most pivotal date

How would my life be different if Beth & I hadn't hitchhiked to Washington D.C. on this date in 1971? If she hadn't woken up with that sweet smile she always woke up with (one of my favorite things about her) & W-- hadn't fallen in love with her and she with him? What if I hadn't been "stuck" spending the day with his friends, who became my  Read More 
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Monday Quote

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
~ Leonardo da Vinci

And the great thing is all habits are a little snowball that just need to be nudged downhill. Then they pick up steam & keep going till they become inevitable.  Read More 
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Church of Betty

Church of Betty at Drom on Avenue A.
Things I hadn't done in a long time:
= Gone out to hear music at a club.
= Run into friends who had also come out to see Church of Betty and Life in a Blender. That made it seem like the old days, when the number of fans & venues was so small you pretty much always ran into people you knew.
= Hung out with my friend Nancy. For heaven's sake, New Jersey isn't THAT far away
 Read More 
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Science wows

I've never been a science guy, which I now regret. It's amazing how people think of things to think about & then come up with experiments & theories. Here's a couple of things going on in the world that blow me away.  Read More 
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Travels beget travels

As soon as I bought my ticket for Norway, which Robyn & I have been planning for ages, I wanted to go more places, so I bought a ticket for Albuquerque to see friends & breathe that clear air & catch an Isotopes minor league game. Norway in August, New Mexico in two weeks. I tried to go to Spain tomorrow for some gig of Mercè's but it cost over $3,300.  Read More 
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My neighborhood

They must be adding these signs. I'm sure I didn't see it before, & I keep my eyes open. I love feeling connected to these tendrils of heritage. In this case, it's knowing (a little) Elizabeth Murray, who I adored for her quality of absolute listening, & Hettie Jones, who still lives at 27 Cooper Square & is as fierce at 80-something as ever she was, probably more. For example, when they tried to tear her building down to put up a fancy hotel, she fought until they agreed to construct it around her.  Read More 
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Happy birthday, Johnny Stanton

Sending love (& more love) from this public/private post. I meant to post a photo from his birthday 5 years ago, when we were at the Okeefenokee, but he looked so sleepy & disgruntled that here's a picture of one of the wildlife we saw that day.
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Monday Quote

Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.
~ Charlie Chaplin

And you so often don't realize you are being protective of your ego until bits of it accidentally fall away. I didn't realize I was writing So Late into the Night, my long poem in ottava rima, for an audience until it got turned down by a couple of publishers. I loved it so much I kept rewriting it, keeping in mind Murat Nemet-Nejat's great line: If no one is buying the bread you're baking, you can make it as salty as you want. I anticipated that poem never getting published so I wrote it to please myself only—and it became my most admired (or well-reviewed, anyway) work.  Read More 
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Last night in Harlem

I don't get up to Harlem much but my friend's boyfriend was playing in a band so up I went. I don't even know the name of the bar—it was up a steep flight of stairs, that's all I can say.

Even though it took 3 trains, a shuttle bus, & an hour to get home, I'd go back.

Don't think I can say the same about  Read More 
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