Elinor Nauen

And here's Johnny's tattoo of the Consumptive Poets League logo.

Bits of the past turning up. How many of these t-shirts did we make? Probably just 3, one for each of us, Maggie, Rachel & me. I don't know why we would have made more, & we probably could only afford 3. This is so delicate & holey. I doubt if another one exists in this world.

Johnny has a tattoo of our logo, the pen with the Lung Association symbol. His has a drop of blood falling off the end.  Read More 

I just finished the most difficult piece I ever wrote. It's heavy science, & under strict embargo so I can't even give a real sample, but it's something like this: Read More 

I just completed my second Duolingo "tree," this one tainted by them rolling out a whole new system of points & lessons. So far I find it extremely annoying—they claim it adds complexity, but the dozen lessons I did were mostly variants of the same words & sentences, over & over. Maybe in the more difficult lessons, they do add on, but I was hoping to rattle through the earliest ones, maybe even test out (no longer an option). The timed lesson,  Read More 

Bureaucracy is not an impediment to democracy but an inevitable complement to it.
~ Joseph Schumpeter

And not only inevitable but enviable, according to a Thomas Friedman column I read years ago in the Times & have never forgotten, in which he say, "Indeed, what foreigners envy us most for is precisely  Read More 

There was the sign, but no one was there writing my poem while I waited. With the shot clocks, what do they call 'em, that tell you how long till the train comes, there's less anxiety about timing & less need for a distracting poem. I still have plenty anxiety about getting where I'm going, though. For a former messenger, you'd think I would treat the subway system with more aplomb, but honestly, Queens yesterday (in a car) & Brooklyn today (4 train on the 2-3 line—I mean!).  Read More 

Another reminder that time changes everything is Emperor Akihito's visit to Okinawa, site of one of the deadliest battles of WWII, where 200,000+ Japanese and Americans died in 1945. According to The Economist, "The emperor has repeatedly intervened in the controversy over Japan’s actions in the war, and obliquely criticised its drift from pacifism. In 2015 he chided the nation to 'learn from and study history'—widely seen as a rebuke to revisionists who dismiss evidence of war crimes and reject the 'apology diplomacy' of the post-war years."

This shows how easy it is to forget how we got here, wherever here is. Women forget the struggle for suffrage & don't value the vote. Soldiers forget how horrible it was to be in an unnecessary conflict & support warmongers. A country that waged war denies its culpability. The abuser blames the abused.  Read More 

It's here!

I've gone from nervous to repelled to excited. I'm especially happy that roughly half the book consists of work that hasn't been collected and/or published before.

It's relaxing to know that everything isn't going to change because of this book. I used to think that, so a lot was riding on it. But something will come of it—it always does, but not what I expect. My most-rejected manuscript became my best-regarded book... my baseball book made no money but got me entree into press boxes & because of it I even got to throw out the first pitch at a minor league ballgame. Like that. Read More 

Is it an April thing that I can barely keep my eyes open?

Or a post-travel thing? Although I was only 1 time zone west, so it's hard to blame jet lag.

Maybe my house is filled with poison.

My office is filled with those horrible drain flies that go up your nose. They don't bite or buzz but are annoying nonetheless. Read More 

You gotta have a swine to show you where the truffles are.
—Edward Albee

I have been thinking about this quote. I have little to add. It's a good reminder that you have to go to your dark places to find the art—& beauty & grandeur. That they come from crap. And also, maybe, that anyone can be useful—I used to get the most help with my poems from a non-poet friend who had an unerring ear for b.s., whether or not she knew why.  Read More 

Off to Minnesota for a few days. Back to this on Monday. Happy Passover, Easter, April Fools Day, & spring.

What a beautiful magazine is Black Renaissance Noire, published by NYU's Institute of African American Affairs. I was happy to be at the launch for the latest issue & hear a range of contributors: poet, fiction writer, artist, photographer. I haven't really dived in but previous issues I've read have been illuminating. Why not take a look? Read More 

So fun to see The Play That Goes Wrong with our nephew Mike & his 12-year-old son Graham, in New York for the first time. They sprung for the backstage tour—very illuminating to see how the magic happens! The play itself was not only hilarious but made you appreciate how much has to work for a play to go right.
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Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. —Franklin P(ierce) Adams

I guess you have to be old enough to figure this out. I remember when I realized that nothing was more responsible for my good marriage than my bad memory. Or as I put it in My Marriage A to Z, under the heading "Memory, Bad": Thanks to which, neither of us can remember for long the other's sins, wrongdoings and crimes. Why was I so angry in 1999? I have no idea! I do remember that we decided—consciously and unconsciously—that we're together no matter what.
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Now that Café Orlin is no more, I don't really have a go-to lunch place in the neighborhood. It has to be quiet & reasonably priced. I don't care if the food's not great, although it's better if it is. I'm meeting someone in a couple of days & the best we could come up with  Read More 

Last-minute invite from my friend Alan to see some Golden Gloves boxing at the (fancy!) New York Athletic Club. A lot of the rounds were not that exciting—fighters without much technique & who tired out quickly. A couple were great.

There's that dumb expression in baseball (& probably other sports): He came to play. Well, didn't everyone come to play? But that was my first thought about one of the young men last night, Michael Calvin. He had his game plan, which was to hit hard and constantly, & it wasn't going to be interrupted by anything, least of all his opponent. Who gave up 55 seconds into the second round, the only fight that didn't go the full three rounds.

The best fight was the last, two actual fighters, with footwork and strategy. Dzhonibek Nazriev was somewhat the better fighter, but Michael Hughes had heart & definitely won the second round. I thought it could go either way, & it was the only split decision, with Nazriev winning.

I know boxing is frowned upon, but  Read More 

It was too beautiful to take a picture... I didn't want to get my phone wet so I didn't take a picture... It's too clear in my head to need a photo...

Really, the loveliest snow ever. Giant flakes, no wind, like Hollywood snow.

A few of my friends were happy—about as many as bitched about snow in Spring.

It wasn't even cold.  Read More 

I needed a "proof of birth" letter from the hospital I was born in, so I called McKennan now Avera McKennan in Sioux Falls. The very nice Julie was able to track it down for me with my name & not just "Baby Girl Nauen" because I had also had a tonsillectomy at McKennan. Read More 

This glorious photo of the Great Smoky Mountains was taken by my old friend Shirley Willis Cooper. She's more like family, if that's the word for people you've known forever but rarely see. Her brother Steve I do see frequently, despite living hundreds of miles apart.

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.
~ William Jennings Bryan, from "America's Mission" speech at the Washington Day banquet given by the Virginia Democratic Association, Washington, D.C., 1899

No irony today!

I do want to note that my home state of South Dakota  Read More 

They're taped up right over his food so he has to see them every time he checks his bowl. So far, no noticeable results but I'm hopeful.

Yes! Lots of new poems!

Announcing it here, mostly to myself, so that I type 'em up & post any good ones.

I know there's some good lines.

And off I go. Another too-busy day!

I have so much to do that I don't even know where to start.

So I did laundry instead.

Yesterday & today.

Yesterday a bunch of towels that got soaked at my office because my water pitcher (tossed!) was leaking. Today my laundry from home.

I guess I'll go to the gym now, as I still have a few articles to write or edit.  Read More 

The pretty girls, man,
I can't say nothin' to them.

~ 1st Street, west of First Avenue, 9:30 p.m.

Is he talking to me?

A young couple is walking by as I'm about to put my key in my lock.

"It's a Joe Brainaird," the young woman says.

"It sure is," the young man says. "A Joe Brainard for sure."

I am so excited I almost stop them. I don't. A no brainer.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
—George Burns

The Economist credits Burns with this line & who am I to fact-check them. It feels very profound right now, in the midst of so much chaos. How do I resist an avalanche?

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapors weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.

Are there more perfect lines than these, which open Tennyson's "Tithonus"? So why is his work barely available? Even the Strand  Read More 

JS: When are you going to get rid of the books on the floor?

EN: Go to hell.... Which books on the floor? there's those & those. And those.

JS: chuckles.

EN: I'll get rid of the books when you get rid of the coatrack.

JS: Books first then coatrack. ... I'll get another coatrack.

EN: I'll get more books.

JS: Go to hell.  Read More 

I've been wanting & meaning to do this for ages, & today I just HAD to. I went to the place a couple doors down from my office but they had no appointments today. I asked how much for a haircut.

"$75 with codgee," the receptionist said.

"Excuse me?"

"$75 with codgee."

What's codgee, some special fancy treatment? How much without codgee?  Read More 

I noticed this because there aren't a lot of low buildings in Chelsea, and because I liked the bright garage and old-fashioned building. Was this once a stable? The New York I never knew visible in today's city.