Memories of Youth

I remember that my friend Eddie Cullen had a copy of Phil Ochs In Concert (Elektra Records, 1966). In the liner notes, Ochs reprinted eight poems by Mao Tse Tung with the question, "Is This the Enemy?"

I thought it was hilarious when Eddie's sister Gina (or was it Ellen?) penned "Yes" on the album in answer to the question.

Here's one of Mao's poems (mentioned today on C. Dale Young's blog)which also appeared on the album:

CHANGSHA (Memories of Youth)

The immense river is a transparent green
and a hundred boats are racing by.
The eagles strike against the sky,
The fish swim in the shallows;
In the freezing air all creatures strive for freedom.
Alone in the desolate vastness,
I ask of the ageless earth:
"Who is the ruler of the universe?"
I remember a hundred friends coming here
during the crowded, eventual years;
All of them young and upright,
Gleaming with brilliance,
true to the scholar's spirit.
I remember how vivid they were
As they gazed upon rivers and mountains:
The Chinese earth gave strength to their words,
And they regarded as dung the ancient feudal lords.
Do you remember
How in midstream we struck out at the water,
And the waves dashed against the speeding ships?

-Mao Tse Tung

Better, Thank You

The formerly Constant Reader knows that I have not blogged much this fall and, in particular, that I haven't blogged at all for several weeks. The problem is that I haven't felt well and haven't had the energy to do much more than to attend to my day job and my teaching duties. A full recitation of my problems would drive away more readers than my inattention already has, but I have been on a strict diet and several medications for a bit more than a month and feel much better, thank you.

I am ready to resume blogging and writing. For me, at least, this is good news.

Albert York, Reclusive Landscape Painter, Dies at 80

Edge of the Forest (Ca. 1963)



Bread and Wine (ca. 1966)


I had not intended to come back on a sad note, but was sorry to learn of the death of Albert York, an American artist whose work I know primarily through a profile of him that appeared in The New Yorker in 1995.

Here's some of what The New York Times had to say in its obituary, published this morning:

Rarely measuring more than 12 inches on a side, Mr. York’s paintings evoke a world in which time and art seem to stand still or even move backward through history. His trees had the symmetry of those in Renaissance paintings. His images of a single cow or dog evoked the manner of Dutch or English painters. His occasional figures might be robed or turbaned as in earlier times, or accompanied by a skeleton signaling life’s brevity. He frequently zeroed in on small vases of flowers, recalling late Manet, and even went so far as to do his own rendition of Manet’s “Olympia.”

But his paintings’ geometric simplicity, flatness of form and workmanlike brushwork exuded a quiet modernity, as did their wholeness of composition and feeling. In the catalog to a 1975 York exhibition at Davis & Long, the critic and painter Fairfield Porter wrote, “Certainly part of the strong emotional appeal of these paintings” is that Mr. York “is not clever, and in no sense superior to the nature of his medium or the nature of the subject, but that he is at one with both.”



The Sea, East Hampton (ca. 1964)

Back to Work

Brazil, where hearts were entertained in June
We stood beneath an amber moon,
And softly murmured 'Some day soon'
We kissed.

Update

"Once everyone knows the chords, I lose the magic."

-Stevie "Guitar" Miller, who told me this in a feverish dream last night, explaining why he didn't want to go onstage and play "I'm a Joker" with a Steve Miller tribute band that was playing in a bar that was like, in my dream. A dream in which I was, uh, Steve Miller's bodyguard.

Too weird.

I have been sick and busy at work and school. I will resume regular broadcasts this weekend. Promise.

We've Reached the Bottom; It is a Long, Deep Trench

Experts predict that the penultimate catastrophe will occur at approximately 7:15 p.m. Thursday night, when the social networking tool Twitter will be used to communicate a series of ideas so banal they will instantaneously negate the three centuries of the Renaissance.

"The sciences, the arts, the humanities—all aspects of society as a whole will reach their respective low-points in just a matter of days," said anthropologist Robert Davidson, gesturing toward a nearby line graph illustrating western society's collapse. "We've been charting this cultural descent for generations now, from the advent of New Wave music, to the rise of scientific creationism, right through to the trampling death of several Wal-Mart greeters on the morning after Thanksgiving. Everything has been leading up to this Friday."

According to the panel, the final event will occur at 3:32 p.m., when a tourist, believing the impressive structure to be a giant mall, will enter Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, and, not finding what he is looking for, ask where "the damn Radio Shack is supposed to be."

Daniel Nester Sets Out for the Poetry Wilderness

My thanks to C. Dale Young for posting this link to Daniel Nester's very funny article in The Morning News about his reasons for leaving the poetry megaplex of NYC. On his site, Nester says he took his title from an essay by Joan Didion which appears in her 1968 book, Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I suspect she was cribbing from the poet Robert Graves' memoir about his experiences in WWI.

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Progress Notes

I have been working on an edit of my novel manuscript, and then today wrote another 2,700 words. I am over 280 pages and yes, I do think the manuscript is publishable. In fact, in my humble opinion, it's pretty darn good, though I suppose someone else will be the ultimate judge of that.

Back to the salt mines in the morning. I am glad that I didn't waste any time watching the Detroit Lions today, who were spanked at home by Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings, 27-13. If anyone is still counting, that's 19 losses in a row for Detroit.


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The drawing is Vuelo Aguila (1954) by the Mexican artist Alfredo Zalce (1908-2003).