Friday, December 5, 2014

A night out

Salt and Fat. We went there because of PNO (parents night out) at our preschool, Little Friends. We had from 7-9:30pm and this restaurant was closest. We did not expect an unbelievably good meal. The arugula salad tasted like the best lemon meringue pie ever. That kind of meal. Everything so beautiful. Then on the way home I was running in the rain pushing the stroller and hit a bump and Lucia went flying. Sofia started crying because she was worried and then Genevieve caught up with us and said, "I don't like this at all!"  But I couldn't stop laughing, but because I had had three strong beers, but really everything was alright!

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Schneeman

Tonight I went to poets house to see if you had George schneeman show. I . On the way to the show I felt lonely and started to call poets, when I got therethere were poets galore. did not expect everybody to be there, Anselm, John, Eddie, Alice Notley and several others. Nice conversation with Ron Padgett. Sitting with anne Waldman looking at school at pictures of New York school painters and parts. What could be better? And then went off to Moby Dick marathon and that was great too, sat next to Eileen Myles.so cool how that big need was Met.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Sitting this morning and reading Shelley and I get the passage he writes when he is 20,

"please me procure me two toddler girls to educate away from the man."
his solicitor declined, and thought the idea of putting the chastity of two girls into a man in the flower of his summer.


and I remember then that I do have two girls, and that I am in Shelley's possession, wherein one kind of possession, one's body, becomes another kind of possession, passion. Suddenly my body emflames from a thousand points at once, a convergence, of Shelley's university, the mad poet Shelley through the enlightening enfulgence of Richard Holmes, and watching Kate Winslet seduce Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, as unwittingly played by my wife last night, and my own natural, waning, summer. When my body flares up it is in my loins. I want nothing more in that moment than to relieve the pressure of those points drawn of passion. I am in Shelley's possession! Truth.

"Not just absurd, but horrible."

What I wanted to say was that I didn't relieve all of that pressure, not just then, not just there, rather I channeled it into getting up and taking care of the daughters, which meant, to my castrated sensitivity, that I eschewed the throes of passion, in center of self, for a more subdued one that expands outward, like hammered gold. 

So to say I am in Shelley's possession is to reify my own self-possession and reject Shelley, as lonely Shelley surely will have to eclipse himself. Or rather reach out, toward Mary, toward Byron, toward the reader, drowning in fire.






Thursday, November 13, 2014

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Pun 1

How do trees feel when they get their leaves back in the spring? It's a Relief.

Monday, October 27, 2014

weird one

It's something, but in the end just right. I hope you had the time of your life. Sofia sad gave us a leave and say here's a poem for you. I asked her what the problem was and she said daddy, there are flowers behind you daddy, there are trees behind you.daddy, there are leaves behind you. Daddy, there are fairies and again and again and again. 

If something real happens that is unbelievable does that make it fiction?

poem of day

synchronicity today with the artist's way.

first in an episode of wtf, some guy talking about how it changed his life 25 years ago, a head writer for letterman. 

then a song-writer friend of mine mentioned it on FB.

It followed another synchronicity (a kind of underline).

I can no longer remember what it was.

Let it stand for what it should be, a mystery.

But the artist was, 30 minutes of writing every morning, 3 pages, hand written, seems to be calling out to me.


Saturday, October 18, 2014

I'm not sure how it happens that we acquired so much magic this weekend on Cape Cod. Today we went to the Wellfleet Oyster Festival, whichjust happen to be going on this weekend in Wellfleet.. There was a kid-area where the girls...danced to a fun band, played dress-up, jumped around in a bouncy house, got cotton candy, balloon animals and their face painted. Free. On the way out of town we stopped at a little store that sold little works of art. We bought an oyster shell painted to look like a pirate for Gen's dad. The woman seemed to be charmed by Sofia, who was ooh-ing and ah-ing over the fairie houses, and gave her a little vial of fairy dust, with a little pewter fairy hanging from it.  Sofia said that she needed one for her sister too who was outside with Mom, and so the woman gave one for Lucia as well. Wow. I told Sofia that you could tell it was real magic because the woman had given it to us as a gift. I told her we would have to find special ways to use the fairy dust. She said we could use it to sprinkle on birthday presents for our friends. then Gen went into a store along the way and told the woman behind the counter that she loved the plants out front. So the woman went outside and made for cuttings of the different plants and gave them to Genevieve. A fantastic gift that will keep on giving. 



Friday, October 17, 2014

Plan C

we are on our way up to Provincetown for the weekend. Our plan A for today -going to a cranberry bog- was foiled when we found out the tours were full. Our plan B -going to the aquarium in Woods Hole- was squashed when we found out it was closed for renovations. We did not have a plan C, so we just stopped at the base of Cape Cod to eat lunch at a little restaurant in Wareham, MA. We noticed at the restaurant there was a separate counter where you could rent kayaks and canoes. So we spontaneously rented a canoe and then took it out to a wondrously pristine spring-fed body of water called Tihonet Pond. We set out into the trance-inducing patterns of sun playing on water, which I have been craving ever since I watched Darin Stevenson's video essay about liquid sentience called "scare the rectangles III" on YouTube. There are blue herons flying over our head, black snapper turtles with orange trim sunning on rocks and glowing white swans. We paddle the canoe until we are gliding parallel with a swan. I watch him and revel in the way the bright white shows up against the scrolling background of orange, red and yellow leaves on the bank of the lake. Turns out no plan was the way to go today.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Yes!

My ecstatic whitmanic moment of standing in the rain listening to pandora lady day jazz play in a megaphone, drinking coffee and officially welcoming people to the Sunnyside Oktoberfest.

I lived in Boulder for 10 years and  only knew a few of my neighbors. I have lived here less than a year and already dozens of my neighbors because of this park. 

I also love that every other face represents a different ethnicity and culture. This is the most diverse city in the world.

it is great to see their smiling kids as they enter in and see the Ferris wheel, clowns and rides. 

Monday, September 15, 2014

forward to matthew's space cake book

i wrote a pretty crazy mystic intro. take it or leave it i guess. definitely gives the thing a weird spin, but its one point of view.

i think you should have a dozen of your friends write blurbs for an appendix in back of the book. Ask them for specific stories. That would make it an epic book I think, and phat! Ask a dozen people at least and make it due in one week, whatever they can come up with in that time. Take the best ones only. I'll ask Tyler and Karen, unless you want to. Just let me know.

Introduction to Green Muse book (which you should put out on Green Muse Press, make it seem all official.)

Let me just say that I consider myself an experienced expert in the field of Matthew’s Space Cakes. I have had the proverbial Gladwellian 10,000 hours of experience with them, each of those hours filled with moments of pure, unadulterated magic; not the rough black magic of most intoxicants, mind you, but the soothing green kind kind of magic that is actually good for you. I am endlessly grateful for each and every minute, to both Matthew and his perfected rendering of his green muse.

Maybe I should further define what I mean by magic (even if magic defies definition by nature.) Let me at least try to describe to you what I (think I) mean by it. Maybe the most simple metaphor is that of a doorway that you walk through into an enchanting land of beauty. If you’ve ever tried mushrooms, you will already fully understand what I mean by this kind of magic. Sometimes you get through the door just by floating down a river on a beautiful sunny day. Add a few mushrooms to that scenario and you are even more of all the way there. Nature is part of magic too.

One earmark of magic is synchronicity. Actually, more than than just a neutral synchronicity, you get happy serendipity with good herb. I often have crazy experiences with the aid of Matthew’s cake. I will include a recent example in the appendix to this book (see Silent Disco, appendix.) Amazing things happen, truly.

My theory on serendipity (as if you asked me for it) is that in the 4th dimension all time and space points meet together, just like two 2-D lines do when they are forming an angle meet each other in realm of 3-D. I know that is impossible to get. I don't quite get it myself. (See Honeywell Street affair, appendix.)

Another earmark of magic is music. Music also goes 4-D, or rather you go 4-D with music which basically means you can get inside of of it more easily. And oh my god is it beautiful in there. If you can’t imagine, then please have a gumball sized pinch of one of Matthew’s brownies and hear. (Apropos to everything, scientists have recently discovered that the atom has the frequency of a “D Note”, twenty octaves up from middle C.)

A third earmark is taste. These cakes taste like earthy, chocolaty fluffiness, like the stuff of Aztec gods. Chase it down with a cup of coffee and exult in the flavor.  If you want to really dazzle someone, then add some vanilla icecream. Y’all are now ready to go.

A fourth quality of magic is love. This is an under-appreciated, little talked about, but very important aspect of Marijuana. It is a super duper uper powerful connection. Here’s my mind-blowing question to you. Do you know anyone who has been seriously injured, or worse, killed, because of Marijuana? (Alchohol involvement doesn’t count.) If the herb makes you stupid, then why doesn’t anybody ever wreck their car while using it? Doesn’t that sound a bit incredible to you? I’ve read more than once that there is are zero deaths linked to Marijuana consumption. I mean isn’t that a little suspicious? Is there some kind of protective green fairy quality in THC? It would almost be eerie if it wasn’t so sweet. And let’s not forget to mention the countless medical ills, from glaucoma to cancer, from nausea to narcolepsy, that the compound in THC can assuredly help cure.

One hidden health benefit that is vitally important to keep in mind is what the French term “joi de vivre”. This is what we call PREVENTATIVE medicine. Stress is a killer. When you are relaxed you are made safer from future pain. How about that? I love to get a massage, because it feels great, but I rarely ever need one. Because if you go out dancing on space cakes every now and then, as I often do, you find that does you just as much good, or more.

That’s my lengthy rebuke to anyone who calls marijuana a vice. It isn’t a vice, cops. It’s a virtue. It is isn’t toxic. It’s nutritious like vitamin D.

It’s crazy it has such a stigma. I bow down and apologize to the elan vitale in Marijuana for our species’ rude and brutal behaviour. It kills me that so many have been imprisoned in her name. What a pile of horrors our stupid fears have caused us. It’s like a greek tragedy up in here.

All because we are a culture that is afraid to relax. It causes terrible things to happen to people. This is true pretty much across the globe, but there are a few islands here and there that have always instinctively enjoyed the truth of the herb. This probably has something to do with the fact that they are living in natural abundance, in the harmony of a small community. On islands the fish and fruit keep people happy and there is less in general to fear, save invadors from the East and West. I’m thinking of Ganja in Jamaica. Otherwise you find it accepted in places with spiritual abundance, like on the ganges.

Ha, dropping theory like the Beastie Boy drops an orange.

Anyway, don’t live in fear is all I’m saying here; enjoy a little cake with your wine. This book will teach you how to produce cakes fine enough to go with your finest wines.

And speaking of wine, let me get back to mushrooms. Maybe one of the most amazing things about Matthew’s cakes (consistently!) is consistency. In other words you control where they take you. Just don’t take too much! More on that later. The important  thing to remember is that you control how much. And you control the circumstances. It’s never the herb’s fault. It’s always yours. If you can’t handle that, that’s on you.

But more amazing still is that within your control, if you can handle it, is a whole range of very desirable and instructive states of mind, the kind of which are generally provided by drugs and alchohol, and not, usually, in a kind way.

If I want a heroin/vicodan experience , and I do, I can do that with a cake and the right music in the right locale with the right company (which is more often than not only myself. I save it for solo relaxation time.)

If I want an upper/dizzy/whirlwind coke-fueled high, I can get there with an espresso and the BPM’s turned up to 120. Sometimes this is the way I write, a way to write, like Kerouac on bourbon and bennies without the heavy come down. Sometimes this is the way I dance. (See Silent Disco, appendix.)

Sissies and bros, you do not want to take heroin or coke. They just don’t have your best interests in mind. They are selfish drugs. They more often than not lead to nightmares and misery.

Alcohol too. I no longer have near the desire I once did for those spirits; widow-makers that will just as soon wrap you around a light pole and leave gashing wounds on your loved ones. Alchohol makes you mean too. It’s messed up. Marijuana is the opposite. You can put it in the peace pipe and then afterward even sworn enemies will hug it out.

The kind loose I want to feel with alchohol? I can get there with the Matthew’s golden space cake. So much better too. It takes some getting used to, but I’ve trained myself to let go on the green magic carpet ride. If you can’t let go, then I advise that you follow the advice that my other brother, Jeremy, once gave me when I was freaking out: “Break on through to the side, man.” Sometimes that just means a shot of whiskey. Haha. You probably won’t even need a second.

You can get there with some practice. You find the middle way with it. And pretty soon it is like drunkenly riding a bike, but in a much safer and healthier way.

You might even get a little psychedelic visuals if you are listening to the proper music as an added bonus.

Ecstacy too, it's got that covered. MDMA. Molly. Or whatever the kids are calling it these days. I like Molly. Rolling on Molly. Sounds like a modern folk song. (Rolling on Molly Ringwald? Too much?) The Cake can get as sensual as all get out, can take you right into the “delta of venus,” to quote Beck. I mean, maybe you don’t need the extra help, maybe, but still there it is, givingly, lovingly, aiding you when you are at your most giving and loving. I applaud you, sir.

So really, what I am saying, for the first time here and now, is that Matthew’s cakes have the power to turn your vices into virtues. You may not buy that, yet, ma'am, but if you buy this book and pay attention to the absolute miracle detailed within, you may just find you won’t need to. You may find that it is all true for you too.

On the other side of thing.

So, there’s that.

Can you imagine how great a gift this is for one brother to give to another?

Now here’s Matthew with his own take on the thing, with an assist from the invaluable Jacques Delaguerre, anthropath extra-ordinaire.

memoir

roomservice

taxie

D Note (oral)

1001 nights

Dadablog

boyhood




ny years:

books in the free machine:

facault's pendulum
experiments with mirrors and lights
forever young
jokes philosophical

Monday, August 25, 2014

nipple bite

I was in a lake and doing a handstand in water about five feet deep. I was trying to hold the pose and my breath as long as I could. Suddenly my concentration was pierced when I felt a sharp pain in my right nipple. It felt like someone had thrown a sharp rock at me, but since I was under water that didn't really make sense. I realized something must've bitten my nipple and bit it pretty hard. I felt violated, absurdly, and was a little skittish to get in the water for the rest of the day. I had to laugh at myself.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

BEST DAY EVER

Hard to know what blog to put this one in. Dada blog? Facebook? No, we'll put it in the written memoir.

One of the best days of my life. yoga in the morning with Genevieve, then just me and the girls. And we had dance parties and made lots of art. We had a four coarse meal for lunch, so much good food, even went bachelor gourmet for myself, vegan BLT for lunch, Mac & cheese with tuna for dinner. Got an amazing haul of booty from the library, new Murakami, Jim Henson, Sarah Silverman, China Mielville. And later Quinn in the park, Jaime from Liverpool in the park,  sudden downpour in the park, a summer rain, glorious, guitar and song at home and then ending the night with Monsters University and cakes in space, fantasies come true inside a fantasy come true.

"Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the  mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. Whitebreast of the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide." James Joyce, Ulysses

Thursday, July 31, 2014

To All Persons Of The World


We are respectfully requesting an international ceasefire on October 2nd.

This is a collective cry from the heart. We know that most people across the world would support a moratorium on all weapons if given the opportunity. This is that opportunity. Inspired by the example of Mahatma Gandhi this moratorium will be held on his birthday, October 2nd. This date shall henceforth be known as International Ceasefire Day. We believe that if we can collectively create even one day without killing each other en masse, then we will not only save some very dear lives, but will also create new hope for humanity. Please help us spread the word far and wide. For this to be effective it needs to be the largest petition in human history. Every one of you is indispensable. Let’s take this stand together to help end the insane oppression of war.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Dream fragment



I dreamed I was sitting on a roof with Paul Rudd watching in awe as tree branches with dark maroon berries flew off of the trees in slow motion and dove into the river below. What we thought were branches were birds. What we thought were berries were the birds' eyes. Afterward we stopped by a record store. I bought an album by Sun Ra. Paul bought one by a band I had never  heard of before called Dankerotica. The name of the album was "The Life of the Mind"

Monday, June 30, 2014

dream job?

talking to my brother Jeremy tonight and the subject of water came up, because he is getting ready to move across from a river. i remembered that his ideal spot when he was learning how to meditate and needed to go somewhere beautiful in his mind it was to a river. So he had a manifested a dream...IN THE SUBURBS OF DENVER!

I told him how magical it was to be near water for me, the amazing time I had at the lake the weekend before WHICH I SOMEHOW MANIFESTED. I told him about how on my 41 day vow of silence I read about a Russian cult leader of a nomadic tribe who would council his people to submerge themselves in water seven times a day and they would plan their perigrinations around river and lake crossings. This resonated with me and I have been trying to get in at least once a day ever since.

A shower is usual, but I find that in natural bodies of water the vibrations are much stronger. Positive ions or something.

That made me think of the woman I met on a recent tour of Wave Hill in the Bronx. She touched every tree she passed. I asked her why and she said that ever since she had become a Reiki practitioner she could feel their energy. As soon as she told me this it resonated and I knew it would effect the rest of my life in much the same way as reading about the Russian "saint" had. I would touch more trees because of HER energy.

Then I thought about a show I caught on TV in the hotel room when I went to Myrtle Beach with my in-laws a few months ago. It was called Naturescene and it was just a couple of naturalists walking through the woods and pointing out interesting things about the flora and fauna all around them. I could have watched the show for days.

I fantasized on the phone with my brother about putting a show together like that for my own surroundings, looking for some interesting naturalists of different varieties and walking through Central Park, or Prospect Park. But make it a little more out there, maybe bring literature into the mix somehow. Make the show that I myself would like to watch.

"One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes" Frank O'hara


Saturday, June 28, 2014

The beautiful game (for A.M Olin)

On the deck of Down The Hatch
Overlooking ducks & boats
The game is over now but
Man was it beautiful to watch

muscles rippling as they flew
Down the field with every fiber bent
Toward the goal and what else to do
But spend it all til your spent?

Except maybe sit here in perfect stasis
The caress of the breeze off the lake
Blowing through your cotton lace
For my ever-loving sake.



Concision

Reading Mina Loy this morning after having immersed myself for the last few weeks I'm Hart Crane and floored by the similarity of their sensibilities. Then heard two birds singing IN UNISON outside my window. The world congeals.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Anselm Berrigan recently gave me back a few poems I had given him in the mid 90's, most of which I no longer had a copy of. I was glad that they still existed in the world and grateful to see them again. Some I can't even remember writing. I only vaguely remember this one, written with Mikhal Koslosky in Ecuador, but the feeling comes back into sharp relief.

Sakahachi in Iburra

This town was interesting.
The Marco De Villa came by
and pounced on your shadow.

"Nine-three-six," he called
as he got smashed,
"are you practicing or
just making noise?"

What if I told him, "Oh yeah?
Wafers, carmellos, coffee
chocolate and coconuts,"
and then said, "man."

You would think I was joking.

Over-ridden by a shawl full of luggage
woven hay and beetles
as big as fifty sucre pieces.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Open up the door, open up the triangle

"Open up the door, open up the triangle."

This chant was going through my head this morning over and over.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Moment

A perfect night in Queens. 

Kicking back and Writing my novel while having a local ale at Kickshaw. 

Later While waiting for a taco at the taco truck Feeling the Awesome sensation of the 7 train rumbling overhead like thunder while at the same time hearing the piercing cry of fire engine sirens and police sirens crossing in front of me, a sonic trifecta.

The unbelievable taco!

Going into the local Bodega for a can of green ginseng and honey tea. The Indian behind the counter is listening to sinuous Ragas which are instantly felt. He offers me a straw to drink my tea. Godly detail.

Love this burrough more and more


Monday, May 5, 2014

Big day w girls

We had to move the car because of Monday street cleaning so we went to spring blooming Central Park. At Central Park we went to the reservoir where we met a nice birdwatcher and used her $300 binoculars to look at the duffle head ducks, wood ducks and Double-breasted cormorants. awesome. The birdwatcher, a beautiful red headed bird herself, also alerted me to the fact that there were black-and-white warblers in the park on migration right now. She had just taken a class with one of the Central Park birdwatchers from the Netflix movie. I would love to get a good shot of one of those warblers. then We ended up at 96 street playground for awhile. then try to go to the met but it was closed for special events so went to see the futurist exhibit at the Guggenheim instead. I loved it. The Carrie Mae Weems show there was good too. Ah NY!

Monday, April 14, 2014

today

Good Game

Hail Mary pass
Over your left shoulder

You would catch it 

If you were Jessica Fiorini

Or at least not Rob Fitterman
Hating his fictitious self

She said she was still a pattern though

The poem should end
After every line

"Beginnings and beginnings"
Said the Alice that doesn't live
        here anymore.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Yoko

Earth piece 1. Listen to the sound of the fire burning in the center if the globe

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Day w/ Dad and beyond

Such a long day. I remember not finding parking in Williamsburg after dropping Dad and Bonnie off at Fleas & Artists, but I didn't care because I just loved listening to good radio (Mississippi John Hurt) and driving around looking at beautiful people and feeling the sun hit me. Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. I listened to that today too, as I was getting Tyler's little girl to sleep (we were babysitting while he and Jessica went to see Emily Lou Harris. Finally ending the night watching Foster The People and Lorde live at Coachella on Youtube.

Last Minute Save. So many in my life. That would be a good book title.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Happy 7 year anniversary

I woke up inside my dream this morning while looking at a very green hill of grass. I couldn't believe how real the grass looked in my dreaming mind, couldn't believe it was just a dream. I was wishing for a way to capture it, some way to write it all down and take it into my waking life. A little elfin Zach Galafianakis character popped into the frame and pointed toward the hill. "The pen is on the other side," he said with an impish gleam in his eyes. So I started walking up the hill and, consequently, woke up. Then, during breakfast, Genevieve gave me a gift for our 7 year anniversary and it was a green pen.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

God ears

I saw the Hasidic man driving an odyssey driving in front of me on Franklin Avenue in Williamsburg. He was playing with the curl of hair. It was as if he was playing with his ear. I realized that he had grown of metaphorical extension of his ear. It was like an antenna. To better listen to God?

Friday, February 28, 2014

Book of Magic

waiting for The Wind to Rise, Miyazaki's The Wind Rises. At 10:30, the projected start time, nothing happened. We waited a half hour and Genevieve finally asked me how long we were willing to give it. I said 7 minutes. 4 minutes later the manager came in and apologized and said the movie would be up momentarily. 2 minutes later the movie started. Hardly a minute to spare.

But I knew, before the movie even started, I was in the hands of magic. So when asked I just picked a magic number. 7.

I'm just remembering there was a 7 prominent in the movie too, on the side of an airplane.

But the amazing part for me is what we did about that half hour. I told Genevieve 3 stories. First we talked about how heart breaking it is that Sofia breaks out in tears after we catch her doing something she's not supposed to be. We agree that working on responding to her rather than reacting is the better way. Anger can drive behavior, but has the negative effect of teaching one how to be angry and reactive.

Then, after a moment of silence, looking at a black screen bathed in a soft light I told Gen about my experience seeing Derek Jarman's Blue in the theater, looking at that Maxfield Parrish blue screen for 2 hours while Jarman's actors delivered his thoughts on death as he was dying.

Finally I told her the story I had read that morning in Leonard Cohen's biography. When Cohen was...

Saturday, January 25, 2014

avuncular advice

avuncular advice

When you can figure out how to fit in by standing out, then you've completed the picture, you unique piece of the puzzle, you.

Friday, January 24, 2014

M.I.A's Mudra

The best reappropriation I've ever heard of is M.I.A's mudra.

M.I.A.'s fourth album, Matangi, is out today. The title, she explains, derives from her birth name, Mathangi Arulpragasam.
"It's what's on the passport but I haven't used it since I was very young," she says. "When I came to England, people had a hard time pronouncing it at school. So my auntie told me to call myself Maya, after her Yugoslavian skiing instructor."
What M.I.A. didn't know about her real name until recently is that she shares it with a Hindu goddess — and, as she tells NPR's David Greene, it's one with whom she's grown to feel a particular kinship. Greene recently spoke with M.I.A. about talking her way into art school, collaborating on Matangi with Julian Assange and why a raised middle finger isn't necessarily obscene to her. Hear the radio version at the audio link, and read more of their conversation below.
Matangi is, as you've come to learn, the name of a Hindu goddess of music. Did you feel a deeper connection with this goddess when you learned more about her?
She's basically a goddess of inner thoughts — the outward expression or the outward articulation of inner thoughts. She was really interesting because she lived in the slums; she lived with the untouchables and represented them. So it was really cool to find a goddess that was not considered clean and pure, and was not on a pedestal.
Remind us who the untouchables were.
The untouchables were basically the lowest caste in India. They were considered so dirty, they even weren't allowed to go inside the temples to pray. The Brahmans were the highest class and they controlled knowledge, spirituality, the temples. They were sort of considered the sacred, clean people. And the untouchables were the opposite of that. They were considered the dirty people that did the dirty jobs: They cleaned the streets, hunted, did things that were considered unclean.
Matangi's dad was called Matanga, and he was the first person to gain enlightenment as an untouchable, without being reincarnated as a Brahman. So he was given the gift of the goddess of music — who then had this part-time job of representing the untouchables, because her father was one.
I want to ask you about the Super Bowl halftime show in 2012. This was a huge audience, an American audience, a world audience. And on camera, you gave us all the middle finger. Why did you do that?
It's the Matangi mudra.
What is that? Why does that explain it?
Well, you know gang signs — in America you have gang signs, and people throw up initials and stuff like that. Well, 5,000 years ago, there was thing called a mudra, which is your sitting position when you do yoga or you're meditating or praying or whatever. And you have different ones based on what you're meditating over. There's not a lot of them that are named after gods and goddesses, but the middle finger is specifically named Matangi — the Matangi mudra.
So you were not giving America the middle finger? This was the Matangi symbol?
Yes. Do you like that? (Laughing) It's good, isn't it?
Something tells me that there might have been another meaning in that.
It's cultural! In my country, it's godly. OK?
Is the NFL believing that? I know they're suing you.
Of course the NFL is not believing that, because the NFL does not believe in any other culture outside of the NFL. But it's true; you can Wikipedia it. You can just say "Matangi" and "mudra," and you'll see it's the middle finger.

love life

there was this thing floating around on FaceBook that said take the nearest book to you and open it to page 45. The first paragraph would tell you about your love life. I tried it and came up with

Assign'd am I to be the English scourge.
This night the siege assuredly I'll raise:
Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days,
Since I have entered into these wars.

This is a speech by Joan La Pucelle in Shakespeare's Henry VI.

Hmm, what does this have to do with my love life? It does feel like there is, strangely, some warring in love. The work that it takes to get to halcyon days. And scourge to the English is sometime like, -antidote to victorian mores, to properness. And I do bring some of that to my relationship.

To add to this I'm currently reading Keith Richards' LIFE. And talk about a scourge to the English. But also one that brought music and dance and revelry.

It was like a war he fought with the English.

Seen through that lens the dynamic is pretty revealing. Keef is pretty despicable at times. And yet I'm still glad for the dirty dangerous joy he brings to the table.

Which all makes me feel better about my own down and dirty contribution to my own family.

Thanks silly FB game. (See what I did there?)

Addendum, days later. Listening to early stones albums and thinking about the crazy rabid, fierce fans, the young girls, who Richards says in his memoir are the scariest force he's ever encountered.

Wondering what causes that. But listening to the music I begin to understand. It is a release of the demons from the strictures of the Victorian era. It was pure Dionisian voo doo of music, released through African records into young brave punks and then unbottled into the world through pop music. finally understood as absolutely necessary.

How much better is the African or south American values, where the music is  introduced early and control is learned by the dancer. 


Saturday, January 11, 2014

Email to a bro

earing vegan at Bhakti Cafe listening to record release of terrasonic (remember?), mc yogi type named Dj drez. Chill and copacetic. Meanwhile tried minor to be an idiot at the poetry reading I just came from while flying on MD Spacecakes. (u shld get in the mrkt w those MD. Use that name. Make a mint.  Give me free cakes for life.)

Friday, January 3, 2014

memoir

                         Art Crimes


My job over the last six years has been to curate art and music for a unique venue in Arvada Colorado called the D Note.
I've been thinking lately about a certain work of art stolen from the D Note. We've had a few pieces of art stolen from the D Note over the years. This is the story of that stolen art, and a theory about what all this thievery might mean, metaphysically speaking.

The first piece that was stolen, about five years ago, was an original oil painting created by commission in the early eighties as a cover of a Harlequin romance. The painting was kitschy, in a good way, and was superbly executed. It depicted two 19th century ghosts dancing in a lavish ballroom at the foot of a double set of chamber stairs. Walking through the room and lighting it up with a candle was a girl with a frightened look on her face and a finger to her lips. I loved this eerie goth painting for way it depicted a haunted nostalgia for a romantic past.

When the painting was stolen we narrowed down the suspects by deduction. The main suspect was a local, a Colonel Klink type who used to hang around the D Note and sometimes man the door. The guy was a bit scary (he once tried to bring a cattle prod into work a punk show) but he still seemed like a trustworthy guy. We had a real life art crime caper on our hands, and the gothic romantic theme of the painting gave the case a literary charge.

Adding to the tension was the fact that the painting was expensive. It looked like I would have to shell out 3k of my own money, a heart-sinking sum. But the case, thank goodness, was solved. A local Arvada police detective followed our lead and was able to somehow find the painting behind the culprit's couch and get it back to us safely, a big sigh of relief and a small lesson in faith.

A few other stolen works have made their way back to the D Note in various uncanny ways. I'm always glad for the return of the piece. Stolen art is just bad juju. It is not the same as stealing a mass produced material possession. It is more like stealing spirit. In my calculations stolen art carries about twice as much bad karma as stealing money. I sometimes wince a little when I think of the fate the thief has unknowingly brought on his own head.

One of the first major stolen pieces that we didn't get back was a brilliant acid-hued portrait of Nixon. I placed this painting directly across from the men's restroom door so that Tricky Dick was smiling at you in that creepy way whenever you left the john, a good subtle joke. When the painting was stolen I was pissed off, but I still had to laugh. A crook stole a portrait of a crook. It seemed too good, like the way a double negative is a positive.

The most recent art to be stolen, the one on my mind, was an unbelievably beautiful painting by Danny (D Pity) Phillips which he had given me as a gift. I had that one up next to the women's restroom door. When Danny gave me that painting, after a successful show of his we mounted at the D Note, I was floored. So much do I love Danny's work that it felt like receiving a masterpiece by a modern Michelangelo. Danny said he didn't know why the piece was for me, but that he just felt it was. Danny is a very intuitive and poetic painter. His paintings depict a world that is completely his, but they are full of all kinds of symbols and ideas that can be interpreted in ways entirely personal to the viewer.

The name of this painting was The Silver Sea. Above the silver sea was a night-time sky full of subtle changes, an aurora borealis of color. At the bottom of the painting a red king was standing shin deep in silver water and staring out at a silver sea. Behind the king was a woman laying on a blanket on the beach, with wine, a picnic lunch and a book by her side. Behind her was a lush and orderly garden. The king seemed to be looking the wrong way, out to sea instead of back at the utopia behind him. I was reminded of the ur-myth of the Odyssey; Odysseus exploring the world while Penelope patiently waits at home.

That myth is about all of us, but it seemed especially poignant to me at the time. I had a terrific girlfriend, food and wine, books, everything I needed on the shore, but was still unsatisfied, still looking for something out at sea. What else was I looking for? The painting made everything obvious to me. Like the red king in the painting I was looking the wrong way.

Now, three years later, I'm married and settling deeper and deeper into the ring of the relationship. Therefore when this great painting by D Pity was stolen it only broke my heart for a second. I didn't really need it anymore. The painting had done its work on me. Now it was destined to do double duty to the thief who stole it.

But there's poetic justice to this story. My wife and I bought another painting by D Pity. We originally bought it for a friend, but it ended up for the time being on our living room wall. That friend may get it yet, but for now the painting is speaking to me. The loss of the first D Pity Silver Sea painting helped to underscore and highlight the second D Pity piece in our living room, almost as if the new piece could not truly be seen until the other was gone.

The painting depicts an Indian boy riding a pink elephant.

In the morning I often try to meditate and do yoga. Sometimes when I meditate, to quiet the monkey chatter of my mind, I chant "Ga Na", the seed syllables behind Ganesh, the elephant God, Hindu patron of the arts, remover of obstacles. Ga here means mind and speech, as in "gaga", and Na means no, negative, beyond, other, so that when I chant "Ga Na" I am bringing my mind into focus with "Ga" and then letting it go with "Na", a trick I learned from a poem by Joanne Kyger in the 1971 Paris Review, to which I'm eternally grateful. This chant quickly takes me out of my own head, removes the great obstacle, helps get me out of my own way.

The story goes that Ganesh was born with a human head and body, but Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant. The beheading represents the offing of the ego, and the head of the elephant represents Shiva, pure being in place of ego.

So the boy riding the pink elephant in D Pity's painting is transformed in my imagination to the boy/elephant of Ganesha. I can feel this transformation every time I chant "Ga Na" and my head pops off. The more I let go, the further the pink elephant takes me.

I also want to point out that a pink elephant is traditionally the vision a drunk sees. To be drunk on wine, or, metaphorically, to be intoxicated by the spirit, leads one, inevitably, to a the pink elephant. Let us raise a glass to Ganesh.

When I look at D Pity's painting of the primitive boy riding the beautiful pink elephant I instantly become that boy, thrilled to be riding the elephant, gamely letting the elephant guide me because the elephant obviously knows best. This is the mysterious power in the art.

Shake a spear

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.