Cage’s Happenings
Show us in the mobile trajectories protean risibility of comic oboes the blue auras of conceptual acts overcoming at opposite lines presuming a saturnine impasse of our attic journeys from dramatics easing facility to laugh at the obliquity of ourselves. B.Z. as a teenager played jazz violin with John...
Read MoreZoom_6
photo by R.S. Carlson ( — Had Emily D had digital zoom –) Hope is the thing with feathers at flowers in soft sun – that shares swift flares of fine-lined wings till fast-series files are done – and waits till after battery change to pose for zoomed-in-large – and stays in auto-focus range till detail is assured – and moves from blocking stems and leaves for foregrounds crisp and clear – and offers glints of beak and eyes instead of murky blur – and holds in best position for lens to zoom a scene to ideal composition for at least one photo...
Read MoreWalt Whitman at the Game
Walt Whitman, containing multitudes, spreads his plump rump on the bleachers, his blooming beard caressed by diamond breezes. The umpire raises one hand in benediction. The batter swings and swings again at nothing, then cocks a grin as wide as a blind assumption. The ball soars, high, higher, seeking the looming towers of Manhattan, angles or demons, catchers and pitchers of the winds. In Walt’s eye, the ball, a polished moon, folds into a dove recalling home. Cheers wound the sky in its envy. The grass burns the blades of its desire. Walt Whitman absorbs it all in the visionary marrow of...
Read MoreAnother History of the Bean
Thoreau hoed his 24,750 bean plants from 5 A.M. till noon each day. I cannot say the furry little things are worth the effort, though they have their own charms when Chinese-restaurant green or flavored with bread crumbs and garlicky butter. My mother always warned me against my passion for the slick beans at the top of a newly-opened can, but I’m still here and Thoreau is not. He only lasted 26 months at Walden, and I’m still levering open tins, still savoring those first slick fruits. There are no rules when it comes to...
Read MoreLu Watters: Blues Over Bodega
Louis Armstrong called him the greatest cornet player in the history of Dixieland, but he’d retired by the time I met him. Lu and I drank cheap sherry out of gallon bottles and talked about literature. He was a Henry Miller fan. Lu drove north to Anderson the year I taught there. He was having an affair with a red-head who claimed she was descended from the Lost Continent of Mu. I remember Lu standing in a fine rain, practicing, preparing for a comeback in a canyon west of Anderson, the notes echoing around us. He wanted to raise money to stop the construction of a nuclear power plant at...
Read MoreThe Woman with Green Eyes
“The Girl with Green Eyes” by Henri Matisse a Madam X with no other name, like most of Matisse’s women stares back at him; she’s hardly camera-shy. She has donned a special hat for the occasion, deep-crowned and shallow-brimmed with a contrasting riband. You can barely tell that she parts her auburn hair on the side. Her neck is completely covered up to her chin by a white collar, stiff as a wooden bobbin, but definitely larger than life size. She refuses to smile. Perhaps, it is because her lipstick has smeared the corners of her mouth. Or she is...
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