juuuuust listen

by black violin
two of the many violinists you should be aware of if you're like me and kinda want to explode with the goodness every time you hear strings meet a beat
others to check out:
daniel bernard roumain (pictured above)
nuttin but stingz
cellofourte
and of course, my longtime love, miri ben ari
here's a video of her at the apollo old, but great and amazing to see how the highly skeptical audience warms up to her...

miss peach

tonight one of the icons of the long island pony world, and one of the last living thelwell originals, left us for greener pastures.
she was somewhere between 23 and 30.
like any lady, she never disclosed her age.
peaches was my first pony. we got her when i was 3 and even though she went to other families after i was too big for her, she always came back to us.
my mother not so secretly hoped she would be around for grandchildren.
and it was my mother with her tonight at her sweet little retirement farm in long island.

she taught me and probably a hundred other little girls how to ride
and more importantly, how to truly love an animal.

if you didnt steer, she went where she wanted, probably home.
if you didnt make her move shed stop and eat grass quite happily
if you didnt pick her hooves facing the right way shed take a bite of your butt for good measure.
if you decided to gallop headlong at a jump that was both set backwards and way too big for a 13 hand pony to jump, shed jump the damn thing. but land and give a good enough buck to send you flying and let you know that was not appropriate.
or maybe thats just me, age five
but i know for sure that if you were one of her many five year old passengers and you happened to be leaning a little too far right, shed shift underneath you to be safe.
and peaches' stall was always open, her ears always pricked to listen to child dreams and child pain and child love.
and that chocolate brown coat was as good a pillow as any for a night when that child just couldn't handle home.

peaches passing away made me rethink something i'd said to a friend, ironically, just this morning.
she asked if i would encourage my children (if i have children) to ride, and i said i didn't think so- that it was too difficult to do on a decent level without mortgaging the house and even with money the politics of the show world are so nasty i'm lucky to have escaped with my soul.

but i realized tonight that if theres any means and any will then i'd find a good way to give back what my mother gave to me-
these memories of a best friend, a first love.
RIP my peach

i sure as shit do love this unnassuming song

boomp3.com
by Kathleen Edwards

Choosing my words carefully
Has never been my strength
I've been known to be vague
And often pointless
But you sure as shit know me
Better than anybody else
And for that in my heart I am hopeful

So I helped you pack your bags
And I folded up your snap shirts
When you come back
It will already be the winter
If you look at other girls
Working out in the nighttime
I don't mind but I don't want to know it

And these years that I have known you
It's gone and blurred my sense of time
Now I can hardly even recall
What came before this
Letters left on pillows
Messages left on phones
Postcards in the mail
When we sent them
Cobwebs all collected
Paintings on the walls
Lounging around all day
In a hot pink chenille housecoat
And the secrets that I whispered
In your ear while you were sleeping
You can call to mind when you're
Out in the world without me

Oh the denim king
I sure as shit do love you
And I cuss because I mean it
And for that in my heart I am hopeful
And these words that I chose
I was so careful

we struggle in this generation

anti-olympic graffiti on the streets of bangkok, thailand
see wooster collective for more shots and other incredible street art

imagine walking by this

fabulous

its my birthday, i'll supersaturate a post in poetry if i want to

Just One Insight
by Jenn Habel

Most afternoons we take the dogs
to the creek so the one can flail
through the water, the other
lie down and shred his stick.

We sit on rocks and watch them,
telling one another to look at
what, in most cases, he or she
already sees. Tuesdays, though,

he’s been to the therapist, so I
get to ask for Just One Insight,
a compromise upon which we
seem to have agreed. I wait as

he shuffles toward his revelation,
interrupting to say don’t take this
the wrong way or you understand
none of this is conscious, and I don’t

think I exaggerate when I compare
myself in those moments to
an addict whose next fix is in sight
but still slightly out of reach.

There’s a beached shopping cart
on the bank beside us, a fire
extinguisher, and, embedded
in the sand, many shades of glass.

That I’m always waiting for one
of the dogs to slice a paw may be
my worst quality; not minding
the cost of its stitching, my best.

*****

Wild Thing
by Kevin King

In the end, our argument isn't
about anything at all.
It's simply her testing
whether I'm still there.

The way she flops onto the couch
is the signal, the shock waves
of pure ostention as good as
a gauntlet thrown down.

In a parallel universe,
it is the mirror image of a game
in which the manager gets off the bench
and hitches her pants for a walk to the mound,

not revealing her intentions, entirely,
not threatening her starter, overtly.
It's still early in the game
and it's the first visit paid,

some therapy, some plea for control,
the puffed out cheek, like a squirrel's,
a dead giveaway. She lets some fly.
I've seen it enough before that I

recognize the good intentions,
what she wants to say:
Wild thing, I think I love you,
But I want to know for sure.

*****

Ash Ode
by Dean Young

When I saw you ahead I ran two blocks
shouting your name then realizing it wasn’t
you but some alarmed pretender, I went on
running, shouting now into the sky,
continuing your fame and luster. Since I've
been incinerated, I've oft returned to this thought,
that all things loved are pursued and never caught,
even as you slept beside me you were flying off.
At least what's never had can’t be lost, the sieve
of self stuck with just some larger chunks, jawbone,
wedding ring, a single repeated dream,
a lullaby in every elegy, descriptions
of the sea written in the desert, your broken
umbrella, me claiming I could fix it.

those who dam streams...

thanks to M for showing me this mesmerizing and momentous video that i cant get enough of
michael franti & spearhead
time to go home

body parts

By Jeanne Murray Walker

Think how one soldier, on every anniversary
of his amputation, brought blood red tulips
to his leg and sat by the glass case,

both hands on one knee,
his thoughts electrifying the space
between him and what he can not quite give up—

hanging in that interval, like the shadow
between a maple and the earth it loves.
I've noticed the way a porch

inclines from its house,
to see how far it can go without permission,
but hoping to hang on for now—

of two minds about wanting to get away.
It's like coloring outside the lines,
like testing deep water beyond the buoy,

like venturing into outer space,
daring to edge farther and farther
off the base in schoolyard games.

It's practice, isn't it? A way of thinking
about the day that the body parts,
the soul flies up to heaven.
Arthur Tress, Flying Dream 1971

domesticated love

I find Amy Stein's photograhy stunning.
mercilessly viscerally so.
The ones im posting are from her set called Domesticated
it taps a major tension between humans and animals
the physical space we share, the space we steal, the emotional space between us and them
or lack thereof.

but visit her site because these aren't big enough to do any justice
nd maybe you're hearts not as strung up to the animal kingdom as mine but theres bound to be something in one of her four portfolio sets that gets to you.

on the music front, Griffin House's psychologically penetrating lyrics seem to suit Stein's work.
ill just leave you to listen to this quiet beaut
Only Love Remains
boomp3.com

and now go download:
Live To Be Free
Waterfall
Never Again
Heart of Stone
and
Better Than Love.
which is not better than love. but tastes a bit like it.

staring through whats in front of us

first of all, street installations by the ironic and whimsical Mark Jenkins:
that hydrant is hollow, made of plastic wrap and clear tape.
he did a whole series of tape baby dolls, transparent and ghostly posted all over cities, hanging from street signs and buildings and taxi cabs... heres one in São Paulo:
and a particularly ridiculous one in warsaw:
and west virginia:
and then there's this:which made me think of a poem i came across in my daily digging for the right word
something about staring through whats in front of us
so i hunted it down online
finally found it and remembered why it had stayed with me
remembered why i don't want to live in the city for too long
remembered not to be that jackass that honks
not to wait for someone to make me happy.

Getting Where We're Going
by John Brehm

Surfeit of distance and the wracked mind waiting,
nipping at itself, snarling inwardly at strangers.
If I had a car in this town I'd
rig it up with a rear bumper horn,
something to blast back at the jackasses
who honk the second the light turns green.
If you could gather up all the hornhonks
of just one day in New York City,
tie them together in a big brassy knot
high above the city and honk
them all at once it would shiver
the skyscrapers to nothingness, as if
they were made of sand, and usher
in the Second Coming. Christ would descend
from the sky wincing with his fingers
in his ears and judge us all
insane. Who'd want people like us
up there yelling at each other, trashing
the cloudy, angelic streets with our
candywrappers and newspapers and coffeecups?
Besides, we'd still be waiting for
the next thing to happen in Heaven,
the next violin concerto or cotton candy
festival or breathtaking vista to open
beneath our feet, and thinking this place
isn't quite what it's cracked up to be,
and why in hell does everybody
want to get here? We'd still be
waiting for someone else to come
and make us happy, staring
through whatever's in front of us,
cursing the light that never seems to change.

thats entertainment?

Im designing a set for a crazy play. Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry. So crazy and comic and simultaneously dark and disturbing, that i want to set it in a circus.
and thats stirring up all kinds of opinions ive always had about circuses.
setting aside obvious and heartbreaking animal cruelty issues, circuses and clowns have always been deeply depressing to me.
apparently i'm not alone in my fascination (mixed with a little phobia) for clowns and their lives. researching the portrayal of clowns in art is turning out to be a much bigger and more complex task than i first imagined
even though im focusing mostly on painters in the late 19th century, here are a few stirring images of circus performers by contemporary photographers that i found particuarly haunting.
Circus by Bruce Davidson
Jenya and Vitali on a spring bed in Russia, by Michal Chelbin
Twin Brothers Tulsi and Basant, Great Famous Circus, Calcutta, by Mary Ellen Mark


boomp3.com
Rufus does Judy.
not my favorite (download zing went the strings of my heart)
but appropriate