Saturday Evening Spree

from Porcile

“a spree of perceptions”

 Julia Kristeva

“…a dream of/exegetic sleep.”

Nathanial Mackey

“…dream of electric sheep…”

Philip K. Dick

Movie recommendations: Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov, La Jetee by Chris Marker; Porcile, written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. 

Movies: "Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the Number One hormone; it bosses the enzymes; directs your pineal gland; plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote for film is more film"
---Frank Capra


Lit genre: urban fiction. I’ve read plenty of other books with a lot more action, but this one is pretty good with the dialogue and the customizing of the English language.

“Grown ass men don’t whisper. Two niggas whispering--that’s some sneak shit,” he explained.

Another locution I enjoyed:  “I’m getting my nails and toes did in a few.”

Misc lit: TSEliot was right about a whimper instead of a bang, but he was wrong about the month April, for the fact is November and February are coholders of the title cruelest. 

The wound of existence, the joy of existence: If you can get past the toxic parts, Friedrich Nietzsche is quite amusing at times. Beyond Good and Evil had me laughing out loud often.  I loved it when he referred to “Asia and its little pushed out peninsula Europe.” Europeans are so full of themselves when in fact they’re like a recreational vehicle popout!

New York Times crossword puzzle 1003 by Ricky Cruz: excellent!

My favorite thing I like about owning a car is going to drive-thrus.

Our president looks almost as though created by a cubist God.

In the periphery I saw the name Archie Shepp, so he’s who I’m listening to right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeOdqw7rbNc


www.randystark.com

The Greatest Weekend of the Year!

An extra hour of sleep!

This week I sent out another batch of poems to eagerly awaiting (LOL) magazines. Now a few days of R&R...

First, a big launch: the new Neil Novello website. Check it out.here.

Then, one eff, two ens: Stunned I was, when not laughing out loud, by Michael Hofmann’s poem about President Trump: The Resident. New York Review of Books has the poem locked on its website, restricted to subscribers. In the best interests of the country it should be available to all. C’mon NYRB, de-elite yourself for a minute, behave like the force you think you are.

www.randystark.com

Riding the train/sit there and sightsee

“it is hard to be anywhere once

and twice is a dream”

(From The Desk by Cid Corman)

This week my attention was rocked by new thinking and split between stuff that “interferes with your breathing” and stuff where you could say “this is the sound of God, in case anyone was wondering”

Keetje Kuipers

https://keetjekuipers.com/

Nicole Callihan

https://www.nicolecallihan.com/

Add Joanne Kyger to the list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanne_Kyger

And Fela Kuti (1971)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jbzdl9isW0

Psychedelic Furs (1981) Talk Talk Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_awQndgU-KY

Robert Schumann: Fantasie in C, Op.17 (Andsnes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ7hE4lQAYs

And I learned a little about Nick Land and accelerationism. This link got me started

http://joshuacitarella.com/_pdf/Politigram_Post-left_2018_short.pdf

Plus continued work on a couple of tremendous projects I’m not at liberty to discuss.

I devoured the Walks to the Paradise Garden. https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/books/walks-to-the-paradise-garden-a-lowdown-southern-odyssey/

Jonathan Williams, oh my goodness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Williams_(poet)

Then there was Tsitsi Dangarembga and an interesting interview:

 https://bombmagazine.org/articles/tsitsi-dangaremgba/

I’ve read her first novel, Nervous Conditions, a couple of times. In it, along with everything else, there’s a sense of delight in how she compassionately and honestly dealt with the feelings of girls, young women.

Robert Forster has died. I remember him mostly from "Medium Cool" and "Jackie Brown."

Buy pumpkins

I said look I said harsh beauty

Comes along once in a Total Pho.

Her name was Promise Ji.

She took her race track tea

Black with honey.

My biggest fear was

Half and half.

Getting a charge of out Eric Dolphy

So I wrote to the governor re AB 881

and

listened to Frank Zappa music.

Black napkins

Burnt weeny sandwich

Waka/jawaka

A Token of His Extreme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGZreIjhtVY

and The Observatory by Caroline Shaw

And:  

Brahms-Quintet for Piano and Strings in f minor op. 34

Brahms Quintetto per Pianoforte e Archi in Fa Minore Op 34 Quartetto Italiano, Pollini

Brahms Clarinet Quintet In B minor op. 115

Johannes Brahms - Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano in A Minor, Op. 114

Brahms Sextets Nos. 1 & 2

Brahms intermezzi.

Brahms violin concerto.

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Live at the Scene

After intense writing, I like to relax, read some African-American Urban Fiction. You know what that’s all about. Usually the authors have me laughing out loud at the truth of their creative English, what Fred Moten and Stefano Harney call “eloquent vulgarities” and “mutant grammar.”

My Besties: The Come Up by Asia Hill wasn’t as druggy and explicit and nasty as most, but still I enjoyed the tone. Here are some samples:

“Feel me? We rode hard in these streets.”

“He took care of me. He always made sure I had the best video games and the newest Jordans.”

“Something told me that she was a rotten bitch on the inside.”

I laughed out loud at the description of a young woman wearing an all-white outfit: “Tiki over here looking like a glass of whole milk and shit.”

Then a pivot to T.S. Eliot and his Four Quartets.

And then Art Pepper (“I see where I wanna go, it’s just trying to get there.”) kills it with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn8VzO-KbfQ

And where I left off is no longer there

And neither I nor there are the same as when we both were.

www.randystark.com

And now we’d like to play a tune

Tom Weatherly

https://jacket2.org/feature/short-history-tom-weatherly

Short History of the Saxophone, 2006

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7932195-short-history-of-the-saxophone

Philip Glass, Concerto for Saxophone quartet, 1995

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jb6YeV_Aik

Art Pepper, 1977

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trsf4NdKAYM

Dexter Gordon, 1979

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-dyHw2tO1o

www.randystark.com