Poetry Is Awesome

I had almost forgotten how much I love poetry and why. After applying to grad school, and getting in, but finding myself unable to currently truly afford it without putting holes in numerous pockets of numerous pants that I have yet to even own, I had almost forgotten why I was drawn to words in the first place. Especially words written in form, following ancient structures that seem to have no relevance in today's world, speaking codes. But then tonight I saw Mark Strand read in the back of a bar in Alphabet City and couldn't stop myself from grinning from ear to ear and remembering why and how it had put a spell on me all those years ago, as a teenager, as a college student, as a recent graduate--grasping and sighing dramatically over the mastery of the person's mind before me on the page, or at the podium.

And what a reader. Like slow, patient music. He let the words come soberly and strong. Punctuated and measured. The space between the words helped shape the words themselves. It was simple. It felt pure. And I dizzyingly fell in love all over again.

More than once, I thought, "I have loved your words for years now, how wonderful to hear you and see you as a human being. What courage. What hope. You were the poet laureate. But even more so, you made me see the world in a different way. You have always taken me by the hand and led me to peek over the precipice at death, at life going on without me, at myself wondering over it, and seeing it as a dream." (Ha, yes, that, exactly, more than once over the course of 30 minutes. Hyperbole, you're a good friend.)

And before Strand went on, I found a new poet's work to love: Rick Halles. He made me swoon at his imagery, lights like stars piercing hearts, leaving stains on shirts. I can't wait to read more of him for years to come.

And I left feeling (get ready for more drama): These are my people.

I must stalk the people who organized this reading. Thanks, curators of Reading Between A & B. They created a homey environment, one where I felt just fine sitting by myself for 20 minutes, smiling, listening to other people's conversations, just sitting there, feeling at home. And loving the fuck out of New York City. This is what I came for. So I finally got to the right place a few years late. I've never claimed to be prompt. I'm just glad I made it.

"The Children's Hour" -- but way less tragic

...except for maybe my decorating skills, or lack thereof.

Don't know why I felt a need to take this, except that I thought my living room/bedroom in my studio apartment here looked like a child's room with all of the colors. I could think of worse things to have my room look like.

Of course I still need to kind of move in, get some real curtains, take the rest of my shit out of boxes and get off of the damn floor, and maybe get some furniture. But hey, when it costs 3 grand just to move in, you choose your battles.

"Crackers Kill"

Graffiti on a poster for a new "reality" show called DEA.

Viva Argentinian Film!

Below is a quote from my new favorite director, Lucrecia Martel, about her film La Niña Santa, which she described as "an erotic film about a girl who thinks she's a saint." In reality, the film is far more complex than that, and celebrates negative space. At the end, I fell in love with the movie. The tension built and...well, you should just see it. It's pretty incredible and interesting, as is this quote:


Q: Why does La Niña Santa take place during a medical convention?
"There is something between medicine and holiness that interests me. The sick bodies and the healthy bodies. The lepers of Job, where God and the Devil hide. The saints sick from saintliness and their miraculous cures. The wounds of stigmata and the concept of the Passion. The doctor of the soul. The sick so sick that they look like monsters. In ancient times the appearance of a monster, somebody physically malformed, was a sign of the divine. The monster, the one that shows, that reveals divine intentions. Monsters have mutated with time and then came the degenerate ones, those without the Arian standards, the serial killers dressed in human skin, the poor in general who represent a menace with their monstrous needs. We are a monstrous species that betrays all that is foreseeable. Generations and generations of freaks that do not allow us to give anything for granted, that should oblige us to review the laws all the time, to think again about the meaning of happiness, about the possibility of finding a sense of happiness sufficiently diverse so as not to leave anyone out, to see each newborn as an infinite mystery of possibilities. La Niña Santa is a sort of surgical story that intends to draw a line between live tissue and moral prosthesis."

Read more about her in this Telegraph interview.

There's something about her that's kind of hot. I watched a documentary after the film about how it was made, and she's great to watch work.

"'T'ain't No Sin" to Love Tom Waits

I'm totally captivated by this whole meme thing my friend Dave put on his blog, so I'm totally stealing it and will do my own versions with the song titles of one of my very favorite musicians, Tom Waits. Dave did his in honor of Bob Dylan winning the Pulitzer (which is pretty freaking cool--the first time a popular musician has ever been honored), and I'm just doing it to copy him. And because I adore Tom Waits.

1. Are you a male or female? -- Gun Street Girl
2. Describe your self? -- Just Another Sucker on the Vine / New Coat of Paint
3. Describe your day? -- Lucky Day
4. Describe where you currently live -- In the Neighborhood
5. If you could go anywhere, where would you go -- Drunk on the Moon
6. Your best friend is -- Diamonds on My Windshield
7. Your favorite color is -- Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)
8. You know that -- I Wish I Was in New Orleans
9. What's the weather like? -- Rainbirds
10. If your life was a television show, what would it be called? -- The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)
11. What is life to you? -- Carnival
12. What is the best advice you have to give? -- Step Right Up
13. Describe your last ex? -- Invitation to the Blues
14. Your current relationship status? -- In Between Love / Bad Liver and a Broken Heart
15. What's your favorite hobby? -- (Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night
16. When you think of your friends? -- Such a Scream
17. What do your friends think of you? -- Shiver Me Timbers
18. What does your current love interest think of you? -- The One That Got Away
19. You always travel with? -- $29
20. The best way to end a long day? -- Jockey Full of Bourbon
21. Your occupation is? -- What's (S)he Building?
22. When you grow up, you want to? -- Tango Till They're Sore
23. What does your family think of you? -- Let Me Get Up On It
24. Your favorite food is? -- Chocolate Jesus
25. You want to be remembered as? -- A Sweet Little Bullet from a Pretty Blue Gun

I wasn't made to love you--but I've learned how

So, I took a hiatus. This is what was happening:

1. Went to visit parents in Baton Rouge

2. Returned

3. Got deathly ill for a couple of weeks

4. Someone got fired at work, so had to take on the work of two people

5. Had my boss take my idea of doing something in New Orleans for our website seriously (what?! I mean, what?!), so hustled my sick ass into writing up proposals and brainstorming

6. Got in touch with this nice lady (who I met through my failed attempt to return to New Orleans to rebuild houses through AmeriCorps) whose crew I want to work on with a volunteer group of massage therapists. It took us months to get in touch. And now I have all the pieces together, so now I just have to make sure we get it all done.

7. In the meantime, I was taking pictures and watching lots of movies. My fave of the bunch: Hot Fuzz.

8. Also, I've developed insomnia because of my upstairs neighbor, who I can only assume is building a loft and, apparently, dragging corpses around in their coffins day and night. Ah, New York living!

9. Subsequently, I have really been falling in love with New York. Strangely, I have now lived here as long as I've lived in New Orleans (7 years: the longest I've ever lived anywhere--that's how it became my home town). So, weird, New York is becoming home town #2. And there's something very dear about feeling "at home" in a place so inhospitable, a place where you can hear several languages on the street in just a few minutes, where you can find any food, and where people worldwide want to see. You know what else is here? People who were born and raised here: True New Yorkers. From the cop I saw yesterday who was an absolute stereotype (chubby, bristly mustache, big glasses) and SO proud to be a cop, to the young Latina girl in her Baby Phat jacket with her curled updo hair and gold hoop earrings and tight-tight jeans, speaking loudly into her cell phone, SO proud to be Latina, to even the guy sleeping in the laundry cart on the street, about a block from the theaters where Chicago and Spring Awakening are playing.

Yeah, after 7 years, I think I kinda like it here.

Big Daddy, Brooklyn