X
Somebody posted the following quote on Facebook recently, and I clipped it:
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
sxxxxx~ Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
The quote inspired me to read a book of her poetry. I had intended to read one of her novels as well. But, now I think I will count apples instead.
X
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Readings: Body of a Dancer('s Ex-)
kX
I don’t know if this blog has gone into hibernation, or if it’s in a coma. It may be in a persistent vegetative state. What follows will be a forced attempt to prove that it is not quite ready to be taken off life support. I will base this attempted resuscitation on a book. What else, right?
The book’s title is Body of a Dancer. It was brought to my attention by Facebook friend, Diana Hart Johnson. This memoir was written by a woman with the exotic moniker, Renée E. D’Aoust. It was, in part, that “E” which grabbed me. It distinguishes this particular Renée from all the other D’Aousts out there, clamoring and throwing elbows, in order to position themselves to collect their richly-deserved fifteen minutes. Renée was wise not to disclose the full name for which that “E” stands as a monument, thereby to sound like a political assassin, or serial killer. The book, upon reading, discloses Ms. D’Aoust to be a very good writer.
My Facebook friend, Diana, was, some years ago, a dancer with the Martha Graham Company. So was my first wife, Christine. Not so surprisingly, our author, Renée E. D’Aoust, also has a Graham connection. (If you see a pattern forming here, you are still with me; if you don’t…abandon all hope and go watch some reality TV.) Much of the book, Body of a Dancer, concerns the time Ms. D’Aoust spent in New York City, studying the Graham technique as a pretender for a spot in the company. As a man who functioned as a devoted fifth wheel to my ex-wife’s career cart in the world of Grahamdance for over a decade, I can attest that Ms. D’Aoust (whose experiences therein begin a little more than ten years after mine ended), captures that world with a precision and insight that is as painful to vicariously relive as it is delightful to appreciate for its intelligent mastery of the art of writing.
Have I endorsed and promoted this book as a thing you should buy and read? Yes, I have.
One of the reasons I decided to read the book, after having it brought to my attention by D.H. Johnson, was my expectation that there might be some anecdotal material in the book concerning my ex-wife. As it turns out, she is mentioned only once, in a footnote concerning three other Graham dancers, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Donlin Foreman, and Terese Capucilli, who together with Christine Dakin (saddled forever with my patronymic, as a professional necessity) formed an independent dance company.
Jacqui Buglisi was our first friend when we moved to New York City. We knew her years before the advent of Mr. Foreman. Chris and Jacqui met through their work with Pearl Lang’s school and company. They danced together in the chorus of a YiddishTheater production of Sholom Aleichem’s comedy, “It’s Hard To Be a Jew” which Pearl choreographed. For several months, while otherwise unemployed, I worked as an assistant to Pearl’s business manager, a guy named Bill Gatewood (no relation to your office computer). This included going to Italy on a tour of Pearl’s company. Through this association I also had the pleasure to spend some time with and around Pearl’s husband, the wonderful actor, Joseph Wiseman.
Terese Capucilli was relatively new to the company around the time my association with that world was dying a protracted death. She was in the company as a rising star in 1979, when I was a trailing spouse on a Graham Company tour of Europe and the Middle East.
So, I was not able to wallow in any dirt about my ex- as shoveled from the pages of this book. I was, however, surprised learn that the Buglisi-Foreman marriage is no more. I still have a leather belt buckle that Don Foreman tooled for me as a gift, back in the day. And, in closing, here is a poem I wrote long ago about an afternoon spent with the beautiful Ms. Buglisi:
Jacqui
We toured amongst the Fauves.
I discussed her art in terms of mine.
She fed me meat and bread and oranges.
She verbally caressed the sanctity
of the human form until
I was ready to scream -- or worship.
She guessed eyes, but I confessed
it was her mouth I watched
when shapeless words ceased to satisfy.
I sipped my Jack Daniels
as slowly as possible, but
her Grand Marnier was forever emptied.
When she guessed at the time
she was an hour short --
I was more than two.
It is April already.
The days are getting longer.
God knows, I shouldn’t look at her at all.
Ah, well. Enough is enough. This is now making me sad. But the blog is up and running. If you skipped over the embedded links, go back and read them. And read the book.
X
I don’t know if this blog has gone into hibernation, or if it’s in a coma. It may be in a persistent vegetative state. What follows will be a forced attempt to prove that it is not quite ready to be taken off life support. I will base this attempted resuscitation on a book. What else, right?
The book’s title is Body of a Dancer. It was brought to my attention by Facebook friend, Diana Hart Johnson. This memoir was written by a woman with the exotic moniker, Renée E. D’Aoust. It was, in part, that “E” which grabbed me. It distinguishes this particular Renée from all the other D’Aousts out there, clamoring and throwing elbows, in order to position themselves to collect their richly-deserved fifteen minutes. Renée was wise not to disclose the full name for which that “E” stands as a monument, thereby to sound like a political assassin, or serial killer. The book, upon reading, discloses Ms. D’Aoust to be a very good writer.
My Facebook friend, Diana, was, some years ago, a dancer with the Martha Graham Company. So was my first wife, Christine. Not so surprisingly, our author, Renée E. D’Aoust, also has a Graham connection. (If you see a pattern forming here, you are still with me; if you don’t…abandon all hope and go watch some reality TV.) Much of the book, Body of a Dancer, concerns the time Ms. D’Aoust spent in New York City, studying the Graham technique as a pretender for a spot in the company. As a man who functioned as a devoted fifth wheel to my ex-wife’s career cart in the world of Grahamdance for over a decade, I can attest that Ms. D’Aoust (whose experiences therein begin a little more than ten years after mine ended), captures that world with a precision and insight that is as painful to vicariously relive as it is delightful to appreciate for its intelligent mastery of the art of writing.
Have I endorsed and promoted this book as a thing you should buy and read? Yes, I have.
One of the reasons I decided to read the book, after having it brought to my attention by D.H. Johnson, was my expectation that there might be some anecdotal material in the book concerning my ex-wife. As it turns out, she is mentioned only once, in a footnote concerning three other Graham dancers, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Donlin Foreman, and Terese Capucilli, who together with Christine Dakin (saddled forever with my patronymic, as a professional necessity) formed an independent dance company.
Jacqui Buglisi was our first friend when we moved to New York City. We knew her years before the advent of Mr. Foreman. Chris and Jacqui met through their work with Pearl Lang’s school and company. They danced together in the chorus of a YiddishTheater production of Sholom Aleichem’s comedy, “It’s Hard To Be a Jew” which Pearl choreographed. For several months, while otherwise unemployed, I worked as an assistant to Pearl’s business manager, a guy named Bill Gatewood (no relation to your office computer). This included going to Italy on a tour of Pearl’s company. Through this association I also had the pleasure to spend some time with and around Pearl’s husband, the wonderful actor, Joseph Wiseman.
Terese Capucilli was relatively new to the company around the time my association with that world was dying a protracted death. She was in the company as a rising star in 1979, when I was a trailing spouse on a Graham Company tour of Europe and the Middle East.
So, I was not able to wallow in any dirt about my ex- as shoveled from the pages of this book. I was, however, surprised learn that the Buglisi-Foreman marriage is no more. I still have a leather belt buckle that Don Foreman tooled for me as a gift, back in the day. And, in closing, here is a poem I wrote long ago about an afternoon spent with the beautiful Ms. Buglisi:
Jacqui
We toured amongst the Fauves.
I discussed her art in terms of mine.
She fed me meat and bread and oranges.
She verbally caressed the sanctity
of the human form until
I was ready to scream -- or worship.
She guessed eyes, but I confessed
it was her mouth I watched
when shapeless words ceased to satisfy.
I sipped my Jack Daniels
as slowly as possible, but
her Grand Marnier was forever emptied.
When she guessed at the time
she was an hour short --
I was more than two.
It is April already.
The days are getting longer.
God knows, I shouldn’t look at her at all.
Ah, well. Enough is enough. This is now making me sad. But the blog is up and running. If you skipped over the embedded links, go back and read them. And read the book.
X
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Reflections: Plus ça change…
X
The only remarkable thing about this quote from the novel, Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins is that the book was first published in 1990:
Conservatives understand Halloween, liberals only understand Christmas. If you want to control a population, don’t give it social services, give it a scary adversary. Communism might have become a passé bugaboo, but ah, now there were the hobgoblins of terrorism and drugs with which to frighten and subdue the unthinking masses.
Twenty-plus years prior to our current preoccupations with socialist take-overs by an alien POTUS, Mexican drug cartels and Islamofascists, the rubes were already being herded toward the polls with the same prod that the super PACs and their puppet politicians are wielding via the media today. Feelin’ a just a tad Merino, are ya?
X
The only remarkable thing about this quote from the novel, Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins is that the book was first published in 1990:
Conservatives understand Halloween, liberals only understand Christmas. If you want to control a population, don’t give it social services, give it a scary adversary. Communism might have become a passé bugaboo, but ah, now there were the hobgoblins of terrorism and drugs with which to frighten and subdue the unthinking masses.
Twenty-plus years prior to our current preoccupations with socialist take-overs by an alien POTUS, Mexican drug cartels and Islamofascists, the rubes were already being herded toward the polls with the same prod that the super PACs and their puppet politicians are wielding via the media today. Feelin’ a just a tad Merino, are ya?
X
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Reflections: Leap Day, 2012
Having not posted anything here for many days, I feel that I cannot in good conscience let a Leap Day pass without being dated by a brief post.
I have felt for several days that radiation from the recent solar storms has been affecting my body chemistry and my brain waves, bringing me strong dreams by night and a sometimes almost unbearable sense of dread in my waking hours. It is not as though real-time circumstances on the ground haven't been sodomizing me for real; but it's been more than that. And I blame the sun and his tantrums for my distress. It helps me to have that target.
Please admire the portrait of this old man, donated to the cause by my Irish FaceBook friend, Fiona Clements, a.k.a. F3. If you want to know why that alias is, you'll have to ask the lady.
Check out this tiny piece by Leonard Cohen from his Book of Longing:
WORK IN PROGRESS
he's going to get sick
and die alone
he is the main character
in my little story called
The House of Prayer
That says it all. Just wait. You'll get old, if you're lucky. Or whatever.
So, it's Leap Day. But I'm afraid of heights, so I'm not jumping into anything. Just waiting.
X
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Rants: The Current Rage
X
The rant below is one of my comments in a thread at Vox Nova concerning the recent controversy over mandated birth control in health insurance coverage provided to employees at Catholic institutions, such as hospitals and universities. I first quote an excerpt from another readers' previous comment, and then launch into my own screed:
@ Henry Karlson –
“This is also something constantly forgotten when bringing up religious liberty: it is not just our religious beliefs that are in the nation.”
The fact that you even need to point this out, and the fact that the whole discussion of the issue is entirely pointless without this fact in mind, is precisely indicative of the type of Catholic exclusionary thinking of which I have been complaining with regard to the question of the closed communion.
If it is not possible to be a good Catholic in a secular and pluralistic society, then perhaps this is not the best society for Catholics to inhabit? I say this seriously. This nation was originally founded by Protestants. And the Calvinists (and other Protestants), against whom I continually hear some Catholics railing, founded it in order to be able to live according to their own beliefs.
Maybe the Church should just get out of the hospital business? I’m sure that for-profit corporations will buy them out. Maybe Catholics should not be running colleges and universities if they necessarily need to be employing non-Catholic staff who will want to live according to their own religious beliefs (or lack thereof?) Or maybe they need to shrink to whatever size a fully-Catholic staff will be able to support?
Nobody is asking Catholics to use birth control (although apparently they do so anyway.) Nobody is asking Catholics to have abortions. The idea that it’s fine and dandy to use medieval Scholastic verbal gymnastics such as “material cooperation with evil” to try to control – in very fundamental ways – the lives of non-Catholics, is just wrong. In this country, it’s wrong. And I’m not sure in what country it might be right. Can you think of one?
X
The rant below is one of my comments in a thread at Vox Nova concerning the recent controversy over mandated birth control in health insurance coverage provided to employees at Catholic institutions, such as hospitals and universities. I first quote an excerpt from another readers' previous comment, and then launch into my own screed:
@ Henry Karlson –
“This is also something constantly forgotten when bringing up religious liberty: it is not just our religious beliefs that are in the nation.”
The fact that you even need to point this out, and the fact that the whole discussion of the issue is entirely pointless without this fact in mind, is precisely indicative of the type of Catholic exclusionary thinking of which I have been complaining with regard to the question of the closed communion.
If it is not possible to be a good Catholic in a secular and pluralistic society, then perhaps this is not the best society for Catholics to inhabit? I say this seriously. This nation was originally founded by Protestants. And the Calvinists (and other Protestants), against whom I continually hear some Catholics railing, founded it in order to be able to live according to their own beliefs.
Maybe the Church should just get out of the hospital business? I’m sure that for-profit corporations will buy them out. Maybe Catholics should not be running colleges and universities if they necessarily need to be employing non-Catholic staff who will want to live according to their own religious beliefs (or lack thereof?) Or maybe they need to shrink to whatever size a fully-Catholic staff will be able to support?
Nobody is asking Catholics to use birth control (although apparently they do so anyway.) Nobody is asking Catholics to have abortions. The idea that it’s fine and dandy to use medieval Scholastic verbal gymnastics such as “material cooperation with evil” to try to control – in very fundamental ways – the lives of non-Catholics, is just wrong. In this country, it’s wrong. And I’m not sure in what country it might be right. Can you think of one?
X
Rodak's Writings: Poetry Noir
X
I may be about a quart low on optimism:
Anthem
If I had a billionaire patron
I could run for president
and make a lot of money.
It’s that trickle-down thing,
that Enlightenment essential
the Founders intended
when they beneficently
condescended to glaze the windows
of their slaves’ cushy cabins.
(Oh, say…can you see?)
I’ve been chasing myself inside out,
looking up into the incomprehensible
face of tomorrow as memory,
dead time punctuated by robocalls.
Junk mail lies unopened, testifies
to the certainty that something is circling,
something that smells death emanating
from my life’s eroded surfaces, wafting
from the crawling crinkles of my skin
on which weird long hairs thrust up
like opportunistic weeds in a fallow field,
like an olfactory signal evaporating
in autopsy hues from the spooky end
of visibility’s snickering spectrum
(By the dawn’s early light)
If only I had a million bucks,
a dirty book and a slave-girl to fuck,
I could at least go out guilty and grinning,
rather than having pointlessly rolled on edge
for a few yards, only to topple flat,
stymied by a fog bank like a wall of stone,
to lie neglected as a fumbled pfennig
not worth the effort of a stooped retrieval.
Anything that hasn’t died on me already
lags behind to mumble gossip at my back.
And old Boogie Street now seems a fading
Hollywood dream, paved with ill-gotten gelt,
littered with the pay-stubs of preening pimps,
as the reel turns mechanically, on and on,
the spent film’s tail flapping in the cold air
like the frayed banner of a dead republic
(What so proudly we hailed)
X
I may be about a quart low on optimism:
Anthem
If I had a billionaire patron
I could run for president
and make a lot of money.
It’s that trickle-down thing,
that Enlightenment essential
the Founders intended
when they beneficently
condescended to glaze the windows
of their slaves’ cushy cabins.
(Oh, say…can you see?)
I’ve been chasing myself inside out,
looking up into the incomprehensible
face of tomorrow as memory,
dead time punctuated by robocalls.
Junk mail lies unopened, testifies
to the certainty that something is circling,
something that smells death emanating
from my life’s eroded surfaces, wafting
from the crawling crinkles of my skin
on which weird long hairs thrust up
like opportunistic weeds in a fallow field,
like an olfactory signal evaporating
in autopsy hues from the spooky end
of visibility’s snickering spectrum
(By the dawn’s early light)
If only I had a million bucks,
a dirty book and a slave-girl to fuck,
I could at least go out guilty and grinning,
rather than having pointlessly rolled on edge
for a few yards, only to topple flat,
stymied by a fog bank like a wall of stone,
to lie neglected as a fumbled pfennig
not worth the effort of a stooped retrieval.
Anything that hasn’t died on me already
lags behind to mumble gossip at my back.
And old Boogie Street now seems a fading
Hollywood dream, paved with ill-gotten gelt,
littered with the pay-stubs of preening pimps,
as the reel turns mechanically, on and on,
the spent film’s tail flapping in the cold air
like the frayed banner of a dead republic
(What so proudly we hailed)
X
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Readings: A Portrait of the Poet as an Old Man
X
Considering that I have absolutely revered the man since he came onto the scene back when I was in college, I have written very little about Leonard Cohen on this blog. He ranks near, or at the top, of my personal patheon of 'sixties-era singer-songwriters. His only competition would come from Dylan, Paul Simon, and Joni Mitchell. Honorable mention goes to Neil Young and Van Morrison. But, no--Cohen is king. There have been several pop stars who have published books of poetry. But I think that Leonard Cohen may be the only one who was a published poet (and novelist) prior to becoming famous in show biz.
For my recent birthday, my daughters gave me a gift certificate to the bookstore that one of them works in. And my father gave me a bit of money. I used some of the money to buy Leonard Cohen's new CD. I used part of the gift certificate to buy his 2006 book of poetry and drawings, Book of Longing. I have been reading in that book this evening.
The birthday was my 65th. Some kind of milestone, I guess. The birthday following which one can no longer deny being old. That being the case, the poem from Cohen's book that I will be sharing below definitely resonates with me tonight. As usual, he says it perfectly. He speaks for "Sixties Survivors" everywhere, I think, in the poem,
TOO OLD
I am too old
to learn the names
of the new killers
This one here
looks tired and attractive
devoted, professorial
He looks a lot like me
when I was teaching
a radical form of Buddhism
to the hopelessly insane
In the name of the old
high magic
he commands
families to be burned alive
and children mutilated
He probably knows
a song or two that I wrote
All of them
all the bloody hand bathers
and the chewers of entrails
and the scalp peelers
they all danced
to the music of the Beatles
they worshipped Bob Dylan
Dear friends
there are very few of us left
silenced
trembling all the time
hidden among the blood -
stunned fanatics
as we witness to each other
the old atrocity
the old obsolete atrocity
that has driven out
the heart's warm appetite
and humbled evolution
and made a puke of prayer
Xxxxxxx
xxxxx***xxx
X
In case you were wondering, that's exactly how some of us feel when we observe those who are left in power as we Boomers drop off the tree, over ripe; an invitation to bugs, scavaging birds and little furry rodents.
X
Considering that I have absolutely revered the man since he came onto the scene back when I was in college, I have written very little about Leonard Cohen on this blog. He ranks near, or at the top, of my personal patheon of 'sixties-era singer-songwriters. His only competition would come from Dylan, Paul Simon, and Joni Mitchell. Honorable mention goes to Neil Young and Van Morrison. But, no--Cohen is king. There have been several pop stars who have published books of poetry. But I think that Leonard Cohen may be the only one who was a published poet (and novelist) prior to becoming famous in show biz.
For my recent birthday, my daughters gave me a gift certificate to the bookstore that one of them works in. And my father gave me a bit of money. I used some of the money to buy Leonard Cohen's new CD. I used part of the gift certificate to buy his 2006 book of poetry and drawings, Book of Longing. I have been reading in that book this evening.
The birthday was my 65th. Some kind of milestone, I guess. The birthday following which one can no longer deny being old. That being the case, the poem from Cohen's book that I will be sharing below definitely resonates with me tonight. As usual, he says it perfectly. He speaks for "Sixties Survivors" everywhere, I think, in the poem,
TOO OLD
I am too old
to learn the names
of the new killers
This one here
looks tired and attractive
devoted, professorial
He looks a lot like me
when I was teaching
a radical form of Buddhism
to the hopelessly insane
In the name of the old
high magic
he commands
families to be burned alive
and children mutilated
He probably knows
a song or two that I wrote
All of them
all the bloody hand bathers
and the chewers of entrails
and the scalp peelers
they all danced
to the music of the Beatles
they worshipped Bob Dylan
Dear friends
there are very few of us left
silenced
trembling all the time
hidden among the blood -
stunned fanatics
as we witness to each other
the old atrocity
the old obsolete atrocity
that has driven out
the heart's warm appetite
and humbled evolution
and made a puke of prayer
Xxxxxxx
xxxxx***xxx
X
In case you were wondering, that's exactly how some of us feel when we observe those who are left in power as we Boomers drop off the tree, over ripe; an invitation to bugs, scavaging birds and little furry rodents.
X
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