Memoirous

Bright Invisible: Word Sketches from Great Spruce Head Island a PDF chapbook, This chapbook will appeal to readers of the New York School—particularly fans of James Schuyler and John Ashbery. Great Spruce Head Island has been a source of inspiration for generations of artists and writers. I was invited to GSHI to spend a week walking where Frank O’Hara, Ashbery, and Schuyler walked. Through essays, journal entries, persona letters where I channel James Schuyler, I attempt to experience the island through their eyes. CLICK on image to the right of the page to request *FREE PDF

In more news you can’t use—maybe— Readers of this blog know, you must know by now, that I love to bicycle. In the past couple years I’ve logged several thousands of miles in long-distance touring. Which is why I was drawn to this news story: about a group of cyclists from Australia who fell in love with John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and decided without a lot of prior training or experience to bicycle the distance between Oklahoma to California in the “tire treads” of the Joad family. The 21 st Century twist is that they are attempting to do it via bikes using the same amount of money the Joad’s had when they migrated across the West to “the land o’plenty.” No sag wagon (support van). They are carrying their own video and audio equipment. Oklahoma to California: 2600 kms, 420 dollars, 30 days, 5 bikes, 3 cameras, 2 guitars and one of the most influential novels of the 20th century @MathiasSvalina  =you would love this! The documentary follows five no...

NPR Morning Edition has been doing a series on anthems.Songs they consider American anthems, and today they took a look at Springsteen’s“Born in the USA” —which by all accounts is a protest song. Yeah, says Chris Christie former Republican governor of New Jersey: it's a defiant song about , 'I was born in the U.S.A. and I deserve better than what I'm getting.' I think plenty of people didn't get what it was about, including the president of the United States."   That would be Ronald Reagan. And later conservative George Will would praise the song. But it was a song begging for hope, pleading for justice. “I'm ten years burning down the road Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go Born in the U.S.A., I was born in the U.S.A. …. End up like a dog that's been beat too much Till you spend half your life just covering up” Not too celebratory. The song went through many iterations. Upbeat, dark, a prayer. Springsteen k...

Our home school co-op was looking for space to rent. There had been several reiterations and reinventions of real estate that I’m not sure where this location fell in the chronology of her education. It was pre-9/11. The space had formerly been a girls Catholic high school with an attached convent—so it occupies a huge footprint in the Lakeview neighborhood. And, because it was designed by a FL Wright apprentice it received Landmark status. Thus, it couldn’t be torn down—though today it would have been turned into condos. There wasn’t much the Catholic hierarchy could do with the building—it was designed to be a school. So parts of it were rented out—to our home school collective and to a burgeoning French school, and to the Muslims. Of the three—only the American Islamic College continues to inhabit the space. They might actually own it. This reminds me of the Temple of Minerva in Assisi which now is the church home of Santa Maria. Archeology is full of stories of one ...

On Nov. 20, 1970 Schuyler scribbles something about Erikson: Life of Gandhi. Possibly Erik Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth on the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (1969). A psychoanalytical perspective. Earlier that year during the summer while on GSHI Schuyler had penned a diary/letter to Joe Brainard, commenting upon a drawing Joe had sent based upon a photo captioned “Gandhi’s worldly possessions at the time of death” showing two pairs of sandals, glasses, a book, a spittoon, a nailfile, a watch, a bowl, a spoon. In a footnote Kernan (editor of James Schuyler Diary) writes that a various points in his life Brainard was known to suddenly give away all his possessions.                    Marie Kondo would be proud, I guess. From his Diary, I can read that Schuyler loved shopping. He was a fairly flagrant consumer, perhaps an outgrowth of his psychosis. It covered over pressing financial i...