Fairfield, circa 1983?
Fairfield, for now
“Piece of Cake” — D.J. Hall
“Hall, the Los Angeles-based artist seated at right, based this lifelike drawing and a related painting on a photograph she took in spring 1986, just before she suffered an emotional and physical breakdown.
The drawing’s vivid colors, bright sun, and festive atmosphere belie the artist’s troubles. Despite the sitters’ cheerful camaraderie, Halls’ companion at left was not a family member or friend but a local woman she hired to pose with her for her composition.”
Billy Collins didn’t read either of these poems, or this one either, on Friday morning in Philadelphia. Instead, he read funnier ones, many about writing, and in one thousand chairs we all laughed and laughed and turned to each other with relief that these words where out there, driving us, as they do, to more words.
Hannah and Her Sisters.
Daniel Johnston again. “Worried Shoes”
Yogi & Jim, Spring 2005: Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis.
Effective Playing Cards and Publications produces “unsolved” playing cards that are circulated in state prisons and county jails in an effort to get tips on unsolved homicides and missing persons. Brian Lucas worked with police to determine which cases to include, and accommodated families whenever possible. The family of Donnie Bell, killed in a hit-and-run in 2003, asked for the three of hearts because “that was his card.”
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Dorothy
Watch each of these, because they are wonderful.
Felicity Fox is named after Felicity Dahl! Wives are wonderful!
The Voice that is Great Within Us
I’d been sad so long it bored me to tears,
though it hardly bothered me I was so
indifferent. My simple soul,
an empty car rolling down a hill
with a broken a.m. radio,
was a way I never would have put it.
Then I woke one morning to find
my heart had climbed into the sky,
replacing the sun. Sure I was scared
but we go on, and I walked to work
as I always do, the same route,
nothing changed, except
my shadow kept far ahead.
It was a slow day. I kept wondering
how long it would last, looking
out the window, seeing it beat there,
never missing.
I knew everyone in my office must be
talking about my heart behind my back.
But they didn’t say a word
and by the time work was through I’d nearly
forgotten, and thought to treat myself
to dinner at a little terrace café, watching
as it fell beneath the horizon.
When I came home a coyote
was waiting in the hall, something
I normally would have ignored,
but I was in such a mood I thought
I could take this animal in, care for it,
make it a part of me. All this was possible,
I was alive in a new way, alive
with a new kind of tendency
to live the day for all it’s worth,
or however it goes.
Waking early the next morning
the sky was clouded over
and I had no way of knowing.
The best thing about forgetting something is snooping around on your husband’s computer and finding it again! This pome is my favorite. Doesn’t it put you in the mood for coyote?
“simultaneously distant and recent” for realz.
1:48, 1:58: he’s wrong
3:54: he isn’t
2:O4: they beat it with shoes
3:O2: the speech is really good
4:24: pluto lovers are despondent
6:17: america has changed
6:26: sully!
“ I work with a lady who is looking for sugars (and other biological molecules) in interstellar gas clouds. The theory is that nascent planets could be “seeded” from space with pre-biotic molecules that favor life. She spends most of her time with radio telescopes, and we make some simple sugars in our lab- its really a side-line for us.
my dad via Facebook, re: Side-lines
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Magnolia Electric Company does Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.”
One of my favorites doing one of my favorites.
