How Kafka Reverse Predicted Performance Art
Kafka and I had a terrible breakup as a result of me trying to read “The Trial.” But, I can now say we’ve made up and are getting on smashingly. The story above, just a few pages long, is the reason why. In it, he writes of the death of hunger art as a […]
An Open Book
A book sculpture on display at one of Santa Fe, New Mexico’s many crafty shops
Nail Poem
Got some Drugstore Notebook nails last week! The work of a true artist.
Tunnel/Sculpture Poem
This sculpture is a tunnel. Or is it the other way around? In any case, it joins the East and West Wings of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Going through it felt like being Michael Jackson, I think. Leo Villareal, whose info is above, created it.
Diorama
After a full day of museum visits, I was treated to this image at the National Gallery of Art’s bookshop. The blocks of color on the coffee table book jackets, the man’s recognizable but blended figure, his striped shirt and casual stance, the uneven light — all reminded me of the works I’d spent the […]
History’s Best Blue
This post has nothing to do with books. It is just about the color blue. Over the course of two days in DC, I visited two museums dedicated to Modern Art. One is the Philips Collection, which claims to be the first modern art museum in the country. The other is the National Gallery of […]
Everything in One Picture
The photo above, by Estonian photographer Alexander Gronsky, broke my heart. Even though it is a small reprint of a reprint in a newspaper, the image transmits the desolation found at the limits of civilization, where it is uncertain if the laws of nature or man apply. According to Gronsky, these landscapes, the margins […]
A Perfect Paragraph
From Ian McEwan’s ” The Comfort of Strangers.”
Crying Poem
For no reason, my son cried like this during his entire bath.
Mars and Venus and Prose
Prose poetry is in style these days. It’s true. The cutting-edge journals are publishing it, the traditional journals are publishing it, and even the boring ones are publishing it. So, it’s no wonder that a good many poets are writing it. But, not every poet is doing it well. In fact, I rarely come across […]
Salsa’s Living Lyrical Legend
A couple of Saturdays ago, I went to see Rubén Blades play live. Blades may very well be the greatest salsa music composer still playing today. This is due, in large part, to the fact that he is a healthy salsa musician, far removed from the late night excesses of his contemporaries, many of which have passed away. […]
Color Palette
Is there anything more poetic than naming a color? I think I am going with “Blue Refrain” for my son’s walls, “Blue Mosque” for the front door and “Ice Cube” for everything else.
Jelly Fish Poem
I caught a jellyfish floating in a sultry jellyfish way. Click here to watch the Jelly Fish Poem unfold.
The Insult of a Period
While in Los Angeles last year I found a great book at the LACMA bookstore written by Italian poet Adriano Spatola titled “majakovskiiiiiiij.” It is definitely an art/poetry book. A small edition to be cherished and stored. No doubt, it is coming with me as I move from Bogota, Colombia to Miami next week.
A Week with Colombia’s Women Poets
I am in the small Colombian town of Roldanillo for the 30th Annual Meeting of Colombian Women Poets, held at The Rayo Museum (above). I will be here all week, the longest I spend alone in such a small town. Below is my official badge, which features an emblematic work by Omar Rayo, one of […]
The Dictionary Art of William Kentridge
South African artist William Kentridge’s ink drawings on dictionary pages direct our attention to the uncanny, almost magical way that language and meaning function. There must be a Wittgenstein reference in Kentridge’s work, as it was Wittgenstein who transformed metaphysical coffee house chatter when he said: “Meaning is use.” In other words, we create meaning by […]
How Nietzsche and Freud Invented Fun by Defining Guilt
At the closing of his work Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud confesses to his audience that he has no solution to the problems outlined in the book. Likewise, Friedrich Nietzsche admits in his Genealogy of Morals that he does not know if we will ever be able to escape our fraught values. Neither philosopher attempts […]
Opposites Attract: How Romanticism and Utilitarianism Opened the Door for Darwin’s Natural Selection
Charles Darwin changed the way the world thinks. Even those that disagree with his ideas must in the end answer to them and struggle to defend beliefs that uphold wand-like creation. Darwin’s creation, instead, is slow, gradual, painstaking, but revolutionary. The very nature of his theory of evolution made it contentious to present. Fortunately, by […]
“Dagda Publishing” Published My Poem
UK-based Dagda Publishing published my nerdy poem “A Girlfriend for Prufrock,” based on T.S. Eliot’s most famous misfit. Please visit Dagda’s site to read some great, independent poetry. This poem was originally published by “Boston Poetry Magazine” and written in 2004.
Still doing it in Japan
A writer/friend recently shared some translations of contemporary Japanese Haiku that appeared in a book titled Haiku Love. Their efficiency is silencing: quarrel abates the one who looks in the mirror is the woman —Anonymous and choosing a swimsuit when did I start seeing through his eyes —Mayuzumi Madoka This post is part of my ongoing […]