Living in Connecticut....both a blessing and a curse. It’s beautiful…and boring! I drove to Target today, which is a little 45 minute journey down a country parkway lined with tall pines trees and beset with New England-y stone bridges, where occasionally even a deer passes day and the other day as we went speeding by at 70+ mph, I actually saw a gaggle (yes, a gaggle!) of wild turkeys clucking along and I screamed “Turkeys! I saw wild turkeys!”. The Times reported this morning that CT is being overrun by wild turkeys, the fruits of an (overly) successful reintroduction program started 35 years ago. I say if we are fortunate enough to see a wild turkey while speeding down the highway, let ‘em be! We need more turkeys than highways, right? I can’t believe I just said that – we no longer drive anywhere on Friday nights because the traffic on I-95 is so unbearably bad. We are very lucky to both work in the town where we live – commuting by car is simply not a viable option here. Even the train can be quite a pain - oftentimes late, littered, and full. But that's off the subject - I covered turkeys and Target, so next is texts!
Lance and I stayed in the City last weekend and had the good fortune in one of our long walks to stumble into Strand. With even further luck, I found an author and a poet that have consumed much of my attention since I picked up their books. First is a volume of short stories by Hortense Calisher (even her name is wonderful) published in 1951. Her prose wraps you up in a web of words that are a pleasure to unravel. A few examples:
“Sunday was the day you hung around listening to the echoes of yourself”.
“Lying there, she wondered which unwitting day of the past had been the one on which she must have exchanged the bright morning dower of childhood, that indolent assurance that the day was a nimbus of possibilities, for this heavy ache that collected in the throat like a catarrhal reminder that as yesterday was dusty, so would be today.”
I believe she has published other books, and I’ll be heading back to Strand to find the rest. I rarely find myself in the mood for poetry, but when it hits, it hits with a 1-2. And I’ve found the best tactic is to just plop yourself in the poetry section and pick up covers that appeal to you, and eventually you’ll read some words that work. This is what I found, in just let me do it, Michael Lally (1978):
NOW
Now that it’s over I
tie up the arm I
brought with me
tie up the arm I
used to carry me
away from you
& I
the arm over me
is not the arm I
tie up and I
cant remember why I
cant remember who you
cant remember me
or I you
or the arm you sold me
before I was you or you I
I did a quick searchmash search on him (see below) and found this little tidbit on his site:
“In 1974 he received a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Award, the same year he wrote a long autobiographical poem, My Life, which, on his receiving his second National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Award in 1981, was denounced as pornography on the floor of the United States Congress by politicians out to discredit and dismantle the NEA.”
My last bit of sharing is http://www.searchmash.com/. Google is quietly trying out this new site, which shows all of their searches (blogs, videos, wikipedia, etc.) on one page. How very practical of them to outdo themselves….
Sunday, January 21, 2007
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2 comments:
Minnesota has more turkeys now; I've especially seen them at Fort Snelling State Park. I'll never forget Stanley chasing one at the cabin, as if he could catch it! I'm interested in what else you did when you were in the city for the weekend! Did you have a fun second anniversary (not that I don/t like poetry!)
We had a great weekend in the City, even went to see a play compliments of Burke and Dani. Room Service (www.roomservicetheplay.com/)"In this classic screwball comedy, an unscrupulous Broadway producer struggles to find a backer for his new show. Holed up in a Times Square hotel with 19 hungry actors and a ballooning room service bill, he tries to forestall eviction by convincing the show's young playwright to fake his own death. Will the emissary from the moneybags businessman pay up when he discovers the surprise in the bathroom? Will the outraged hotel manager succeed in closing the show on opening night? And will anyone ever get a bite to eat?". Sounds silly but because the play is a farce, the physical comedy was amazing to watch - the actors had perfect timing. We also took a trip out to Brooklyn to visit a few friends and we spent a good day simply walking around Union Square and other neighborhoods to scope out potential areas to look for an apartment. Oh, and Lance kindly had wine and a beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered to our room at the Hotel Giraffe. A fabulous 2nd anniversary...!
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