click to enlarge
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Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Trouble With Poetry (A Billy Collins poem)
By Jack Brummet, Poetry and Classics Editor
I just finished reading a couple of books of Billy Collins's poetry (now starting on Ted Berrigan's collected poems). This poem captures the marrow of what it means to write poetry. The passages on thievery are wonderful, as is the sly reference to Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island Of The Mind. I realize there is debate on Billy Collins' merits in the "poetry community," but I find his plain speaking and humor exhilarating. Most of all I think I love his exuberance and world-weary optimism.
The Trouble With Poetry
By Billy Collins
The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night --
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky --
the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.
And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,
and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.
Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.
But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.
And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.
And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti --
to be perfectly honest for a moment --
the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.
I just finished reading a couple of books of Billy Collins's poetry (now starting on Ted Berrigan's collected poems). This poem captures the marrow of what it means to write poetry. The passages on thievery are wonderful, as is the sly reference to Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island Of The Mind. I realize there is debate on Billy Collins' merits in the "poetry community," but I find his plain speaking and humor exhilarating. Most of all I think I love his exuberance and world-weary optimism.
By Billy Collins
The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night --
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky --
the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.
And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,
and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.
Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.
But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.
And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.
And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti --
to be perfectly honest for a moment --
the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.
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Friday, September 09, 2011
Happy Birthday from All This Is That to Jeff Clinton
By Pablo Fanque, Mona Goldwater, and Jack Brummet
We want to wish a most happy birthday to Jeff Clinton. Jeff is by far All This Is That's most frequent and prolific tipster, especially with images and photos, and links to paranormal and political topics. And, besides all that, we just like him.
Have a great birthday Jeff.
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We want to wish a most happy birthday to Jeff Clinton. Jeff is by far All This Is That's most frequent and prolific tipster, especially with images and photos, and links to paranormal and political topics. And, besides all that, we just like him.
A photo of Barrister McCoy that Jack stumbled onto a couple years ago--
it bears more than a passing resemblance to Jeff
Have a great birthday Jeff.
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Two takeaway quotes from BHO's speech to Congress on The Jobs Act
By Jack Brummet, Congressional Editor
"We are tougher than the times that we live in, and we are bigger than our politics have been. So let’s meet the moment."
"We are tougher than the times that we live in, and we are bigger than our politics have been. So let’s meet the moment."
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Thursday, September 08, 2011
Our two favorite quotes by Governor Rick Perry at The Republican/Tea Party debate last night
By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
“I feel like a piñata here."
“I don’t care what anyone says."
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Paint by number at Bumbershoot
By Jack Brummet
Visual Arts Editor
One of my favorite Bumbershoot art exhibits this year was "an interactive and fully immersive paint-by-number art" exhibit put together by two Seattle artists, Marlow Harris and JoDavid. The centerpiece of the exhibition was an interactive paint-by-number version of Manet's "The Picnic" by the artist Ryan Feddersen. Anyone who showed up could paint on the Manet homage. As it turned out, kids mainly worked on the lower part of the painting, and to paint the very top, you had to be fairly tall. By the time I stopped by, it was making great progress, and there was still ten hours of audience participation left to complete it. . .
Visual Arts Editor
One of my favorite Bumbershoot art exhibits this year was "an interactive and fully immersive paint-by-number art" exhibit put together by two Seattle artists, Marlow Harris and JoDavid. The centerpiece of the exhibition was an interactive paint-by-number version of Manet's "The Picnic" by the artist Ryan Feddersen. Anyone who showed up could paint on the Manet homage. As it turned out, kids mainly worked on the lower part of the painting, and to paint the very top, you had to be fairly tall. By the time I stopped by, it was making great progress, and there was still ten hours of audience participation left to complete it. . .
There were also "remixes" by various artists, who took paint by number kits and did not follow the instructions! There were paintings by Joey Bates, Greg Boudreau, Jim Blanchard, John Brophy, Chris Crites, Max David, Jim Dever, Janet Galore, Art Garcia, Kurt Geissel, Troy Gua, Nancy Guppy, Robert Hardgrave, Aaron Huffman, Sean Hurley, Mary Iverson, Elizabeth Jameson, David Kane, Rick Klu, Charles Krafft, Mike Leavitt, Rich Lehl, Kelly Lyles, Jeff Mihalyo, Ryan Molenkamp, Lisa Petrucci, Demi Raven, Cathy Sarkowsky, Tim Silbaugh, Joey Veltkamp, Jim Woodring, Jenny Zwick, and others.
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Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Let the cannibalism begin: The Republican/Tea Party Debate!
By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
Images from Wikipedia Commons. These images are licensed
Governor Rick Perry, between dashing back and forth between the campaign trail and Texas as fires rage across the state (and asking for aid from President Obama, even though Perry recently said he believes the federal government should only be responsible for highways and defense) is being nudged by both his staff and backers to come across as more presidential. In short, they feel he needs to be a little less shit-kickin' and a little more politic in his unscripted moments. He needs to defend his exaggerated Texas "accomplishments," and consolidate his sudden rise and growing base—while building on his fast start by bringing voters into the tent from all across the Republican party, from the Tea Party and fundamentalist Christians to the old line party hacks and wardheelers.
Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is desperate to combat the growing feeling that the GOP race has contracted into a two-man race between Romney and Perry. She is on the precipice of becoming irrelevant and needs to inflict serious damage to Rick Perry to convince the far-right and tea-party to stick by her. Her strategy of non-stop attacks on BHO isn't going to win many votes. She now needs to go after her opponents. Likewise, both Romney an Perry need to back off their attacks on Obama, because their real enemies are in their own party (at least for now).
Ex-Governor Mitt Romney needs to--and, more or less has--drop the front-runner B.S. and get ready for serious combat with his fellow Republicans. Neither his rope-a-dope strategy nor his above the fray stance is working anymore. We know Mitt is in it for the long-distance fight. But, in the meantime, he needs to eviscerate Governor Perry by savagely attacking him on his record on immigration, and his much exaggerated claim that he has created thousands of jobs in Texas.
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The gravity defying tire at Bumbershoot
This is a short video clip of a piece at the Bumbershoot art exhibition. I have no idea how they do this. I couldn't tell by looking at it--you could hear machinery rumbling, but you can't tell either how the tire is suspended in mid-air or how they get it to rotate. . .
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