Before / during / after

Tuesday 22 February, 10 a.m.





1:00 p.m. I meet up with Tamez at her new shop, Saved Tattoo...



I'm the first person in her new studio, her all tanned from a month in Costa Rica.



7:30 p.m. It's a long session, really two sessions with a lunch break. By the end, I'm squirming like a fish on a hook. And sweating. Lots of sweating.



February 23, 10 a.m.





Stephanie's a pro...

Single Feet

Lobby of the Museum of Modern Art, Wednesday 16 February.

Reading (2) Blue Letters and spacemen

Into the city and the first reading there since 2007. No nerves, this is Brooklyn. A day or two to settle. Strung on little sleep but feeling good. My friends started rolling in the door while I sat with the other readers eating a hearty (and free) meal in back of the restaurant. MP the painter, Frances the poet and art critic, Karl the source, Jen the dancer, Todd the poet and runner, Regis the travel writer, Chris and Mary the engaged poets...

Carley read first and started with some new work she was unsure about. Then into poems about raising a daughter. Sex education. Wry.

I followed, reading a bit short, but feeling comfortable and feeling like the whole thing came off. I mentioned the Tibor de Nagy show I had seen earlier in the day, which raised a chorus of "ooh, yeaaah"s from those who had seen it. Quoted O'Hara writing to Larry Rivers about art as theft.



Tracy wrapped up the night reading from her forthcoming book "Life on Mars" - where the poems ranged from her father's work on the Hubble telescope project to the dark sides of human nature we see in today's media (think: that guy in Austria who kept his daughter and their offspring in the basement). Super tight work.

Afterward we hung around until midnight, then Chris and I headed back to his place to sip whiskey and talk a mile a minute and listen to Ian Svenonious records until after three. I slept in my clothes, then rose to take a train out to Long Island to have a three hour long lunch with Carlen.

Revolution Playlist

First, Egypt.  Now Libya, Bahrain, Iran.  Up here in Northern Europe you don't see much evidence on the daily from the revolutions underway.  They're TV images, headlines, blog postings, running headlines at the bottom of the screen.  Gaddafi getting out of a car under an umbrella.  Mubarak's henchman in hallway, trying to look dignified under the bright glare of lights as he announces defeat.  A limp corpse being carried out from behind a car in Libya.

A new world order is opening up.  I am searching for its signs in orderly, methodical Deutschland, which requires creativity.  My friend's father, who's a pastor, told her about John the Baptist wandering the desert, calling out "Repent!" to those he met.  The pastor says "repent" is only one way to translate the word from the original Greek text, and a moralistic one.  The word has an additional, more literal meaning:   Revolve.  Turn yourself around.  Auf deutsch, sich umdrehen. Yourself aroundturn.

Crocuses are popping up, though it's 8 degrees out and webs of frost shade the office windows.
A favorite Kassel couple is heading out to Berlin, moving in together for the first time.
A dancer who's always had the next job lined up has decided not to take the next secure one when he's offered it, and instead to float, to wait, to see. 
Instead of splitting immediately, they are trying to work it out.  Neither of them has done this before.
Staying put instead of leaving.  Not doing instead of doing. 
A new tattoo. 
New stem cells.
Marriage.
And all the babies born since 2011.  Daniel, Emily, Meadow, Charlotte.  Am I forgetting someone?  The next one - the niece, or nephew -  any day now. 

James Blake: Wilhelm's Scream, Lindesfarne I, II
Nicolas Jaar: Stay in Love, I Got A Woman
Deerhunter: He Would Have Laughed, Helicopter
Radiohead: Codex, Feral
The Go Find: Igloo
Fünf Sterne Deluxe: Willst du mit mir geh'n?
Fat Freddy's Drop: The Raft, and all the remixes of it
Die Antwoord: She Makes me a Killer

Cord (brooklyn morning remix)

Still with us, fortunately

Reading (1) "hauptprobe"

This afternoon the locals came to our living room with cake.



to hear selections from the poems I'll be reading in Brooklyn this week.



to drink a lot of coffee...





special guests included...



It was a chance for me to read in front of an audience, in comfort, in my slippers.









Kassel. Last rehearsal before Brooklyn Wednesday. Before Brooklyn Sunday.

For those in my old country, note, Reading (2) and Reading (3) are happening this week:

Tracy K. Smith, Carley Moore, and Fred Schmalz!
Blue Letter Series at Watty & Meg 1
is free and open to the public:
Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 8 p.m. through 9:30 p.m. at Watty & Meg restaurant,
248 Court Street between Baltic and Kane, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, NY.
Nearest trains: F/G to Bergen Street or 4/5/R to Borough Hall.


Jen Hayashida, Fred Schmalz and Chris Hosea
stage a sit-in
at Unnameable Books
Sunday 20 February at 7 p.m.,
Unnameable Books
600 Vanderbilt Ave. (btw: Bergen and St. Marks), Brooklyn, NY.
Trains: Q to 7th Ave. or 2-3 to Bergen.

Presents

First, the sun.  It's been shining for days.  And there's the stone in the tree, which hasn't dropped yet. 

There's being and time.  

And there's something delicious to eat.

Cooked by these hands.

Sumac makes its first appearance.  

And best of all:  drinks for everyone!  

wall scrapings

The dead of winter has allowed me to finally get around to making these books




out of the contents the old wall at 33 E-Z street which have been sitting in an envelope on the shelf at the new house.






Fun with images and text. Gifts for my friends in NYC.