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Thibaud Street Part II
As a young artist, Wayne Thibaud worked as a cartoonist and commercial illustrator, during a time when such media were not considered serious art. They were illustration, popular consumer fare,...
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Thibaud Street III
In the Nineteenth Century, painters were at pains to evoke intense emotions, dramatic situations, glorious inspiration, tragic dilemmas, etc. The great Neo-Classical artists--David, Ingres, et...
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More Dirty Driving
Do you get pissed-off at things people do when you're driving? I began driving at age 17, and I think I've driven just about every day of my life since then.That's something north of 15,000 days of...
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Wittgenstein's Door - Part I
Lyn Hejinian published my pamphlet, Wittgenstein's Door, in her Tuumba Press series, in September 1980. I can't remember now whether this manuscript was unsolicited. I think someone--was it Ron...
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To the Ladies
Ordinarily, I'm not fond of cocktails "lite" or those which are so watered down with fruit juice or soda, or just plain diluted goods, that they taste like Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid is fine for kids, and I...
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Wittgenstein's Door II
I suspect that the "infernal music I was thinking of in my "Night Piece" to have been Alexander Scriabin's. Scriabin, an important figure in Russian music during the turn of the last century, composed...
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Wittgenstein's Door III
The question arises, what was the central theme of these pieces? The title, Wittgenstein's Door, was derived from a monograph on Ludwig Wittgenstein's Stonborough House (or Wittgenstein House) in...
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Wittgenstein's Door - Conclusion
The underlying local context of much of my aesthetic has always been landscape. I grew up mostly in Napa, California, at the lower edge of a west-facing mountain. Living on the coastal verge, against a...
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A Princely Anxiety
"In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too...
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A Note on Translation
Alastair Reid [1926-] is a poet and essayist and translator, probably best known for his English language versions of Neruda, Borges etc. In his book Whereabouts: Notes on Being a Foreigner (North...
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Pound Ear [Part I]
In a previous post inspired by the work of Language Poetry and Poetics as espoused by Barrett Watten and Ron Silliman and Charles Bernstein, I addressed the issue of how criticism could occupy a place...
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The Bathroom Book
Reading in the bathroom is a cultural tradition. Whether sitting on the pot, or languishing in the tub, or sitting in the window alcove, reading in the bathroom is a form of pleasurable relaxation, an...
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Lobos --the Shrine
This photograph was taken in the late 1980's at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, just below Carmel along the California Coast. This is familiar terrain for landscape photographers, since the days...
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The Greinke-Quentin Incident
It may be helpful, or at least helpful to know, that I have no particular feelings about either of the two men (Zack Greinke of the Dodgers, and Carlos Quentin of the Padres) who were involved in the...
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Toilet Paper - The Over-Under Debate
Of all the frivolities of modern culture, one of the most intriguing is the debate about what the correct position should be of toilet paper rolls. In surveys noted on Wikipedia, the "over" advocates...
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Salter's ALL THAT IS
I've spoken before on this blog about the novelist and short story writer, James Salter, in the Gallery of Heroes. Any book by Salter is for me an occasion, an event, an opportunity to celebrate....
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Wing Nuts in Never Never Land
If you've ever tried sky-diving (I haven't), or hang-gliding (not me), ballooning, or even high-diving into water, you may understand part of the attraction--as well as the sensible terror--involved in...
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The Boston Marathon Whitewash
A good deal has been written and said about the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15th, 2013 and the aftermath of the pursuit and capture of the accused bombers, Tamerian Tsamaev (26) and Dzhokhar...
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The Great Wave
When the great wave approaches, it's important to know that you should simply dive through it, and to believe that by doing so you will come through alright on the other side. It is of course possible...
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Procrastination
Death with Headphones“No time like the present,”my stepfather used to say,as if there actually were an alternative,.as ifmortality were a compromisewith inconvenience,instead ofthe ultimatumwe know it...
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