tempting

I'm reading in Cambridge in a coupla weeks

SMALL ANIMAL PROJECT
hosted by Jessica Bozek

Claire Hero, Becca Klaver, and Julia Story will read at Outpost 186 (Cambridge, MA) on Wednesday, 12/15. 8 p.m. Small donation suggested.

Bios, photos, deets!

"Chinatown"

You can download the first track from Destroyer's Kaputt by right-clicking here. Here's a roundup of what's being said about it out there:

a groovy soft-rock turn. Intriguing...

marks a return to melody in a way that's almost but not quite totally ironic [...] like most things Bejar does, it manages to give voice to that thing that you can't quite deal with yet.

It’s not my favorite on the record —

The track, which is going on our Tuesday Night 8:54 PM chillout mix, is as smooth as the Wednesday before T-Giving is long.

This is probably the best Hall and Oates song Hall and Oates never wrote.

ha ha ha, these quotes must make Dan Bejar laugh.

*

My questions include:

1. Do these quotes make Dan Bejar laugh?

2. Who is playing the sax? is that a "real" sax?

3. Who is that woman singing and is this the first woman who's ever sung on a Destroyer song and will there be more of this on Kaputt?

4. Will Kaputt in general be more Destoyer '09 (Bay of Pigs), less Destroyer '10 (Archer on the Beach)? The blippity-blip sound effects make me think so.

Just Kids Wins National Book Award

This is my favorite book of the year, and the book that probably affected me the most, though in mysterious ways. Reading it was like holding a magnet that pulled a bunch of synchronicities my way. The book entered my "real life," and my life imprinted on the book. And it made me feel New York differently. And it made us put a big pad of paper back on the wall. And it brought me to the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel with friends one night (the doorman pretended we had to pay $100 each, then laughed and let us all in).

Some of the award ceremony follow-up that I've read treats Smith as if she's "just" a musician. Even The New Yorker seems surprised that Patti Smith is so literary, but of course she has books of poems, too! (I prefer the songs and the memoir -- sort of like Dylan and his Chronicles, which also gives an amazing look at NYC bohemias past, though a decade earlier.) The Patti Smith in Just Kids is a writer and a visual artist and a rad outfit-compiler; then she meets the right people and suddenly becomes a musician. The way she tells it, it's almost by accident, or some sort of fate-pull. That story is barely told, actually -- though I hope she'll write another book and tell it fully.

Also Patti Smith looks different in every photo I see of her, which further proves her shapeshiftiness!

Hear Smith read from Just Kids (the part where Allen Ginsberg thinks she's a boy; the part where she writes a final letter to Robert Mapplethorpe) at the NBA finalists reading.

Listen to the story about Smith's win from today's Morning Edition. From Rachel Syme's report of the evening:

Smith also made every guest swoon when she gave a teary defense of the book as a physical object. "There is nothing more beautiful than the book," she said. "Please don't abandon the book." The applause in the room after her speech was close to thunderous (the sound of 1,300 hands clapping to save the book business is a loud one) and Smith seemed to win two awards at once: an NBA medal, and the room's heart.

Go see Smith tonight at B&N Union Square.

Difference sounds different

Matt L. Rohrer interviews Eileen Myles about Inferno (A Poet's Novel) at We Who Are About To Die:

MLR: I feel like the book addresses the fact that your writing deals with the personal as political, while also being overtly political. You address “otherness” in terms of race, gender, sexuality, very openly and candidly, and even talk about sort of getting props for it (at a reading in Germany). Can you talk about your motivation behind the both of these types of political writing?

EM: I mean I can’t not write about these things. They’ve shaped my experience. Being a lesbian in the poetry scene or even just female, being white and from a certain class and NOT wanting or even being able to assimilate really shapes your experience and brings you into a certain relationship to the world. I’m amazed constantly by the things I hear and see and only feel grateful that I have a medium in which to express them. The political is vital all the time. It’s the edge that begs to be exposed and hang out there in the sun. And stuff that feels necessary to say, to write about always has enough energy to be sung, to have a rhythm somehow. Difference sounds different.

Women are throwing the best poetry parties

For centuries poetry was discussed without anyone mentioning that, in fact, the focus of the discussion was poetry written by men; the same, of course, is true of art and music. In the 20th century, though, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the contribution of women to poetry, but for those ambitious for their work to be recognized, there was always the dilemma of whether to play it as “one of the boys” for whom “the mind has no sex” or to emphasize their gender at the risk of being ghettoized.

But now, it seems, women poets have no compunction about setting themselves up as the mainstream. And who can dispute them? As a couple of recent anthologies from the U.K. and U.S. demonstrate much of the strongest, most daring poetry is being written by women; it’s we men who have to decide whether we want to try and crash their party.

--from "The Verge of a Language," Barry Schwabsky's review of Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics (Saturnalia Books, 2010) and Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by U.K. Women Poets (Shearsman Books, 2010) in the Brooklyn Rail

Kate & "Max, Livin' the Life"

My Own Eyes by M+K Greenstreet

One of my favorite poets, Kate Greenstreet, included a DVD with her latest book, The Last 4 Things. Now, one of my favorite husbands-of-poet, Max Greenstreet, has made a film using the leftover footage from Kate's videos, plus some new footage and photographs and audio of Kate reading and Max interviewing her.

I love this movie for lots of reasons:

1. The sound of Kate's voice.

2. The peek we get into the Greenstreet Home & Studio (historical marker plaque forthcoming, no doubt).

3. The gentle Americana of it all. The shots from the car, the singing along to "Like a Rolling Stone" (as if I wasn't won over by this movie enough already!).

4. The bit at the end about "cinematic moments," and realizing you've loved the light and sound of the film all the way through.

5. The feeling of real partnership, that Kate + Max = greater than the sum of parts.

5. 8:48

6. 25:02

And visit the "about" page for My Own Eyes, which answered a lot of my questions--e.g., "What is that white stuff on the blue plate?"

You can also watch the film on Max's site.

Oh and here's something I wrote a couple years ago about Kate's first book, case sensitive.

Destroyer's Archer on the Beach

So, "Archer on the Beach" is printed on the LP sleeve as if it's a broadside, and "Grief Point" is pretty much a spoken word piece, so I'm gonna go ahead and call this Destroyer's first ambient poetry album.

(The hopelessness of the future of music… The pointlessness of writing songs for today… V-Drums… The superiority of poetry and plays…)

You can listen to "Archer on the Beach" at Stereogum.

Friendship

National UnFriend Day, November 17

‎"A friend is someone you have a relationship with, not someone who asks which Harry Potter character are you." -- Jimmy Kimmel

‎"Contact information, what does that mean? Friends know where others friends live." -- Diane di Prima