THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
"Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings."-Victor Hugo
Today is the birthday of Victor Hugo, the author who has consumed most of my reading time for over a year now. It started while going through an old box of books in our basement, looking through to see which ones it was time to get rid of (continuing my quest to downsize). I came upon an 1894 copy of The Man Who Laughs by Hugo that I had bought at a garage sale in the flats of Beverly Hills for a dollar sometime in the mid-90s. Do I read it or toss it? I thought I would try out a few pages. Once I started there was no turning back.
The Man Who Laughs is a triumph, one of the finest novels I have ever read and introduced me to the incredible storyteller Hugo was as well as learned historian. Each chapter of the book could have been used as a course in English history…and Hugo was not even from England and did not live within 200 years of the period in which he was writing. There were moments in the book that will be seared in my brain forever…as in all of his books, dark moments of insanity and depravity…and triumph (and I don’t want to give them away…but for those in the know: how about when Gwynplaine descended into the dungeon or when Claude Frollo tried to assassinate La Esmerelda?).
I finished off The Man Who Laughs and jumped into Notre Dame De Paris….and now I have just begun what is considered to be his masterpiece, The Wretched: Les Misérables. There are moments for every reader when the style of storyteller becomes almost an obsession…like collecting Velvet Underground bootlegs or binge watching seven seasons of some show from this Golden Age we are living in. Hugo has been….and looks to be (considering I am at the beginning of a brick of a novel) the master I am happy to anchor my eyes to for the time being.
Oh….and he is also a brilliant watercolorist as well…
Boo-Hooray Catalog #9: Hippies
This is just as much a catalog selling items from the late sixties as it is an on-line exhibit of fascinating rarities from the hippy era. The descriptions of the items are amazing…and I am totally bummed one of them has already been sold. This is an incredible collection that is so worth perusing. Thank you Josh Rosenthal for turning me on to this.
Sotheby’s to Sell Rarely Seen Vincent van Gogh Painting in Paris
Private art collections are strange things, when the collection includes art by legends who the world wants to consume. Take this painting by Van Gough that is going to auction at Sotheby’s. It has been in a private collection for 100 years…and might even jump into another. And by the look of it, it seems an outlier from his known paintings of chaotic lines of color that create watery moving images and designs.
Driving Mars Exploration: How the Perseverance Rover Will Pave a Path into the Future
Cardi B Gets a Pep Talk From Mariah Carey
I find something deeply fascinating about this interview. Maybe it is two people talking who have both had enormous success in different eras yet in similar worlds…and who can relate to each other like few others can. This is a long long interview and there are questions and answers that were unexpected and definitely readable…
Weekend Listen: FATS DOMINO SWINGS
Fats Domino would have been 93 today, which is all the reason in the world to throw Fats Domino Swings on (hell, no reason is good reason enough)…and start swinging through your end of week. These David Bartholomew master productions, with Fats’ heavenly piano playing and suave crooning…these tracks bleed velvety goodness of a time long gone but wanted back. I dare you to listen to Fats Domino Swings and not feel like taking those dirty dance shoes out of the side-room closet and strut your way through your shelter-in-motion. There ain’t NOTHING like the Fat Man. Nothing.
BEAT THING
by David Meltzer
yes cast off once fresh flesh for old corduroy folds
yes letch leech & strut at Beat fests w/ young believers
yes males or females or transmutants
radiate halo of holy moly been there
yes give em myth light w/out sunblocker
yes everyone knew Jack
yes of course we know Allen
yes Neil sold me lids & Bill palmed me bags
yes sign more remnants for crypt keeper Kush
yes spontaneous bop prosody in sweatshop doorway
yes am rude & seek company w/ rowdy loud disruptives
yes in deep sympathy unrelated to manners
not to the manor borne instead both fan & fox
stalk & trot through library chickencoop
yes hiked w/ Gary through North Beach who showed me
what concrete splitting green energy to eat
yes shilled for Lew's snooker gambles
yes bought blow from Michael we sampled
like movie deals in broad daylight car
yes gave Allen a white coffeecup to puke in
he being nude at the party wanted everyone
naked in his hands or mouth or ass
yes Creeley wanted to punch me out
in the kitchen at the Big O Berkeley party
but then forgot what for
yes Roshi Phil couldn't stop the giggles
& Ferlinghetti said poetry was over
& went back to painting figures
go figure
yes comrade Micheline shamed them
as did Corso made them roll their eyes
try to apologize
yes Rexroth's rump on the chaise said goodnight
yes Lamantia's cape & rapture & old world arcana
yes Kirby Doyle's tall Raskolnikov overcoat
yes Michael's black Frisco jeans & blue hawks
yes Joanne's blonde ferocious Buddha dharma
fell into place in fresh picked flowers in
special treasure from the Journey to the East
yes Lenore was an olive grove whose oil
slick made lesser cats spin out speeding
yes what do you want to know
now that we are nowhere to be seen
as you see us & are as you are living
dying process flow to nowhere
flux to somewhere where
weight of past secretes in pancreas
undoes secrets & lives in legend photographs
& can't move past its past
media raw ore for kids to adore
