This book-to-movie rdg jag, that i decided

to go on, isn't going as well as i thought it would. When i saw Atonement, by Ian McEwan, in the lib, i had some vague remembrance of, kinda/sorta, wantg to see the movie vers when it had come out in 2007. I think the reason i didn't go & see it then, is prob the same reason i had to chuck it into the Mid-Manhat lib return bin yest: Snore! Didn't i learn my lesson w/ A. S. Byatt's Possession?!

Huge, huge, simply, humongous fan of A.S. Byatt's short stories: Sugar and Other Stories (Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice is exquisitely fantastical, magical?, realism @ it's very best). Matisse Stories? Natch. Through a vague recollect'n of the imagery of fleshy nudity & lush foliage (or i could just have been mixing it up w/ Jane Campion's movie The Piano: Hot!) of the 1995 movie vers of Angels and Insects. I, through the grace of god, had managed to slog through the first novella of that book, Morpho Eugenia, in the spring of this yr. After that fiesta, finishing the second part, Conjugal Angel, was out of the question. Questions of the failed desires & distorted complexity of the human soul? I'm all for it. But the meticulous Victoriana & hypertexuality of Possession was about to drive me to drink (mmmm, prob not a bad idea). Everytime i saw any kind of cursive writg-- an indicat'n of a journal entry--or some kind of long journalistic quotat'n that went on for pgs, i was ready to scratch my eyes out. I just couldn't take the whole thing anymore & eventually just skipped vast sect'ns of text till i got to the, relief, ending.

I swore i would go back and rd The Fairy Melusina (one of the, seemingly, endless passages of poetic text in the book), the obscure epic of the feminist-minded poet Christabel LaMotte. After rdg the ending I was just too happy to be done w/ the book to want to dive back into the minutiae. Sadly, an intellectual i am not. Anyway, it was the A Lamia in the Cevennes story in Elementals... that made me a Byatt admirer. The lamia seemed to be another aspect of the melusine myth. I thought i had a winner w/ Possession. But it seems to be a postmodernist romance more to do with academic & scientific realism; not much my thing.

But i underestimated my complete lack of interest in English, so-called, "drawing rm" fiction. Any of the "classics" that i never rd in my teenage/high school yrs just is not going to get rd. That goes for other post-war British novelists like Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day-- good memories of Anthony Hopkins & Emma Thompson in the movie-- and upper-class old New York chroniclers like Edith Wharton (thank god for books on tape/cd! It was the only way i was going to get through anything by her. Really enjoyed Ethan Frome though-- which i believe was a bit of a departure fr her usu style).

I may have to go back to rdg Atonement at some point because, fr what i've rd, one of McEwan's achievem'ts in the writing of it is his execut'n of the ideas of Metafiction. If you rd Wikipedia's article on metafiction you'll realize that, hey, i'm almost sure to win some kind of lit award w/ this technique! Anyway, i'm now rdg The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. I didn't have any desire to see the movie, & this book, i know, is going to involve, in scope and subject, so many different levels of heartbreak. Right now, only a few pgs into chap four; it's aight.

Oy!

This is suppose to be a, somewhat, lit blog. But, boy did i feel truly illiterate after clicking on
the link to this website-- Oy vay!

Vote Now for the Best of the National Book Awards Fiction






So embarrassing to admit that i haven't rd much of the "lit greats." (what have i been doing...?)

I gave up on Faulkner after giving up on " The Sound and the Fury"-- a few pgs in-- in High School. John Cheever? Never hrd of him. Ralph Ellison I know, of course, but i really doubt that i've rd the "Invisible Man" (can't be sure; due to the fact that i've gone through so many books, like a steamroller, over the yrs & the memory ain't what it used to be). Eudora Welty & Thomas Pynchon? Sadly, no (know who they are, most likely haven't rd anything of their's). Thankfully i can say i've rd &-- in some instances-- rerd Flannery O'Connor's short stories over the yrs (my one redeeming writer).

Now that Sept is practically over

I finally have the Sept quote (see: Quote of the Month).

Saturday was beyond wonderful

Poets House sure knows how to put on an open house. The new digs are a thing of simple & spacious beauty (no more the dark cramped quarters of a lib rm). I got there at about a quarter past noon, it wasn't crowded @ all-- plenty of rm & space (can't belabor that point enough) to sit & marvel @ their lib collect'n. Lookg thru the stacks i came across this self-made book called "Pirate's Laughter," by a New Orleans based poet. I liked how it didn't have that mass-produced look;that freedom of choice & indiv personality went into the multicolored pages, the author on the cover dressed like a female pirate & smoking a pipe. The second half of the book was exactly that: The second part of the book-- the spanish version of the poems. Anyway, it was all really interestg & bcuz i've been thinkg of making my own book of poems-- note making, not publishing-- i could take heart that it could be done well.

At about 1pm, I left to enjoy Battery Park's gorgeous stretch of trees & immaculateness, along the waters of the Hudson, that kept tempting me fr the glass-sided overview of Poets House 2nd flr. After watchg the various maritime activities, & the Statue of Liberty in the distance, I wandered down to the pavilion where the evts were to take place later in the afternoon. Eventually, the fact that a band was warming up behind me started to filter into my consciousness. Yep, it was Natalie Merchant, & her guitarists, doing sound check.

Sigh. There are so little words to discribe the indiscribable feelings of finally hrg Billy Collins rd in person. Natalie Merchant described all the poets, who rd before her perf as "Titans": Several of my pesonal favorites, and possibly a coupla new ones. I take back everything i've ever said about Galway Kinnell. It's been, maybe, six yrs since i've heard him rd in person & it was a bit of a shock to see him so grey-haired, lookg like the elder statesman i suppose he is. He had two truly hilarious poems: One about Robert Frost being a chatterbox & the other about how eatg oatmeal is so boring it's advisable to do so w/ company (even if imaginary), aptly titled "Oatmeal."

So many great rdgs: Cornelius Eady did a 9/11 poem he had written just after those events-- which was appropriate, considerg how beautiful & resilient Battery Park City have risen fr those ashes. I was excited to see Marie Howe again, after already hrg her rd @ one of Bryant Park's poetry series this summer. "What the Living Do" is one of her most wrenching poems & it was so symbolic of the feelings of death & renewal that i always feel around this time of yr. Samhain again my friends.

And Natalie Merchant, how to describe my long ago college yrs? In the 90s when Tigerlily, her debut solo album, was on rotation at every college radio station across the country. How "Wonder" had us all convinced we were going to change the world.

Holy Crap!

Been busy-- w/ rdg, poetry & job related stuff-- & so haven't really picked up the The Village Voice in a while. Wow, there's a sh**loada movies coming out this Fall! Oscar time again, I guess. Anyway, it's bad enough i haven't gotten around to seeing Ponyo-- great reviews are motivatg me-- bcuz i haven't been hangin w/ my usu tween crowd (aka my nieces), but i've been rdg reviews on Michael Moore's, Jane Campion's & also Lars von Trier's newest (controversial of course) films. I figured i wouldn't make up my mind to go see Quentin Tarantino's newest movie, though i'm a huge Kill Bill Vol. I & II fan (I have a lot of self control, & little money, so i'll wait till Inglorious Basterds comes out on DVD).

There are a bunch of books that i wasn't too motivated to rd before, but am startg to feel the motivat'n bug now that they're bieng, or have been, made into movies-- superficial i know. No matter how hard Oprah tried, all i know about Cormac Mccarthy's The Road is that it seems to be somewhat similar to Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of books: I (The Gunslinger), II (The Drawing of the Three), III (The Wastelands), IV (Wizard and Glass), V (Wolves of the Calla), VI (Song of Sussanah), & VII (The Dark Tower). I know that both authors ideas are set in a post-apocalyptic world. And both have a man and boy traveling together (eventually King's Gunslinger, Roland, acquires some more traveling companions besides the boy Jake).

These books possess an overwhelmgly profound wealth of literary feats-- to this day i'm still uncoverg King's literary references. It's not only "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning, but Rhea of the Coos fr Dark Tower 4: Wizard and Glass, refers Robert Frost's "The Witch of Coos." King's work tend to echo epical poetic traditions themselves, w/ their titanic themes of journey, revelation and finally, sometimes, redemption. (The Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption short story is one of my favorites of the written word-to-movie genre-- O how i love Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption!).

Anyway, before this post turns into a love fest to Stephen King, another book w/ a movie version coming out that i've been hesitating to rd is Push by Sapphire-- poet extraodinaire. I've been to see her rd in person (a tiny dynamo!). I may bail on rdg it though (prob the movie too). These books w/ their glut of painful human suffergs, especially the injustices committed against childhood-- because i was a child myself, once-- are just too much to rd sometimes. The written word is alive to me. It took me a while to recover fr such books as Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, When Things Get Worse by Barry Callaghan. Sigh.

Anyway, I'm off to the Poets House grand opening tomorrow, Yay! I'm going to miss the old Soho locat'n-- fond memories of workshop & rdgs. But I love the Hudson River locat'n (even better memories of summers down by the water-- especially those great evts i managed to make it to along that long stretch of the Hudson River Park:

September 25, 11am–5pm Invocation of the Muse: Poets & Musicians Toast the New Poets House

Finished rdg "Eclipse"

over the wkend-- the third book in Stephenie Meyers teen vampire romance series that started with Twilight. To say these books are addictive is an understatement! I'm long past the teenage stage, but i've been gobbling them down like the most addictive of sweets, since rdg the first book about three wks ago. Since i can't get enough of them & i'm too poor to actually buy my own copies i've been findg them at the public libraries pretty consistently since last wk.

I ended up watchg the Twilight movie, months ago, completely by accident. My sister's boyfriend always get a bunch of random DVDs fr someone he regularly goes to. Since he always has just the most unlikely choices, we ended up w/ it in the bunch he had brought over. A fan of paranormal romances, i fell for the movie and haven't been the same since. I found the book in the lib a few wks ago & rd it in, like, twenty-four hrs! I got my hands on New Moon last Mon. & was done by Tues. It was such a relief to finish it before the movie came out. Things kind of took an uncomfortable turn for me in Eclipse though. I haven't felt so compelled about a book since Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

Unbelievable, but after talking to one

of my former co-workers fr my Coney Is job, I started to miss those mornings, hurrying along the boardwalk with only a few minutes to spare before i would be late. Trying not to let the miracle of working so close to the beach pass me by-- the wind flowing across the water in early morning coolness, feeling like an epic, as i look across the so-far empty stretch of sand.
Sand still drains from hidden crevices in the comfortable running shoes that i wore for my marathon days of standing at that job. A Charles Simic poem my friends:

Couple at Coney Island

It was early one Sunday morning,
So we put on our best rags
And went for a stroll along the boardwalk
Till we came to a kind of palace
With turrets and pennants flying.
It made me think of a wedding cake
In the window of a fancy bakery shop.

I was warm, so I took my jacket off
And put my arm round your waist
And drew you closer to me
While you leaned your head on my shoulder.
Everyone could see we'd made love
The night before and were still giddy on our feet.
We looked naked in our clothes

Staring at the red and white pennants
Whipped by the sea wind.
The rides and the shooting galleries
With their ducks marching in line
Still boarded up and padlocked.
No one around yet to take our first dime.