writing

Kabuki.

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Oh, how I love the internet and how it single-handily shrunk the globe.

Because of this magic, I recently was able to make the virtual acquaintance of an artist, a visionary artist, a German Artist!

How cool is that?

To some dude sitting in a lazy chair in a house on top of a windy and rolling hill in southern Pennsylvania, it’s pretty frikkin cool.

But the best part about all of this is not so much the magic of the internet (let’s face it, that’s old news), the best part is the all the new Art that I now am aware of and have access to.

And now I would like to share some of that magic and awareness and access with you.

The artist’s name is H SHLAGEN and he is currently working on a style of artwork that he has encompassed under the title of MY BLAKEAN YEAR, which was inspired by the Patti Smith song of the same title.

SHLAGEN’s work from My Blakean Year is evocative, to say the least. Many of the pieces evoke from me dark, haunting, beautiful images similar to what TS ELIOT’s masterpiece The Waste Land evokes.

I shared his piece entitle KABUKI for two reasons: The first being its indelible beauty, and the second being that we both share a deep love for Japan.

So celebrate and enjoy with me my new friendship with German artist H SHLAGEN and his wonderful MY BLAKEAN YEAR artwork by visiting both his personal website, where you can while away the time in mesmerizing fascination, as well as the online gallery where is work is exhibited and available for purchase.

http://hschlagen.com/
www.saatchiart.com

Peace

Poeting hard on this most poetic of days…

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POETIC LICENSE

Thank God for the passionate poet
Who trumpets the sun’s morning rise

And who writes lovely, pretty sad songs
Of young lovers’s heartbreaking goodbyes

Thank God for the passionate poet
Who reaches right into the heart

To stroke it, to tease it, to please it
And sometimes to tear it apart

#NATIONALPOETRYDAY2014

~~~~

From my poetry collection Poems from the River

Inside Your Head There's a Record That's Playing

by
Tom Waits
Tom Waits

Hold ON

 
They hung a sign up in our town
“if you live it up, you won’t
live it down”
So, she left Monte Rio, son
just like a bullet leaves a gun
With charcoal eyes and Monroe hips
she went and took that California trip
Well, the moon was gold, her
hair like wind
She said don’t look back just
come on Jim
(Chorus)
Oh you got to
Hold on, Hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I’m standing right here
You gotta hold on

Well, he gave her a dimestore watch
and a ring made from a spoon
Everyone is looking for someone to blame
but you share my bed, you share my name
Well, go ahead and call the cops
you don’t meet nice girls in coffee shops
She said baby, I still love you
Sometimes there’s nothin left to do

Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I’m standing right here, you got to
just hold on

Well, God bless your crooked little heart
St. Louis got the best of me
I miss your broken-china voice
How I wish you were still
here with me

Well, you build it up, you wreck it down
you burn your mansion to the ground
When there’s nothing left to keep you here, when
you’re falling behind in this
big blue world

Oh you got to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, I’m standing right here
You got to hold on

Down by the Riverside motel,
it’s 10 below and falling
by a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
and started swaying
but it’s so hard to dance that way
when it’s cold and there’s no music
well your old hometown is so far away
but, inside your head there’s a record
that’s playing, a song called

Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, I’m standing right here
and just hold on.

© Tom Waits & ANTI Records

Bookies on the Books

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Haruki MurakamiThe Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced next week and the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the odds makers are making noise for the usual suspects.

Of course we all know it’s all just a guessing-game (as most gambling is) as to who will win, a game depending on the author and scholars who make up the selection panel, and, unfortunately, the international politics at play.

That said, still it’s fun to guess. Here are some of the odds:

Haruki Murakami is the favorite at 5 to 1
Joyce Carol Oates is at 12 to 1
Philip Roth is at 16 to 1
Thomas Pynchon is at 25 to 1
Don DeLillo is at 33 to 1
Richard Ford is also at 33 to 1
Cormac McCarthy, Salman Rushdie, and Bob Dylan are all at 50 to 1

I don’t think I’ve ever read a winner before he or she had been announced (or too many thereafter, either). My reading list is way too full of dead authors that I’m supposed to read so it’s darn near impossible to find time for the living ones I’m also supposed to read.

But I have read many on the list here and I personally like Oates (at least she’s interesting on Twitter — but I’d guess her chances are diminished somewhat since a woman was chosen last year).

However, when considering this list along with the politics du jour, I’d have to go with Murakami, even though (especially since?) they have recently awarded an Asian writer, Mo Yan from China, which was highly politicized.

But the recently aggressive China and somewhat recently humbled (the past couple decades anyway) Japan have been going at it pretty good lately, so this might be a chance for the Nobel Prize pickers to stick it in China’s government’s eye again.

Unfortunately, I have no idea if there are any contending Ukrainian, Iranian, Uighur, or any other writers from politically sensitive countries.

But, I’m looking forward to finding out who the winner will be…and the sure-to-come guilty letdown I’ll get when I realize it’s yet another writer I have never read.