82St. station after Colombia beats Uruguay 2-0 |
Greenpoint, October, 2015
Monday, June 30, 2014
Até Breve, Nova Iorque
For the next week or so, BTB hits the road for South America. Won't get to Brazil (but closer than you).
The Research Bureau has gathered up some odds and ends from the cutting room floor, and will post these just to keep the juices flowing. My father taught me to start the car and run the engine every few days even when you are not using it. He also believes that sunshine on the hood can revive a dead battery--but that's another story.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Shakespeare in the Dark
Here's a poem to give one pause, whether on the subway or waiting in line in Central Park. "To an Artist, to Take Heart" by Louise Bogan.
Slipping in blood, by his own hand, through pride,
Hamlet, Othello, Coriolanus fall.
Upon his bed, however, Shakespeare died,
Having endured them all.
(Photo: Antony Sher as Macbeth, Harriet Walter as Lady Macbeth. Dir. Gregory Doran for RSC, 1999)
Slipping in blood, by his own hand, through pride,
Hamlet, Othello, Coriolanus fall.
Upon his bed, however, Shakespeare died,
Having endured them all.
(Photo: Antony Sher as Macbeth, Harriet Walter as Lady Macbeth. Dir. Gregory Doran for RSC, 1999)
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Squeezing Woodside
Puzzling over the MTA Poetry in Motion poster for Jim Moore's "Love in the Ruins." The art is John Cavanagh's Commuting/Community (1986) from the 61st St. IND/LIRR station in Woodside.
Or, in the MTA's cropping:
W-O-O-D
I-D.
Now take a look at the complete work, displayed in the station, in a photo by by Robbie Rosenfeld from www.nycsubway.org:
What's a letter here or there, when you've got a railroad to run?
The text of the poem itself (also an excerpt):
i remember my mother toward the end,
folding the tablecloth after dinner
so carefully,
as if it were the flag
of a country that no longer existed,
but once ruled the world.
Or, in the MTA's cropping:
W-O-O-D
I-D.
Now take a look at the complete work, displayed in the station, in a photo by by Robbie Rosenfeld from www.nycsubway.org:
What's a letter here or there, when you've got a railroad to run?
The text of the poem itself (also an excerpt):
i remember my mother toward the end,
folding the tablecloth after dinner
so carefully,
as if it were the flag
of a country that no longer existed,
but once ruled the world.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Petal to the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd :
Petals on a wet, black bough .
We return to our summer series, Poetry in MoTiAn, with Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" (1913).
Petals on a wet, black bough .
Switzerland, Near Geneva (Erich Hartmann, 1980) |
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Mark Me
You know it's for sale by the angle at which it's parked. The sign reads: "8 cylinders, 126 h.p. Race car!"
Ultimately, it comes down to taste. The awesome grill, the sublime rear passenger window.
Canal Street, Westerly, RI. $5200.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
A Day Went By
A day went by
yet still remained unknown
as if it hadn't happened yet at all
Urszula Kozioł (tr. Regina Grol-Prokopczyk)
Our summer series, Poetry eMotion, continues with poetry from Poland and art from China. What could be more New York?
The art for this post is from Xing Danwen's series, Urban Fictions. Danwen photoshops her image into maquettes created to promote real estate developments proposed for construction in China. Her statement here.
yet still remained unknown
as if it hadn't happened yet at all
Urszula Kozioł (tr. Regina Grol-Prokopczyk)
Our summer series, Poetry eMotion, continues with poetry from Poland and art from China. What could be more New York?
The art for this post is from Xing Danwen's series, Urban Fictions. Danwen photoshops her image into maquettes created to promote real estate developments proposed for construction in China. Her statement here.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Magnetized to the Moon
Elizabeth Bishop's "The Man-Moth": a subway poem inspired by a typo. Far too long for one of the MTA's Poetry in Motion posters; just pick the stanza that you would most enjoy reading as you are carried "through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams."
Magnetic Moths, Sir Roger Penrose (1938) |
Man-Moth: Newspaper misprint for “mammoth.”
Here,
above,
cracks
in the buildings are filled with battered moonlight.
The
whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.
It lies
at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,
and he
makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.
He does
not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,
feeling
the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,
of a
temperature impossible to record in thermometers.
But
when the Man-Moth
pays his
rare, although occasional, visits to the surface,
the moon
looks rather different to him. He emerges
from an
opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks
and
nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings.
He
thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky,
proving
the sky quite useless for protection.
He
trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb.
Up
the façades,
his
shadow dragging like a photographer’s cloth behind him
he
climbs fearfully, thinking that this time he will manage
to push
his small head through that round clean opening
and be
forced through, as from a tube, in black scrolls on the light.
(Man,
standing below him, has no such illusions.)
But what
the Man-Moth fears most he must do, although
he
fails, of course, and falls back scared but quite unhurt.
Then
he returns
to the
pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits,
he
flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains
fast
enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.
The
Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way
and the
train starts at once at its full, terrible speed,
without
a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort.
He
cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards.
Each
night he must
be
carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.
Just as
the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie
his
rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window,
for the
third rail, the unbroken draught of poison,
runs
there beside him. He regards it as a disease
he has
inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep
his
hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.
If
you catch him,
hold up
a flashlight to his eye. It’s all dark pupil,
an
entire night itself, whose haired horizon tightens
as he
stares back, and closes up the eye. Then from the lids
one
tear, his only possession, like the bee’s sting, slips.
Slyly he
palms it, and if you’re not paying attention
he’ll
swallow it. However, if you watch, he’ll hand it over,
cool as
from underground springs and pure enough to drink.
Thanks to One More Folded Sunset for the suggestion.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Top to Bottom, East to West
Missing the BQE a bit, I took a few shots as I crossed over between Jackson Heights and Woodside on Roosevelt last weekend. Nice shadows, light traffic.
It wasn't until I was processing the photos back at the lab that I notice the vertical figures on the retaining wall. Kanji or graffiti? Maybe both. Dangerous work, for sure.
It wasn't until I was processing the photos back at the lab that I notice the vertical figures on the retaining wall. Kanji or graffiti? Maybe both. Dangerous work, for sure.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
No One Knows
Another school year is almost over. As always, the question, what did we learn, is lost on the wind. Here is a poem by the Czech poet Miroslav Holub, which I sometimes use with my own (slightly older) students.
Napoleon
Children, when was
Napoleon Bonaparte born,
asks teacher.
A thousand years ago, the children say.
A hundred years ago, the children say.
Last year, the children say.
No one knows.
Children, what did
Napoleon Bonaparte do,
asks teacher.
Won a war, the children say.
Lost a war, the children say.
No one knows.
Our butcher had a dog
called Napoleon,
says František.
The butcher used to beat him and the dog died
of hunger
a year ago.
And all the children are now sorry
for Napoleon.
(tr. Ian and Jamila Milner)
1971 (photographer unknown) |
Children, when was
Napoleon Bonaparte born,
asks teacher.
A thousand years ago, the children say.
A hundred years ago, the children say.
Last year, the children say.
No one knows.
Children, what did
Napoleon Bonaparte do,
asks teacher.
Won a war, the children say.
Lost a war, the children say.
No one knows.
Our butcher had a dog
called Napoleon,
says František.
The butcher used to beat him and the dog died
of hunger
a year ago.
And all the children are now sorry
for Napoleon.
(tr. Ian and Jamila Milner)
Warsaw elementary school 1956/57 (Photo:Władysław Sławny) |
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Exit 8A
Courtyard Marriott, South Brunswick, NJ |
The cars go by
just like they did
yesterday.
-Tom Clark
Friday, July 13, 2014, 7 A.M. |
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Slow Dreams of Pleasure
Longish for an entry in our alternate Poetry in Mutation series but a fine subway poem. The first in Paul Blackburn's early book Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit: A Bouquet for Flatbush from 1960. All five of the poems in this small book from 1960 are about riding on the subway. The other titles are: "Clarkson Avenue Ramble," "The Once-Over," Clickety Clack" (for Lawrence Ferlinghetti), and "Meditation on the BMT." Here is the cover of the first and only edition from Totem Press, whose address is listed as 402 W. 20th St. Gone, of course, as is Blackburn (he died in 1971). But the Franklin Avenue Line (now Shuttle) goes on. Intermittently.
THE FRANKLIN AVENUE LINE
at Park Place
THE FRANKLIN AVENUE LINE
at Park Place
or Dean Street
across
decaying open platforms with their whitened wood
wash
waves of weathered greenness down the line
waves of somewhere unimaginable blossoms blowing
a late spring to tired faces
in this half-
forgotten slow half-empty train
passing in the rain in slow dreams of pleasure
toward the spur's end where
vaguely in-
decisively train and rain
come at the same
time
to a measured
stop
Friday, June 13, 2014
77 on 58th
A wine shop near Columbus Circle. The guy at the counter, Puerto Rican, maybe, had dropped a bottle. "I'm going to set you up," he kept telling the employee mopping it up. And then, "In 1977, the World Series, Reggie Jackson hit three home runs. All the Irish cops came into my dad's bar." He told it again to the woman behind the counter. And once more on his way out the door. "One of those crazy days," she said to me once he'd left the shop.
I put him at about my age, which means he would have been around 16 for that memorable series (described well in the book The Bronx is Burning). The Yankees beat the Dodgers in six games. Reggie did indeed hit 3 homes runs in the deciding game at the Stadium--after being dogged all season by his manager, Billie Martin, and the New York press for underperforming. If I was there when the cops came in to my father's bar, after the game and the raucous on- and off-field celebration that followed, I'd still be telling the story to anybody who'd listen.
(There's no way to quite recapture what baseball looked like on television in the 1970s, with its 2 or 3 camera angles, grainy color, and sparse graphics. But shooting an HD monitor with a cellphone camera does a passable job.)
(Photo: Larry Morris) |
Boston Red Sox at Cleveland Indians (May 2014) |
Thursday, June 12, 2014
May in June
Our summer subway series, Poetry in Animation, continues with "The Locust Tree in Flower," by William Carlos Williams. An obvious choice, perhaps, and a few weeks late, sure, but when was the MTA ever original or on time?
Among
of
green
stiff
old
bright
broken
branch
come
white
sweet
May
again
Bill Jensen, Locus, 2001-03 (39" x 33") |
of
green
stiff
old
bright
broken
branch
come
white
sweet
May
again
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Tripping over the MTA
Not all the poetry underground is on Poetry in Motion posters. Here's an inadvertent (?) verse from the MTA itself, spotted in the 34th St. IND station.* And again, with Calder poking out behind the pillar.
Avoid slips, trips, and falls...
The limb you save
May be your own.
Okay, the second couplet is added on. Feel free to submit your own ending. Remember, the tail wags the doggerel.
(*Funny, I have only seen this particular poster at the 34th St. station. Is it particularly prone to trips and falls?)
Monday, June 9, 2014
Potomac on the Gowanus
Every June, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, throws a party--a very quiet party--at its incredible gallery space at the end of the Audubon Terrace on Broadway between 155th and 156th St. The Academy celebrates newly elected members in visual art, literature, architecture, and music. The exhibit is a wildly mixed bag but always offers surprises. It's up for one more weekend. Here are a couple pieces that caught my interest.
The Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility designed by Sims Municipal Recycling (2013). This is the Tipping Building. Has there ever been a better name for a building on a canal? Or for a tugboat?
"This 140,000 sf recycling facility processes New York City's curbside metal, glass, and plastic recyclables and features a public education center. The eleven-acre master plan creates distinct circulation zones for visitors, truck deliveries, and pedestrians. Utilizing pre-engineered building components made from recycled steel the facility projects a dynamic face on the Brooklyn waterfront."
Massimo Scolari's Gas Station Inn. Does it remind you of a New York City highway?
Robert Adam's Firebreak above East Highlands, California (1982). Does it not say it all?
The Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility designed by Sims Municipal Recycling (2013). This is the Tipping Building. Has there ever been a better name for a building on a canal? Or for a tugboat?
Photo: Nikolas Koenig |
Massimo Scolari's Gas Station Inn. Does it remind you of a New York City highway?
Robert Adam's Firebreak above East Highlands, California (1982). Does it not say it all?
Sunday, June 8, 2014
To Be Small and Stay Small
BTB is nothing if not opportunistic in its approach to the Poetry in Agitation summer series. Here is a poem by Emily Fragos, a poet I only encountered this afternoon at the American Academy of Arts and Letters exhibition at the Audubon Terrace (open for another week). The gif (first on BTB) is by Hilary Faye and was part of a candy-box exhibit (now closed), Hyper-Resemblances, at Columbia's Wallach Gallery.
On Robert Walser (1878-1956)
You saw a dwarf and imagined yourself a dwarf
or the old homeless hag, pushing her cart of junk.
You closed your eyes for days at a time,
groping along the village walls, tumbling into bushes
with an embarrassed gasp.
You adored the gentlewoman--her pillowy bum--
and the chattering birds with faces like walnuts
and feet like twigs, so alive, alert, and active
in their birdie pursuits. Standing alone in your stale,
furnished room, you felt a shudder of feather
and the glowing air grew full, so close. To be alive
was wonderful, but to be small and stay small--
drop of water into the water.
This is about the outside limit on length for a subway poem. And let's hope no one is offended by uncovering a "pillowy bum" on the F train. What if the reader is not familiar with Robert Walser, the German minimalist (if that's the right word for his micro-prose)? Matters not at all. Here is a poem about the imagination and the places it lifts us to and trips us into.
For those interested in the evolution of a poem, I include the photo I took of the draft displayed at the exhibit (shot through the glass). The few changes in word choice and the ending are small but potent:
Hilary Faye, Untitled, 2011 |
You saw a dwarf and imagined yourself a dwarf
or the old homeless hag, pushing her cart of junk.
You closed your eyes for days at a time,
groping along the village walls, tumbling into bushes
with an embarrassed gasp.
You adored the gentlewoman--her pillowy bum--
and the chattering birds with faces like walnuts
and feet like twigs, so alive, alert, and active
in their birdie pursuits. Standing alone in your stale,
furnished room, you felt a shudder of feather
and the glowing air grew full, so close. To be alive
was wonderful, but to be small and stay small--
drop of water into the water.
This is about the outside limit on length for a subway poem. And let's hope no one is offended by uncovering a "pillowy bum" on the F train. What if the reader is not familiar with Robert Walser, the German minimalist (if that's the right word for his micro-prose)? Matters not at all. Here is a poem about the imagination and the places it lifts us to and trips us into.
For those interested in the evolution of a poem, I include the photo I took of the draft displayed at the exhibit (shot through the glass). The few changes in word choice and the ending are small but potent:
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Duck Days
Aw we begin our search for poems to expand and enrich the MTA's Poetry in Motion series, or just create our own damn series, let's establish a few criteria. The poem should be:
TRUTH
It's not fun
to be 31
ducking
under
the subway
turnstyle.
How quickly and elegantly this short poem gives us the experience of being young (though not so young) and without means in the city. Quite a different approach from Tracy K. Smith's "The Good Life," in the MTA series. Suddenly, that relatively short poem feels like a novel.
Lovely how the spelling of "turnstyle" rhymes with the poet's signature: Eileen Myles. I emailed the poet to ask permission to reproduce the poem here--as far as I know, the only place it has ever appeared outside of the Alternative Press issue (43 years ago!). I asked for associations she may have now with the poem. Here is her reply: "It was certainly directly out of the experience of being broke and feeling too old to bed doing what I was doing, i.e., ducking under the turnstyle for a free ride."
How old were you the last time you ducked or jumped a turnstile?
- Short enough to read once, preferably twice, between any two stations on a local;
- Speak to New Yorkers in some particular manner (not necessarily about New York or the subway); and
- Be provocative--intellectually, emotionally, physically, morally...
It's not fun
to be 31
ducking
under
the subway
turnstyle.
How quickly and elegantly this short poem gives us the experience of being young (though not so young) and without means in the city. Quite a different approach from Tracy K. Smith's "The Good Life," in the MTA series. Suddenly, that relatively short poem feels like a novel.
Lovely how the spelling of "turnstyle" rhymes with the poet's signature: Eileen Myles. I emailed the poet to ask permission to reproduce the poem here--as far as I know, the only place it has ever appeared outside of the Alternative Press issue (43 years ago!). I asked for associations she may have now with the poem. Here is her reply: "It was certainly directly out of the experience of being broke and feeling too old to bed doing what I was doing, i.e., ducking under the turnstyle for a free ride."
How old were you the last time you ducked or jumped a turnstile?
Friday, June 6, 2014
Breaking News! Kentile Signing Off?!
The New York Times and The Gothamist both reporting the iconic Kentile Floors sign in Brooklyn may be demolished, according to a permit filed with the DOB. While the company closed in 1992, the sign has remained as a symbol of Brooklyn's industrial history.
Driving on the BQE-Gowanus Expressway without the Kentile sign? Too sad to fathom. (Oddly, I've never blogged about it before this. It's always just been there.)
(Photo: The New York Times) |
Gowanus X 10
Crossing the canal on the express bus always provides a view (one I have first featured on this blog in April 2011). Yesterday, around noon, a gray gulf. By the time I reached Staten Island, the sun was out.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Livin' on Chicken Noodle Soup and Wine
BTB's summer series, Poetry in Locomotion, begins today. We'll be rooting around (and underground) for poems for the MTA's Poetry in Motion series. There'll also some detours, but no derailments, we hope, for poems that celebrate (or excreate) the experience of being a subway rider. Thanks to onemorefoldedsunset for the idea!
As part of my research for the series, I asked a few people if they read the MTA's Poetry in Motion poems while riding the subway. A waitress in a cafe on East Broadway said she always enjoyed them. When I asked if she remembered any, she said, "Maybe the one about chicken noodle soup."
The closest I could find on the MTA's Poetry in Motion website is "The Good Life," by Tracy K. Smith (b. 1974):
While some people speak about money
They speak as if it were a mysterious lover
Who went out to buy milk and never
Came back, and it makes me nostalgic
For the years I lived on coffee and bread,
Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday
Like a woman journeying for water
From a village without a well, then living
One or two nights like everyone else
On roast chicken and red wine.
A nice poem, even if it is missing the noodles and the soup. But we can do better.
As part of my research for the series, I asked a few people if they read the MTA's Poetry in Motion poems while riding the subway. A waitress in a cafe on East Broadway said she always enjoyed them. When I asked if she remembered any, she said, "Maybe the one about chicken noodle soup."
(Art: Amy Bennett, Heydays) |
While some people speak about money
They speak as if it were a mysterious lover
Who went out to buy milk and never
Came back, and it makes me nostalgic
For the years I lived on coffee and bread,
Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday
Like a woman journeying for water
From a village without a well, then living
One or two nights like everyone else
On roast chicken and red wine.
A nice poem, even if it is missing the noodles and the soup. But we can do better.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
Gus Gargoyle
Bakery trucks are common on the streets of New York. I caught this one out of the corner of my eye on Roosevelt Avenue. But what was that dark cloud hovering above Lady Liberty?
Closer inspection revealed this three-headed creature. A wolf, I think. The Wolf of Woodside Avenue?
I suppose it's better than the mushroom cloud Condi Rice warned us about.
Closer inspection revealed this three-headed creature. A wolf, I think. The Wolf of Woodside Avenue?
I suppose it's better than the mushroom cloud Condi Rice warned us about.
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