MEMORIAL PAGE FOR IRA COHEN

Please post poems, photos, and comments here. Love, Michael

Ira with lobster and camera, photo from Terri Carrion

OTOLITHS ISSUE SEVENTEEN PART THREE IS ROCKPILE

ROCKPILE AT OTOLITHS
Otoliths issue seventeen, part three
By Mark Young (editor)
View this Author’s Spotlight
Paperback, 52 pages
* * * * *
(1 Rating)
Otoliths issue seventeen, part three
Preview
Price: $17.95
Ships in 3–5 business days
Otoliths issue seventeen, part three, is the complete ROCKPILE on the road feature. There are old & new poems, some of them classics, from David Meltzer & Michael Rothenberg, a large collection of photos taken during the tour by Terri Carrión, & an introduction by Larry Sawyer. There is color throughout.

ROCKPILE REVISITED BIRD & BECKETT JAN 30 2PM

Further Rockpile Adventures: David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg On The Road Again

David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg On The Road Again


Wednesday, Sept. 8th, 7:00 pm

Arts at the Olean Public Library
with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg

Olean Public Library
134 North 2nd st.
Orlean, NY 14760
1 (716) 372-0200

*

Thursday, Sept. 9th, 4:00 – 5:00 pm

Poetry Class with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg
Liberal Arts Faculty Commons
Free and open to the public

Rochester Institute of Technology
One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623
1 (585) 475-2411

*

Thursday, Sept. 9th, 7:00 – 10:00 pm

ROCKPILE AT FINGER LAKES!!

Finger Lakes Community College
with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg
and Fingerlake Community College Student Musicians.

ROCKPILE is a collaboration between David Meltzer — legendary poet, musician, and essayist — and Michael Rothenberg, poet, songwriter, and editor of Big Bridge Press. In the tradition of the troubadour and with the spirit of collaboration, the duo will perform poetry, composed on the road, with FLCC student musicians.

Fingerlakes C. C.
4340 Lakeshore Dr.
Canandaigua (whew!), NY
1 (585) 394-3500

*

Friday, Sept. 10th, 7:00 – 9:00 pm

The Flying Squirrel Poetry Series presents An Evening of Radical Poetry with Janine Vega, David Meltzer, Sam Abrams and Michael Rothenberg featuring the jazz/blues sounds of The Overcompensator. To be followed by a poetry jam at Clarissa’s Jazz Club next door at 9 pm

Flying Squirrel Community Space
285 Clarissa St.
Rochester, NY 14608
1 (585) 415-7808

*

Saturday, Sept. 11th, 2:00 pm
Wheeler Hill Poetry Reading
with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg
Celebrates publication of Rothenberg’s
My Youth As A Train (Foothills Publishing)
Hosted by Michael Czarnecki & Foothills Publishing

Czarnecki Homestead on Wheeler Hill

(607) 566-3881

*

Tue., Sep. 14, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.

ROCKPILE AT HALLWALLS

Talking Leaves…Books & Just Buffalo Literary Center present

Visiting poets David Meltzer & Michael Rothenberg
with Buffalo’s Other Side Jazz Trio
$8 general, $6 students/seniors, $5 HW, JBLC, & TLB members

After their coast-to-coast U.S. tour in 2009 www.bigbridge.org/rockpile, poets David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg return to Buffalo to continue their celebration and exploration of music and poetry collaboration, making and breaking new ground in an exclusive performance with Buffalo’s very own Other Side featuring Douglas Dreishpoon, Kelly Bucheger, and Danny Ziemann.

HOW MANY GALLONS…


WKRG.com News

ROCKPILE AND THE RABBLES SAVE THE GULF BENEFIT FOR THE LOUISIANA BUCKET BRIGADE JULY2 AT THE COUNTERPULSE

Click here to see event details at our Facebook page

Rockpile Tour Interviews and Feature at The Argotist Online

Rockpile Tour Interviews and Feature at The Argotist Online.

This feature relates to ROCKPILE a collaboration between poets David Meltzer, Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion, who travelled through eight cities in the U.S. to perform poetry and prose, composed while on the road, with local musicians and artists in each city. ROCKPILE’s main aim was to educate and preserve, as well as to create a history of collaboration. It is hoped that it has helped to reinforce the tradition of the troubadour, a tradition that is central to the cultural upheaval and the identity politics that reawakened poets, artists, musicians and songwriters from the mid-1960s through to the 1970s.
Included in this feature is an interview with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg, an interview with David Meltzer, perspectives from two of the musicians involved (Bob Malone and Daniel McNaughton), some reactions from people who were either involved or who saw the tour on the road and an overview of the tour by Michael Rothenberg.

NEW PECK SCHOOL OF THE ARTS DANCE AND MUSIC AND ROCK AND ROLL STUDIES

This just in from Martin Jack Rosenblum at New Peck School of the Arts. I think the Rock and Roll Studies description is incredibly interest. Another kindred spirit. Check out Martin Jack Rosenblum’s website!

New Peck School of the Arts Programs Offer Distinctive Opportunities in Dance and Music

Milwaukee (May 19, 2010) – The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts is very pleased to announce the following new programs, approved last week by UWM’s Academic Program and Curriculum Committee.

Performance & Choreography/Africa and the Diaspora Track: This new track added to the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Dance prepares students to perform and create original dance choreography for theatrical productions and positions UWM Peck School of the Arts as the only such program in the Midwest at the undergraduate level. Developed by professor and African dance expert Ferne Caulker Bronson , the curriculum has been created with a wide range of opportunities for students to infuse their dance studies with exposure and training to aesthetic, religious and cultural sensitivities that will insure their ability to move into a variety of cultural situations. Africa and the Diaspora students will complete a rigorous technical and creative curriculum with a foundation in Africa and the Diaspora techniques, with cross training in ballet and modern. Students will also study body/mind sciences, dance pedagogy, historical and cultural contexts for dance and the interactive collaboration skills necessary to bring dance to the theatre with a high degree of excellence.

Certificate Program in Rock and Roll Studies: Developed in response to strong interest from students and faculty and under the direction of renowned Rock and Roll historian and Peck School senior lecturer Dr. Martin Jack Rosenblum , this unique program will prepare students to use the tools of ethnomusicology, musicology, literature studies and cultural studies to examine American vernacular music in a way previously reserved for what is called “classical music.” Beginning in Fall 2010, certificate students will gain a solid understanding of this musical genre while deepening their knowledge of the style from an array of courses across the arts and humanities.

More detailed information about each program will be communicated in the coming months. For immediate information, please contact Ellen Friebert Schupper at 414-229-6771 or schupper@uwm.edu .

Certification Program in Rock and Roll Studies.

I. Description of Request:

To establish, through specific courses that are related to America’s musical oral tradition, a pedagogy culminating in an advanced understanding of the sophistication involved with the Rock and Roll idiom after 1965, in the period when this form achieved literary significance.

II. Title of Program:

Certificate in Rock and Roll Studies.

III. Relationship to mission of institution:

This program relates to the mission of the institution in that it documents and preserves an original American art form that had received canonical significance in music as well as broader culture by the end of the twentieth century.

IV. List of Courses:

Core Curriculum (15 credits)
American Popular Music, Music 102, 3 cr.
The Literary Aspects of Rock and Roll, Music 300, 3 cr.
American Folk and Popular Music, Music 309, 3 cr.
Folk Music in Contemporary Culture, Music 409, 3 cr.
Certificate Program in Rock and Roll Studies, Music 509, 3 cr.

Elective Curriculum (To be selected from following list – 9 credits)
American Music, Music 317, 3 cr.
Rock and Roll Criticism, Music 409, 3 cr.
The Art Of Songwriting: Rock and Roll Idiom Lyrics, Music 489, 3 cr.
Fingerstyle History and Performance, Music 478, 3 cr.
Media Archeology, Film 115, 3 cr.
Entertainment Arts: Film, Television, and the Internet, English 111, 3 cr.
Writing Poetry: Forms, Styles, Voices, English 235, 3 cr.
Literature and Contemporary Life, English 248, 3 cr.
Literature and the Other Arts, English 274, 3 cr.
Rock and Roll Cinema, English 383, 3 cr.
Intermediate Topics in Film Studies, Film Studies 212, 3 cr.
The 1960s in the United States: A Cultural History, History 271, 3 cr.
Blues History and Culture, History 272, 3 cr.
Hip-Hop History and Culture, History 404, 3 cr.
Popular Culture in America, 1800 to Present, History 449, 3 cr.
Mass Media and Black Self-Images, Africology 369, 3 cr.
Media and Popular Culture, JMC 114, 3 cr.
Television and Radio in American Society, JMC 142, 3 cr.
Anthropology and Popular Culture, Anthro 302, 3 cr.

V. Cost implications:

None, salary Certificate Program Coordinator is already in place along with salaries for those teaching core and elective coursework. Courses included in the program are already being offered on a regular rotation (some with Special Topics numbers).

VI. Rationale:

The pedagogy of Rock and Roll studies involves an evolutionary leap from the vernacular into art, from low to high culture, and represents a trajectory by which the outsider moved from the periphery of American culture into the mainstream. It involves a dialogue between the many cultures that make up the patchwork of American society. Rock and Roll music tells the story of a music idiom as a quest for new sounds that amplify the quickening pace and changing texture of modern life; paradoxically, the rush into the future was often an exploration of the past as young musicians eagerly embraced the chameleon of authenticity that is based on music that was part of an oral tradition. Rock and Roll followed the path set forth by earlier vernacular forms of cultural expression.

The roving troubadours of medieval England, for example, led to Marlowe and then Shakespeare, just as Mississippi Delta Blues and Southern Mountain Music produced, respectively, Robert and Charlie Poole and then further inspired Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

Shakespeare, as far as his creative life can be reconstructed, drew from a wider palette than his predecessors; likewise, Dylan, the singular artist who forever changed what Rock and Roll context was to be with his complex narrative, was not content to cultivate Blues and Country music. Instead, his artistry transformed music that was already known by the fifties, changing it from within in the course of the sixties, and infusing it with imagery and meaning influenced by modernist poets. These developments, in turn, led to new definitions of recording semiotics and a redefinition of the form itself. Rock and Roll changed forever, dividing into complicated categories that musicology and literary criticism are continuing to explore in ways unimaginable to both music and literature disciplines prior to the 21st Century.

The advent of serious Rock criticism occurred in the late sixties, a time when the music was establishing itself as a high art form with claims to contemporary cultural significance. From this time forward it has become a subject worthy of serious, academic treatment. This involves re-examining vernacular music in America without revisionist perspectives but with revised insight.

The rationale that is implicit in a Certificate in Rock and Roll studies is that this subject is worthy of being treated seriously in ways that parallel studies of what we commonly call classical music. It is no longer the case that it is well enough to merely trace a song through history without understanding the value of its musical and cultural aesthetic. Using the tools of ethnomusicology, musicology, literature studies, and cultural studies, scholars may now assign the proper academic definitions to the very nature of Rock and Roll.

VII. Bulletin Copy:

Certificate in Rock and Roll Studies

Martin Jack Rosenblum, Lecturer in Music, Coordinator

The Certificate Program in Rock and Roll Studies prepares students to use the tools of ethnomusicology, musicology, literature studies, and cultural studies to examine American vernacular music in a way previously reserved for what we call “classical music.”
The certificate program is open to all students seeking a bachelor’s degree from UWM, and to students who previously have received a degree from UWM or any other accredited college or university. Students who complete the certificate as part of their undergraduate work are awarded the certificate at the time of graduation. Students already possessing a bachelor’s degree receive the certificate upon completion of the program requirements.
To obtain the certificate, students must complete a minimum of 24 credits from the following list of courses, with a GPA of 2.75 or above. At least 9 of these credits must be at the 300 level or above, and the following requirements must be met. All courses are 3 credits unless otherwise noted.

Required Core Curriculum (15 credits)
American Popular Music, Music 102, 3 cr.
The Literary Aspects of Rock and Roll, Music 300, 3 cr.
American Folk and Popular Music, Music 309, 3 cr.
Folk Music in Contemporary Culture, Music 280/680, 3 cr.
Capstone Course, Independent Study, Music 699, 3 cr.

Elective Curriculum (9 credits)
American Music, Music 317, 3 cr.
Rock and Roll Criticism, Music 409, 3 cr.
The Art Of Songwriting: Rock and Roll Idiom Lyrics, Music 489, 3 cr.
Fingerstyle History and Performance, Music 478, 3 cr.
Media Archeology, Film 115, 3 cr.
Entertainment Arts: Film, Television, and the Internet, English 111, 3 cr.
Writing Poetry: Forms, Styles, Voices, English 235, 3 cr.
Literature and Contemporary Life, English 248, 3 cr.
Literature and the Other Arts, English 274, 3 cr.
Rock and Roll Cinema, English 383, 3 cr.
Intermediate Topics in Film Studies, Film Studies 212, 3 cr.
The 1960s in the United States: A Cultural History, History 271, 3 cr.
Blues History and Culture, History 272, 3 cr.
Hip-Hop History and Culture, History 404, 3 cr.
Popular Culture in America, 1800 to Present, History 449, 3 cr.
Mass Media and Black Self-Images, Africology 369, 3 cr.
Media and Popular Culture, JMC 114, 3 cr.
Television and Radio in American Society, JMC 142, 3 cr.
Anthropology and Popular Culture, Anthro 302, 3 cr.

Credits earned at other institutions equivalent to courses in the certificate program may be accepted in partial fulfillment of the program requirements, subject to review by the Certificate Program Coordinator.

THE ROCKPILE JOURNALS update

UPDATE

THE ROCKPILE JOURNALS are now being compiled for publication by Big Bridge Press in 2011.

The JOURNALS will include daily postings from Rockpile on the road Blog, essential photos from the road by Terri Carrion, and some of the poetical texts performed at Rockpile events by David Meltzer, Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion.

We are also planning to include a DVD of some key performances and conversations recorded on the road.

Stay in touch for more publication information.

MR

OTOLITH FEATURES ROCKPILE

We’re pleased to announce that Mark Young’s great Otoliths Magazine has just announced publication of a special ROCKPILE on the road feature, with poems by David Meltzer & Michael Rothenberg, photos by Terri Carrión, & an introduction by Larry Sawyer.

Check it out!

ROCKPILE ON THE ROAD AT OTOLITHS

Rockpile at The Gershwin Hotel NYC

ROCKPILE at The Gershwin Hotel NYC from ROCKPILE on Vimeo.

i’m forever blowing blahgs

DC

have already forgot the blurry particulars of the hotel we were in; they have this way of morphing into not the same but the familiar, reinforced by deeply implicated constancy. Consistency’s vague details. Tender attempts at implicating us personally into the death of life, light in eyes, anger at surmise, face fed into electronic advertising toxins -dm

ROCKPILE at The Hammer Video

Here is the link to the ROCKPILE performance at The Hammer. You can make the video full screen if you click the little icon at the lower right corner of the video screen. But you probably already knew that. Check it out! –MR

ON THE WAY

Terri and I just got back from a cross country ROCKPILE decompression, visiting family and friends in Miami and New Orleans (with detours to Cajun Trail, Saguaro National Park and Joshua Tree) and found a disk in the mail from The Hammer Museum with the entire LA ROCKPILE performance. It looks great.  We will be posting that performance on the blog in the next few days. We are also going to post the New York ROCKPILE performance in a couple of  days.  Thanks for your patience on these.

More news:

Dan Godston from Chicago is interviewing David for The Argotist Online ROCKPILE Interview Part 2. 

Mark Young from Otoliths has generously offered to publish a Terri Carrion photo-essay (16 photos) from the ROCKPILE trip along with poems by David and me (poems we read frequently on the road).

Also, hearing a lot from Hans Plomp in Amsterdam about a performance of ROCKPILE  in May at the Fiery Tongues Festival.

-MR

Thanksgiving on the way home from ROCKPILE 2009

Dear David (Madgalene),

“Grand Island is the fourth largest city in Nebraska, with an estimated population of 44,000.”

Thanksgiving in Grand Island, Nebraska was unfortunate. We were already thinking it would be weird to be “unaffiliated” hunting down turkey in the boonies at 8pm on Thanksgiving Day when everyone with a life would be home with their families eating string beans and sliced almonds and watching THE GAME.

We found a diner that had a T-day special but when we sat down to order we found out they were out of turkey so they were substituting ham, out of mashed potatoes substituting fries, out of cranberry sauce with no substitution, though there was still some dressing. Uninspired, I ordered fried porkchops, mushy dressing and some seriously warmed over sweet potatoes. The biscuits were chewy but the honey helped. I ate about half of everything and called it quits. Terri had a combination fried cheese stick and fried mushroom appetizer. A mistake. She fished the mushrooms out of the inch thick batter and gave up. “I don’t know why I ordered this,” she said. We split a piece of “homemade” chocolate peanut butter pie which wasn’t bad then went back to our Holiday Inn fortress and caught up on blog work, downloading and uploading files from Toronto and Buffalo.

New York City blog entries and video got lost in the “shuffle off to Buffalo”, Rochester and Toronto , so we are way behind on videos from that performance, and same with notes from Chicago and St. Louis. So our routine now is to drive 6 hours, book a hotels.com room by cell phone, check in, then find food that won’t hurt us, After dinner we work on the back log. Try not to watch bad TV.

We’re in Laramie, WY now, it’s morning, Terri is down at the exercise room, and I am lying in bed with laptop dreaming of a solid cup of Cuban coffee, and looking forward to seeing you and Jim and Ziggy and Chiqui and Mi Casita for a burrito fix. Snow all around the motel. We have been incredibly lucky with the weather on this trip. Winter just behind us all the way here. Laramie, kind of desolate and pretty. Hope to be home the day after tomorrow.

Love, Michael

ps. An estimated 500,000 Sandhill Cranes pass thru the Nebraska Platte River valley heading northward every year during the Annual Spring and Fall Sandhill Crane Migrations. They migrate through an 80 mile wide “Flyway” stretch along the Platt River from near Grand Island to west of Kearney, NE. It is estimated that about 80% of the world’s population of Sandhill Cranes do an annual migration layover in this area of the Platte River. The Platte Valley area has great habitat for many types of birds – even bald eagles.

pss. Happy Thanksgiving to you and Judy!

blahg in the fog

Date: Friday, January 22, 2010, 1:58 AM

Learned kinship w/ improvising musicians, which I never lost; how they, like poets, emerge from & continue a tradition.

Learned page poets write silence.

Learned again & again that the voice is an instrument.

Learned the ache of transit from page to air; how my voice either weaves w/in the tones of other musicians or retains its separateness.

Learned how all of us, poets & musicians, are ongoing; there’s no ending final enough to empty the world of light.

••••••

Learned how to listen but in the moment not to hear. But we’re talking about moment to moment, quick as a tick.

Learned love & family w/ Michael & Terri, again.

Learned that learning teaches that there’s so much more to learn.

— dm

chicago chicago/ dm

Date: Monday, January 25, 2010, 1:45 AM

In the Allegro Hotel, a Kimpton dot on their grand sweep of hotels across the state. In Chicago — the big city w/ Sandburg’s brawny shoulders, & yes, amazing buildings — we’re in the Loop, decidedly upscale — in these situations always feel like less than — due to my mobility problems, there’s not much time to actually walk the city — great cities have to be walked & my crutches just go so far — a big drag —

in Chicago, I immediately think of its heroes: Tom Clark, Sandburg, Algren, Studs Terkel, Little Walter, Paul Butterfield, Nick Gravenites, Mike Bloomfield, the source of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, aiee, Chess & Checkers Records — Upton Sinclair’s savage attack on the meat packing industry — so much more, but enough already — powerful vector of ascent & defeat —

bless Larry Sawyer for setting up our gig at The Hideout — we met Larry a year earlier doing a gig at Myopic Bookstore — Larry’s a cultural activist warrior trying to spread the necessity of poetry & performance & transformation in the often hard-core hate world of dismal options & entropic slumber — he created a Rockpile Symposium at Columbia College — brought in Art Lange, Dan McNaughton (bassist, leader of exemplary unit Spider Trio), Tony Trigillio, et al. — but alas the panel outnumbered the audience —

BUT the gig at The Hideout was ample & wonderful — what a magnificent joint! deep in some subaltern industrial section between shadowy warehouses & immense hulking Gotham City blocks of industry — in between two mammoth blocks of shadow is this transplant from some noir movie — one section is a bar & the other is a performance space — Bob Malone’s ass-kicking trio is already there before we arrive doing a sound-check — the cabbie that got us there got lost in the shadowy realm — Patricia Donneley’s brother greets us w/ a bottle of some kind of high-octane sherry in a weird woven bag — stuff I wouldn’t drink even on a bet — he wants me to know if I “know” as he does — & then & right then & there I become a parishioner of the Church of Uncertainty — his wife is another presence apparently luded or loaded in some kind of psychotropic wonderland —

but when the music & poetry begins, a instant uplift — thanks to poets Art Lange, Larry Sawyer, Francesco Levato, Joe Wetteroth — & Spider Trio & the Dan Godtson Band — there’s video of it all which gives a sense of what it was — somewhat —

Bob Malone’s Trio kicked it beyond the goal posts — !!

OK, it’s over now, we’re still in a fuddled but alert post-trip coma & at the same time, frenzied desire to re-live it all over & over again

— dm

nyc blahg- DM

Date: Monday, January 25, 2010, 12:41 AM
The Apple was a lovely weird encounter w/ amazing & scattered energies that we swam w/ — it was surfboarding w/ brilliance as well as localized sorrows. Those panels– one in the august Poetry Project space & the other (blessed be Ammiel Alcalay) at CUNY– were, for me, the usual poignant utopian cacophony of what it is what it isn’t what it shd be, oldtimey religion vaporised into proud proclamations, rambling bumperstickers. No one’s in charge; revised version: Money’s in charge. We’re artists, creators, working in the margins, alone, reaching out to incremental constituencies & venues. That’s where the work has always been & that’s how it transforms. There’s no stadium for our sincere shit. It’s always local & intense & fuck you to those who aren’t hip enough to show up.

& those who show up are those that transform the discourse, the narrative, whatever mumbled jumble observers tell the story, the history, out of.

No way for this overly verbose poet to celebrate the genius & forthrightness of Marty Ehrlich’s playing & leadership. He organized a wonderful ensemble for our Gershwin Hotel gig, including new ally Michael Stephans, a master percussionist whose CD OM/ShalOM is essential to diasporic almost whited-out Jewish American identity. John Zorn’s Tzaddik label shd’ve done this CD, but they’ve done so much already it’s moronic to kvetch. Big surprise was Bill Zavatsky, poet & translator, who played piano, whose book X Marks The Spot has become compulsive reading & re-reading at Chez Meltz. Bassist Lindsay Horner. The Gershwin sound tech was probably a better maitre de or concierge. Felt a pang when Michael & Terri & the band started & the right speaker fizzled out, but they were true troopers & kept it going until it really got going & was a powerful performance.

Exhilarating to be able to crutch down NYC streets, so accommodating to walkers of all stripes & streams. Got crazy jay-crutching; all my Brooklyn/NYC fuck you attitude to oncoming traffic resurged. Instinctive. Was a teenager again moving over & through the streets w/ all the other bodies.
— DM

ugh the blahg onward/ DM

Thursday, January 21, 2010, 3:18 AM

Now in post dramatic trip syndrome, trying to get some clarity on what happened, what I learned. Learned that there’s much more to learn performing w/ improvising musicians. Have always been unclear about how that works & if it does, what’s going on? I started reading poetry w/ jazz musicians in The Jazz Cellar in SF 1958. Did a weekly gig there for a year or more. Worked w/ some terrific musicians like Leo Wright, Frank Phipps, Max Hartstein, Bill Weisjahn, Sonny Wright, Pony Poindexter. Learned how write poetry head arrangements, i.e., brought in the skeleton of a poem & then improvised it , fleshed it out, as a soloist, making room for the other players to take their solos, & then often figuring out ways of trading fours. It still makes sense to me. But that didn’t happen on our tour. Instead we relied on set pieces — our “standards” — telling the musicians what the work intended & rehearsing w/ them usually the day before a gig. There’s an intrinsic kinship between poets & musicians; we share the margins together in terms of gigs & immense public support. But always it’s about how one hears & how that either becomes dialogic or disconnected. Working together or apart. I’ve done both & am still unsure about which form works best for me.

Other lessons learned or unlearned have to do w/ an increasing sense (or weight) of lived history, realizing the context I remember out of & speak to is alien to someone a decade younger. “Displacement” is often an accurate word to describe the dissonance of histories unmeshed. The same not the same, but still the same? Learned that Allen Ginsberg’s mantra “First Thought, Best Thought” is often wrong.

Learned how beautiful & sad & ruined USA is from the road. Have kvetched about that earlier.

Learned how remarkable & resilient & fierce couples are. Puts me into grief mode, missing Tina.

Learned how many remarkable people are involved w/ the arts in towns & cities across the country & how generous they are & compatible & irreplaceable.

==

Terri, More later
Love

DM

11.25.09—SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE SIGNS

11.25.09—SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE SIGNS
(St. Louis to Kansas City to Grand Island and beyond)

“Commute with god”

Huntpheasants.com

Nostalgiaville, USA—37mi

“Got A Bra Problem?”

In my afterlife there are no gates
Not even pearly ones

Poetry Without Borders

Historic Village for Sale!

“Control your child not our guns”

Ten miles to Nostalgiaville

Who is Bob Evans?

Blue Springs, MO
Home of David Cook
American Idol 2008

ER:
From broken back to heart attack

Bob Evans had the best sausages
around Ohio

Grand Island Thanksgiving porkchops
Peanut butter & chocolate pie

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch”—
says puffed up man enjoying complimentary
after dinner cordials and sweets
at Kansas City Hotel Intercontinental
Executive Club Lounge
“And the ones that want it are the ones who
aren’t making the grade”

Man at Western Nebraska rest stop toilet
wears duck call t-shirt that reads:
“When Nature calls, call back”

Mama Sage!

—M.R. and T.C.