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
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