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Salome and Santa Teresa


I have tickets for the Washington National Opera‘s production of Salome with Deborah Voigt. It is also the day we remember Saint Theresa – Santa Teresa de Avila – the Spanish mystic.

Not entirely sure how these things are related. In fact, they are very nearly opposites. Salome is a… what? Dancer? Courtesan? Prostitute? Rather than mystical and spiritual, she is eminently a creature of the flesh. And Santa Teresa? Could we relate her ecstatic writings about spiritual unity with the Savior to Salome’s ecstatic “Dance of the Seven Veils” that overwhelmed Herod?

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The Best Things in Life


In Conan the Barbarian, the governor of California famously, in response to the question, “what is best in life,” said, “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.”

This is clearly true.

But I submit that we overlook the little things. For example, when drinking too much in a hipster bar, you may find that the bar’s ownership, instead of clearly labeling the restroom doors “men” and “women,” have instead opted to use some sort of cryptic pictogram that a drunk man is expected to properly interpret.

In that moment, as a man, what is best in life is to open one of the doors and see a urinal: the universal symbol that we have picked the right door.

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Last Night’s Concert


We saw the Arcanto Quartet play at the Coolidge Auditorium in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. For those of you who live in or have visited Washington, DC – the Jefferson Building is the attractive looking one of the three main buildings of the Library of Congress (LOC for short).

I was painfully ignorant of the three works they played.

The first was the String Quartet in D minor, K. 421 by Mozart. Apparently, it is one of only two string quartets that Mozart wrote in a minor key. Despite the cliches about works in minor keys, it was not a particularly sad work. The second movement, the Andante, hardly sounded like Mozart at all to my untrained ears. The program said that much of this work was specifically written as a sort of homage to Haydn, so perhaps it was that influence coming through strongly.

The second piece was Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major. As you might expect from Ravel, it was unfailingly romantic. If I had any complaints, it might be that I detected what I thought were some sour notes from the second violin and viola. But since I don’t know this work at all, I can’t be certain.

The final piece was the String Quartet no. 5 by Bartok. As you might expect from him, it was occasionally lyrical, mixing Eastern European folk dances into the arrangement, but was more commonly a dangerous and traumatic piece (in the best of senses). The  fourth movement (out of five), the Andante, in particular, stood out for the me. At the movement’s completion, I turned to my companion and mouthed “wow” and saw that she was likewise stunned. I wish I could describe it. It ended with a sort of declining, high modernist sob from the first violin that drew out the history of the collapsed dreams of the Old World.

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No One Will Go to the Opera with Me


None of my friends and loved ones in the greater DC area want to see Salome with on Friday night.

It doesn’t matter that the production has been well reviewed, nor that Deborah Voigt (a soprano famous for her work in Strauss’ repertoire) would be singing.

And so I embark on another “what the heck happened to respect for the canon” discussion.

The last two young ladies to attend the opera with me are both, as it happens, going to Baltimore to see comedian Chelsea Handler. I brought up the question of the opera with a couple of friends last night and got some blank stares. Zero interest.

I have to believe that if more people gave opera – live opera, done properly – a chance, it would continue to grow. And maybe it is. Everything I’m complaining about is purely anecdotal. I do not hang around an “operatic” crowd. In truth, I work with a punk rock crowd. My better half works with folks on the pop culture side of things. I stand in a lonely middle. Or am I just romanticizing myself – making someone who is able to buy a subscription to the opera a classic, lonely, rugged and byronic outsider?

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Arcanto Quartet


The Library of Congress’ free concerts series will showcase the Arcanto Quartet tonight. They will  be playing Mozart’s String Quartet in D Minor, K. 421, Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major, and Bartok’s Strong Quartet #5.

I have never seen this quartet, but I gather that they specialize in the French repertoire, so I am especially excited to hear them play Ravel. I never thought much of him – having heard little but his overplayed, though enjoyable, Bolero – until I saw the beautiful French film Un Coeur un hiver with one of my favorite actors, Daniel Auteuil. That movie was partly about a violinist recording a number of Ravel trios and sonatas and remains, in my mind, one of the best movies ever made about art.

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Co-Owner of Politics and Prose and Titan of the DC Literary Scene Passes Away


Carla Cohen, one of the two co-owners of Politics & Prose, passed away early this morning. She was 74 years old and suffering from a rare form cancer.

The owners of Politics & Prose have been seeking new owners to buy them out for some time now. Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade turned the bookstore into a nationally recognized bookstore and a DC institution. Even as Barnes & Noble and Borders have struggled, Politics & Prose has, according to all reports, remained solidly profitable. It is believed that there are a number of would-be buyers, but that they were looking for someone they could count on to maintain the store’s cultural, as well as business, legacy.

Like Sylvia Beach, we should recognize the contributions to modern literature of people like Ms. Cohen, who provided a place where books where properly and respectfully flourish.

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New Publication


My poem, Pontiac Sunbird, 1994 was accepted by the magazine Ceremony for publication in the Spring 2011 issue. In the meantime, the editor has posted it on their website, The Sheltered Poet.

Spring 2011 seems like it will be a popular time for me – what with four of my poems being published that quarter. Might even make up for the fact that my paying work seems likely to significantly dry up around that time (curse you, political cycle!).

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Poetry Reviews


The New York Times book review section on Sunday has been steadily shrinking in size. This is sad, but it isn’t news. We’ve all watched it go from 60-70 pages to about 28 pages now – which is still better than the Washington Post and St Petersburg Times, which has gotten rid of their stand alone book reviews altogether.

One hates to criticize one of the last major venues for book reviews able to reach people not already subscribed to a literary magazine. But I feel I must speak up.

New York Times, where is the poetry?

They used to consistently review a book of poetry every week. No, they were not digging deeply into the catalog, but at least they would review collections from publishers like Copper Canyon.

Then I noticed that sometimes they would review a book of essays by a poet or a biography of a poet and seemed to feel that this “counted” as their contribution to the support of poetry. In recent weeks, they seem to have ceased writing about any poetry or poets.

A stand alone book review section is not a moneymaker for the paper. If they are keeping it, it is as a sort of public service. In which case, commit to public service! Commit to supporting the culture and the better angels of our literacy. Cultural projects that do not demand more of those that consume it, that does not challenge us, is doomed to wither away. A struggling theater will not excite the public with a revival of a tired musical from the middle of the last century or the latest musical mash-up of Puccini’s greatest hits, remixed to faux rock music, as much as by putting on an exciting and truly innovative new work.

Similarly, book reviews will not become relevant and important parts of the national discourse by limiting themselves to dusting off Ken Follett’s latest overblown and overwritten doorstopper not by praising popular mediocrities for their most recently bound collection of clunky phrasings.

Americans should read more poetry. It would expand their minds and challenge them to think in new ways. It would make them into more well rounded human beings. Plus, reading poetry is not so chore – it is a joy, even when it is challenging.

The New York Times (and, in truth, all publications) should take this as their goal. It will make them better papers and do more to ensure their continued relevance than a dozen attempts to embrace so-called “popular” culture.

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Maxine Kumin at Politics and Prose


If you’re in the Washington, DC area, don’t forget to check out poet Maxine Kumin read at Politics & Prose this evening. Details here.

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re: evolution


re: evolution, another book from Les Figues Press, did not immediately hit me the way that Voice of Ice, Voix de Glace did, but that does not make itless of a work.

The work is divided up in small sections – an “introduction,” 48 “chapters,” a “denouement,” “the end,” and finally a section that mimics (but is not) end notes entitled “research paper.”

The dominant tool is one of deconstructing language, science, and culture. re: evolution also contains more than a whiff of feminism – with the deconstruction seemingly put to the task avoiding redcuctivism by objectification or fetishism. Unfortunately, it also led to the relative absence of any eroticism. Not strictly sexual, but the sense the writer “desires” the words, “desires” the poetry s/he is writing is not there – not for me anyway. But am I just inflicting/projecting my own gendered sexuality onto the work?