So Nomadics will ring the year out with the final installment of EM’s essay “The Persuasive Lips.” Apologies for leaving the footnotes in a mess, but I simply don’t have the time to reformat these right now. Tomorrow will be another day, we hope. V Samuel R. Delany understands more of the myth in his novel The Einsten Intersection (1968), where Billy the Kid appears as a redheaded boy with … Read more Eric Mottram on Triggernometry (5)
III Walter Prescott Webb’s The Great Plains described the development of the cattle kingdoms of the American West and of the cowboy who worked the ranches and ranges. The Homestead Law of 1862, the invention of barbed wire in 1874, and the advent of the windmill, the railway, artificial irrigation systems, and the automobile combined to shape – and ultimately displace – the West: ‘The life of one man … Read more Eric Mottram on Triggernometry (3)
Enough readers have suggested I continue posting Eric Mottram’s essay, “Persuasive Lips,” so I will — it will take 5 installments all in all. Here, the second part: II The technological morality of gangster and police movies provides a full iconography from the Thirties onwards. The obvious symbolism of black and white shirts is there in cowboy films, of course, together with other ancient characterizations: blonde and brunette, fair … Read more Eric Mottram on Triggernometry (2)
That lethal all-American gun pathology has obviously been on my mind these last weeks. Two expressions from long ago kept coming back: “triggernometry” and “persuasive lips” — eventually they brought me back to Eric Mottram’s 1976 essay, “The Persuasive Lips” which opened his excellent 1989 collection of cultural criticism essays called Blood on the Nash Ambassador (long out of print, though cheap & decent copies can still be found via … Read more Eric Mottram on Triggernometry
Good friend Hamid Tibouchi, that excellent Algerian poet & painter, (see pp 604ff in Poems for the Millennium 4) just sent a lovely Xmas card that started with a very funny/sage quote — for which I’m having trouble finding a perfect translation. Here it is: __________________________________ « Puisque le bonheur n’existe pas, tâchons d’être heureux sans lui. » Ernst Moerman, 1897-1944 [Écrivain et cinéaste belge] _________________________________ … Read more Puzzled Translator’s Merry Xmas Wishes
…or the book Habib Tengour & I kept referring to as Diwan Iffrikyia all the years we worked on it, & that UCP calls The University of California Book of North African Literature, has now its Amazon site, which does allow you to check out the table of contents and read some (20%, they say) of the texts while waiting for the copies to arrive (any day now! — though probably no longer … Read more The Maghrebi anthology …
Missed Thursday night’s Dr. Skinnybones Brooklyn gig, but Nicole went & recorded the following 3 bits. Enjoy Jake Williams (guitar & voice), Miles Joris-Peyrafitte (drums) & Burke Williams (bass).
THE POETRY PROJECT dec. 20, 2012 Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Dear Friends of The Poetry Project, The Poetry Project office will be closed for the holidays beginning tomorrow, Friday, December 21, and will reopen again on Friday, December 29. There are no events scheduled for next week, but we will return with restored gusto on 1/1/2013 for our largest benefit of the year, the … Read more Poetry Project Annual Marathon Reading
Here are some stills of Nicole Peyrafitte’s gig this past Saturday at the Firehouse in Brooklyn. After an excellent first set by the two superb double bass players Michael Bisio and Ken Filinao, Nicole joined the duo & they played a breathtaking second set, which also featured appearances by Firehouse artistic director Sandra Sprecher on piano & la Grande Dame of the piano, Connie Crothers. I shot some amateurish videos which … Read more The Firehouse Gig
I signed the French version of this a couple days ago, but will also now sign the English version. Please do the same — there are indeed places in the world where you can get sentenced to life for a poem: World’s Poets Seek to Free Poet Given Life Sentence For Immediate Release, December 18, 2012 http://rootsaction.org Contact: Michael Rothenberg of 100 Thousand Poets for Change walterblue@earthlink.net David Swanson … Read more Free Qatari Poet Mohamed Ibn Al Ajami