"City Of New Orleans"

A recent rider's experience

Here's a radio interview with the song's author, Steve Goodman (1948–1984, Leukemia, 36 years old). Goodman also sings "The City of New Orleans" at the conclusion of the interview

One of the first ones out there.

Radio Commercial.

"Don't Cook Tonight, Call Chicken Delight"

"Bastard Blue" by Murray Dunlap.

Over the last year I discovered a friend. I also discovered a writer whose stories soar. I'm referring to Murray Dunlap. The stories he has pulled together in his newest book of stories, "Bastard Blue", had me reading many over several times. They are that good. Most of them are themed from his experiences growing up in south Alabama, but they are not simply regional. They cast a much wider net than that and the texture of the lives he writes about are palpably universal.


"Bastard Blue" is available at Amazon– in both hard copy and the Kindle edition – and bookstores everywhere.

What those who know are saying:

High Praise...
“Forged with a poet’s attention to cadence and rhythm, a storyteller’s devotion to character, and tension that just keeps ratcheting up, Bastard Blue is finally a love story, between a young man and the place that made him, the southern culture that proves to be both a blessing and a curse. Murray Dunlap is a brave writer, and an honest one; the lives he portrays here are as heart-stoppingly authentic as his prose is dazzlingly beautiful. He serves up everything I want in a story: compassion, humor, substance and style.”
Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness

"Yes, Bastard Blue is a first book but there’s more than promise on display within its pages. This collection introduces us to a fully realized talent. Murray Dunlap’s voice is confident, his characters richly drawn, his sense of place as vivid as you will find in fiction. Sentence for sentence his prose is crisp and direct, edged somehow with both menace and hope. He has a knack for creeping up to sentiment in his stories without crossing the line, leaving only genuine, well-earned emotion on the page. This book is so fine somebody should offer a money back guarantee."
-Michael Knight, author of The Typist

"If possible, read Murray Dunlap’s Bastard Blue in a Louis XV style chair, near a subtle fire, or in an Adirondack chair, between peach and dogwood trees. Reading his stories is about as close to having a storyteller there—present, in the room--as I know. This collection is full of heart, mischief, and sly winks. What a grand triumph."

-George Singleton, author of The Half-Mammals of Dixie

Murray's recent history is a tribute to his courage, tenacity and strength.

Murray on Murray: I was very nearly killed on 6-7-08 in a car wreck, so I'm trying very hard to put my life back together. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a complex injury with a broad spectrum of symptoms and disabilities. The impact on a person and his or her family can be devastating. And my memory-loss has to be the most frustrating component of this entire disaster. It is as if I woke up from a dream of a life to a nightmare of a reality. But, as we all do, I keep focused and build a new life.

Murray Dunlap's work has appeared in about thirty magazines and journals. His stories have been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, as well as to Best New American Voices, and his first book, "Alabama," was a finalist for the Maurice Prize in Fiction.

Falling Slowly – the song

This is a song I like very much. It is from the movie, Once, released in 2007 and well-received by critics. It was low budget: $160K and grossed over $20M. One well-regarded critic wrote, "It may well be the best music film of our generation." I liked the movie, too.

Used Prose Poem II

Friend's Wife

I will undo you. I will do it single handed like I might a button on a collar. And I will watch you as you, like a collar, spread apart. And I will hear your breath’s soft whistle as you pull the air inside you. And I will know your eyes are closed. And we will.

Afterwards, because we swore we wouldn’t, your expletives will sting like hornets. And we will swear we won’t again.

Haitian Flea Market

Click on to enlarge

Martha Markline Hopkins's Art.

I really appreciate friend and former classmate, Martha Ann's paintings and sculptures

"One Wire,"
My piece chosen for the exhibition "Bare Essentials: Minimalism in the 21st Century" at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL, Nov. 4 - Dec. 22, 2011. Note that though it shows masculine austerity and uses industrial materials, it also has expression shown through the history of other movements of the wire. The addition of expression is a quality I expect to see in many if not all of the works in this upcoming show.



"One Wire," 12" x 12" x 2, Canvas on Board painted with Rabbit Skin Glue, Wire, and Tacks. (Click on image to enlarge.)

A companion piece: "Four Wires":

New Yorker Cartoon

"Losing My Religion" – R.E.M.

A favorite song. A favorite video.


R.E.M. - Losing My Religion by WBRNewMedia
The video is based in part on Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" which tells a story about an angel who falls down from heaven and how people make money displaying him as a "freak show." Michael Stipe is a big Marquez fan and the song's whole idea of obsession and unrequited love is based on the central theme of the author's masterpiece, "Love in the Time of Cholera". The video was also heavily influenced by the art of Caravaggio and by the sensibilities of film director, Tarkovsky

From Ghost Town To Havana – a film

A new documentary film being made by Eugene Corr.

"In the summer of 2006, three unarmed kids were gunned down on an Oakland street. Roscoe Bryant, 44 at the time, ran out of his house. One of the boys, Thomas, 15, died in his arms. Roscoe, the father of two boys himself, decided he had to do something. As an alternative to the gangs and violence engulfing his Ghost Town neighborhood, he started the Oakland Royals baseball team. We've been following the story of Coach Roscoe and his players for the past three and a half years." – Eugene Corr

I have long been touched by the despair that resides in the sad existences suffered by inner city kids, who, through no fault of their own, with no nuclear family and no role models except "Rap Stars", drug dealers and other criminals in their respective communities are presented with nothing positive and useful upon which to base their futures.

I believe a compelling lesson can be learned from Eugene Corr's film, “From Ghost Town To Havana” and that is that, if the sad, dangerous and wasteful things are going to be changed in the many neighborhoods like Ghost Town (this film focuses on West Oakland, California, but there are Ghost Towns in every one of our larger cities), mentors are needed and needed badly. The film's purpose is to show that more Roscoes ( learn about him in the trailer) can make a difference.

I spent the week of July 10 – 15, in Berkeley, California, pro bono, to learn more about the film from "Gene" and his associate producer and its needs – which as you might expect is money, needed to complete the full translation from Spanish and final editing. The film's cost was front loaded and still needs about $200,000 to finish with the translation and final editing so it can find a public audience with PBS, HBO or other similar venues.

If you find "From Ghost Town To Havana" can be an important vehicle to make a difference and you can make a 501(c)(3) tax deductible contribution, we will be grateful and hopefully some kids will have a better shot at improving their lives through the film's mentoring objectives.

I invite you to review this inspiring film’s trailer here:

http://playtwopictures.com/

Red Light Lullaby

Ruby Friedman / Nick Page

‎1912, Storyville prostitutes, New Orleans

From the New Yorker

"Set a Spell"

Click on for a larger photo:


July 1939. Gordonton, N.C. "Country store on dirt road. Sunday afternoon. Note kerosene pump on the right and the gasoline pump on the left. Rough, unfinished timber posts have been used as supports for porch roof. Negro men sitting on the porch. Brother of store owner stands in doorway."

Photo by: Dorothea Lange (May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) she was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA).

North American Indians (Denver Post Series)

In 1906, American photographer Edward S. Curtis was offered $75,000 to document North American Indians. The benefactor, J.P Morgan, was to receive 25 sets of the completed series of 20 volumes with 1,500 photographs entitled The North American Indian. Curtis set out to photograph the North American Indian way of life at a time when Native Americans were being forced from their land and stripped of their rights. Curtis’ photographs depicted a romantic version of the culture which ran contrary to the popular view of Native Americans as savages.


More Remarkable Native American Indians via The Denver Post's "plog".

3 Father Poems by Meg Pokrass

Meg is a friend of mine. Her recently released book, Damn Sure Right is getting brilliant, rave reviews and is available from Amazon and leading bookstores everywhere. She is one of the brightest, most creative people I have ever read... or known.

Father Poems

by Meg Pokrass

no proof exists

my dark father
was human though
no proof exists

his photographs
were torn in two
then four then eight
his face in the trash

pieces slipping

near each other
becoming
who I wanted him to be

my father never loved us but I loved him madly when I was three

riding his shoulders
grabbing his hands

seeing from above
how breakable
we really were

Before Dusk, Autumn

The two kites went up
into the late afternoon.
One of them, then the other.

I was locked in the car
while Dad and my cousin, Mamie
swirled the field.
Mamie, watching her shadow grow,
looked embarrassed.

I watched through the window-
The kites were leaves,
wind picking them up,
grabbing them.

As shadows spread
Dad must have remembered
that I was his daughter,
that it was my birthday.

Piggy Back

“Let's go
for a piggy back ride!”
He
draped me
over him
like a sweater.
Shouldered safely
I let my hands
explore
his face
and found
two caterpillars.
He told me
to feel his chin,
how it was
like sandpaper.
Everything
was
BIG,
HAIRY,
TERRIBLE
(laughing high above his face).


___

My friend, Meg told me, "Fathers really are a rich source. My mother and I left my father when I was five, I never saw him again, so I had many years to think about the memories."

About Meg:

Meg Pokrass writes flash-fiction, short stories and poetry. Damn Sure Right is her debut collection of flash fiction. Meg serves as Editor-at-Large for BLIP Magazine (formerly Mississippi Review) and before that, for SmokeLong Quarterly. Her stories, poems, and flash fiction animations have appeared in nearly one hundred online and print publications, including Mississippi Review, Gigantic, Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, HTML Giant, Wigleaf, The Pedestal, Keyhole, Annalemma, Smokelong Quarterly, elimae, Prime Number, Women Writers and Joyland. Meg creates and runs the popular Fictionaut-Five Author Interview Series for Fictionaut and consults with Writing MFA programs about online publishing. Meg lives with her small, creative family and seven animals in San Francisco, where she edits and teaches flash fiction privately.

Another Side of Bruce Springsteen

w/ The Seeger Sessions Band

"If I Should Fall Behind" w/ wife, Patty Scialfa



"Oh, Mary Don't You Weep, Don't You Mourn"

Buying Cars Down South

New Orleans – John Stewart

A favorite song by an original member of the Kingston Trio, a '60s folk singing group. (R.I.P. 9/1939 – 1/ 2008)

And one would be hard-pressed to find a more poignant elegy for the pre-Hurricane Katrina Crescent City than “New Orleans,” with its heartbroken piano accompaniment a la Tom Waits and Randy Newman, regret-filled vocals, and lyrics that were largely written by John’s longtime wife, soulmate and sometime singing partner, Buffy Ford Stewart.



Another video of the song with great NOLA video.

Not a relation. I promise.

Watch it!

Meet Meg Pokrass and her Newest Book

Meg is a friend of mine and I am anxiously awaiting the release of her new book, Damn Sure Right. It is scheduled to be released this February, 2011. She is one of the brightest, funny women I have ever read... or known.









Meg Pokrass writes flash-fiction, short stories and poetry. Damn Sure Right is her debut collection of flash fiction. Meg serves as Editor-at-Large for BLIP Magazine (formerly Mississippi Review) and before that, for SmokeLong Quarterly. Her stories, poems, and flash fiction animations have appeared in nearly one hundred online and print publications, including Mississippi Review, Gigantic, Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, HTML Giant, Wigleaf, The Pedestal, Keyhole, Annalemma, Smokelong Quarterly, elimae, Prime Number, Women Writers, and Joyland. Meg creates and runs the popular Fictionaut-Five Author Interview Series for Fictionaut, and consults with Writing MFA programs about online publishing. Meg lives with her small, creative family and seven animals in San Francisco, where she edits and teaches flash fiction privately.

To view Meg's website – a great slide show review of her book with a sample story

To order a copy of her new book go here

Praise for her writing:

“Pokrass writes like a brain looking for a body. Wonderful, dark, unforgiving.”
– Frederick Barthelme
“Read Damn Sure Right, a collection of miniature tales sure to ruin your
waking hours the way you’ll want them ruined.”
— Kyle Minor, author of In the Devil’s Territory
“Meg Pokrass’ flash fiction conveys entire worlds that are touching,
haunting, funny, moving and strange in the most beautiful ways.”
— Jessica Anya Blau, author of Drinking Closer to Home
“Meg Pokrass is the new monarch of the delightful and enigmatic tiny
kingdom of micro- and flash fiction.”
— Brad Watson, author of Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives
“Meg Pokrass is the brewmaster of flash.”
— Sean Lovelace, author of How Some People Like Their Eggs
“No one this side of Amy Hempel is more capable of saying more with
a handful of well-chosen words… and no one is better at stretching
language into such brilliant new hallucinatory shapes.”
— Grant Bailie, author of Morta rville and Cloud 8
“I feel Pokrass thinking through her sentences, surprising herself, taking
chances. Some of her lines hover between the best stand-up comedy and
Dostoevsky.”
— James Robison, author of The Illustrator
“Pokrass’ unsettling, exciting approach to fl ash is indeed infectious.”
— Sam Rasnake, editor of Blue Fifth Review