Big Window

Stop

Here's a cool photo from Out of Contxt.

Spam

Here's the text of a spam message (found poem?)  that I received today:

freeing not  conferred it creepy or profess not collapsible it americana and dance the bombay in eastbound on chandelier ! apprehension some allotted a talent or commensurable or kelly and featherbrain the bay the mann and sled but disturbance may vito and ltv and coniferous the constrict some absentia or jones a

reef the  retribution be bowl but colleague ! crosswort may syllabic and discretionary on cinderella on bestial in cab some canna it ackerman try subtle it archangel and bravado or pathetic may challenge may cancer it's attempt try suppressible may tropopause but failsafe not scottish be oxeye a bimini see postfix try

ammonium ,  crafty not liaison try clausen ! soapy it's edith but plover in chase may budgetary but anchorage a burst on yiddish some uncle a blurt see adolphus see slocum some lit try sublimate in antipathy it swim , nbc , item ! died see gsa in stannic may expelling some

Laundry Basket

from a wonderful photoblog called Photographically by Gary Crucefix

Twittering Machine by Dan Beachy-Quick

I see I must rewire the Twittering Machine Whose song was lightning                                           when lightning-struck— And then sang singe, sang smoke: elect -ric elegy, perpetual elegy, the fuse That fused syllable to                                  sound is blown, is Blown, and now the dry-throat on noting Nothing drowns. The gold-sheathed wire Soldered to star                           sang both the star ’s celestial thread that fretting through The night kept the night a needle-width Undone, and sang                             yellow the yellow Thread unmending the sundress wife kept In closet December-long. And longer: Through darker months                                     none could name, none Name—since, ever since, that star whose light Powered the Twittering Machine’s ever-song Died, was always dead,                                      though nightly seen, Is still seen, cold but brilliant overhead. The gold -sheathed wire withered, tangent to the moon. Now a fungal-wire aches                                       down cemeteries To find a decaying song. Earth-battery— It winds the dynamo by a ceaseless, clock- Work turn, clock-                             wise turn, But the Twittering Machine refuses song. No, no—not refuse, not refuse. We’ve rewired The mechanism. Stars                                    are silent, trustless: They lock the dark vault they seem to pierce. Music of the spheres? buzz, no test-pattern, Program cancelled, shut.                                       Now one dark talon Sheathed in darkness drops unseen from sky And scratches the earth as the earth turns. Do you hear that sound                                      of gravel on gravel Grinding? That music is our music now.

by Dan Beachy-Quick

published in SHAMPOO 24

Private

from Photoschau, an amazing photoblog by the German photographer Frank Boenigk

1 + 1 = 0 by Maria Bouquet

Via Artist  Spaces.

The Enemies Of The Little Box by Vasko Popa

Don't box down to the little box
Which supposedly contains everything
Your star and all other stars

Empty yourself
In her emptiness

Take two nails out of her
And give them to the owners
To eat

Make a hold in her middle
And stick on your clapper

Fill her with blueprints
And the skin of her craftsmen
And trample on her with both feet

Tie her to a cat's tail
And chase the cat

Don't bow down to the little box
If you do
You'll never straighten yourself out again

Vasko Popa

Mural Mural (On the Wall)

Here's some fresh art from The Wooster Collective.   This is a cool building is Salon Stella  in Minneapolis.  The art is by Broken Crow aka John Grider.

Poetry from the Dictionary

Check out Webster's Daily, a blog in which Josh W. posts one "found poem" a day from the first edition of Webster's American Dictionary (1828).  I find them downright enchanting!  Here are a few examples:    

Growl [n.]  The murmur of a cross dog.

Hope [n.]  A sloping plain between ridges of mountains. [Not in use.]

Node [n.] 

1. Properly, a knot; a knob; hence,

2. In surgery, a swelling of the periosteum, tendons or bones.

3. In astronomy, the point where the orbit of a planet intersects the ecliptic. These points are two, and that where a planet ascends northward above the plane of the ecliptic, is called the ascending node, or dragons head; that where a planet descends to the south, is called the descending node, or dragons tail.

4. In poetry, the knot, intrigue or plot of a piece, or the principal difficulty.

Demolition in Gold and Green

The Construction Years by Maricela Ramirez

The Construction Years A grandfather with mountain hands gets an ear stuck in the 1920s. This just in: The world is an apartment building. A girl with cilantro hair wears a hard hat to the dinner table. She’s trucks and toughness.

In efforts to introduce the word risk in 1979, she wears a suit. A little gold cradles the lobe. In no time, the Banana Boat is christened; the pale Impala prances about town. It is disco canary. It is going places.

En el año 80, el adoctrinamiento comienza. Miss Nakatani becomes Igashi. Ants crawl on the bŭt′ ər and then on the wô'tər-mě1′ən. In 1987, her maiden name, Muela, translates to Molar; it’s kept moist with murmurs under the tongue. A joke makes the grandmother sprout oatmeal. She is cinnamon, sugar and cold cream. Crackers the purse.

1990 starts, there was a story about a bar and ends in anecdote as all things musk. Newsflash: Scholarship replaces a boat. A need for fix, anchor, weight. A residue of oil. A soap box is emptied.

Irony invests, settles, sinks, ©2004. Everyone sings about the elephant. No one notices the mold. A nervous tic and paper bombs blossom. All hail, a microscope for your monocle. Stay tuned: Armor is caustic.

by Marciela Ramirez

published in SHAMPOO 28

Abstract in Red

Painting by Andreas Charalambous.

Green Matter

Excerpt from Audience by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

At the bar, you see a man catch hold of a girl by      the hair and kick her. You could understand both points of view, but in      reality, no. You intervene, feeling shame for hoping someone      else will. It becomes an atmosphere, a situation, by which      I mean, groups. In school we're taught the world is round, and      with our own eyes we confirmed a small part of what we could imagine. Because you're sitting in a dark place, and I'm      illuminated, and a lot of eyes are directed at me, I can be seen more clearly than if I mingled      with you, as when we were in high school. We were young girls wanting to describe love and to      look at it from outer space.

From Nest by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. Copyright © 2003 by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Kelsey St. Press.

De Young

Photo of the De Young Museum in San Francisco by Heather Powazek Champ.

Crossing

To see more work by this photographer, check out Fotograf by Imran.

Klee and Houston

"Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible." Paul Klee (1879-1940)

When I was a grad student at the Iowa Writers Workshop in the late 80s, I consumed Paul Klee's notebooks, staying up late studying them, becoming them.  I left Klee behind me in the 90s for no reason at all, as far as I can tell.  Seeing the Klee exhibit transported me back to that time, when art was pretty much everything to me.

The Paul Klee  exhibit  at The Menil Collection in Houston is one of the  largest (this is Texas being Texas, y'all) ever  amassed
before.  The  show is  nothing short of enchanting.  Personally I would have omitted the  walls of black
and white  photographs of  Americans connected to Klee (placards explain the ties), but I can see how

they  clarify the thesis suggested by the title of the show, Klee and America.  However conventional this strategy might be for most art museums,  it is a very unusual tactic for The Menil.  The show is curated by Menil Collection director Josef Helfenstein.

Houston, R U Board?

On November 3rd the Commerce Street Artists' Warehouse hosted the biggest skateboard deck art show in Texas featuring local and national artists.

We'll get another chance to see the skateboards at the Mackey Gallery on November 11.  All proceeds from art sales are going to help P.U.S.H. Houston build the biggest free skatepark in the nation.

Photos by David A. Brown courtesy of spacetaker.

Flywheel

Here is a super beautiful photograph by Andy Bell from his photoblog Deceptive Media.

Found Art by Rosa Murillo

Every Tuesday Artist Rosa Murillo lets us participate in her experiments with found art on her blog,  Stop by her website for some artful fun. And maybe one day at a cafe table or an ATM machine you'll get very very lucky!

Open 26

Here is a writing exercise for the brave hearts.

Begin this poem with a paint chip, a color that
strikes you in this moment AS this moment.  For example,

Quixotic (plum)

Artichoke

Refuge (slate blue)

Tanager

Jalapeño

Parakeet (these names are all courtesy of Sherwin Williams)

In the middle of this poem there should be a change in temperature or weather.

At the end of this poem, mention or invoke a character from a fairy tale.

Ground Glass

Check out a cool photoblog called groundglass.

Red Shift by Brenda Hillman

            At the edge
            of sense you

            sense the pause
            that shifts, you

            push on it
            to stop it

            more, you've enchanted
            the torturer with

            your short songs
            sounding like to

            shorten time is
            what songs are for

 

by Brenda Hillman

from her book

The Firecage