springing?

Heya Bunnies:

Been running around like a lil old nut! 3 cities in 3 weeks and on to #4. Been having fun traveling but now the cold bug (a.k.a. too many airplanes) has grounded me for the weekend...I'll live.

Sunny and pleasant in Brooklyn! While I was out getting even more orange juice I saw lots of hipsters and regulars making the rounds, too.

Mine over the season included Norf Cakalak, Oh HI! Oh and one of the beautiful cities on earth, Chi-town. That place is crazy gorgeous. Brooklyn New Yorkers are not generous with out-borough praise but this place is an astounding gotham to behold. No wonder the new Batmans are shot there. It's totally retro-futuristic. This is a *detail* of the Harold Washington Library (yay HW! One of the unsung heroes that aided our current president's ascent.) The picture after the detail is the building.

Keep in mind: this is a *library*:
































Got a chance to see a show, catch up with arty friends and hang out with the sophisticated and downright perky Kimiko Hahn. Super fun!


















Last night, I saw this lovely band: Melvin Gibbs' "Elevated Entity". If y'all know Melvin you know the roof was raised!















A great project. He's one of the great New York musicians (we'll claim him) but we have to share him with the rest of the planet, especially with the crew he's got for this project. Here's an overview --

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=15988

And he's a Gemini. I claim all of the twins (except the Bush parents, Guiliani and anyone I don't agree with). Spring is our season coming up.

So I was happily thinking these fond thoughts and happened to be laying about in my sickened state and ran into Michael Moore's film, SiCKO (sp). That movie is one heck of a tear-jerker and a very deep meditation.

Got me to thinking that the concept of "insurance" is really deep! Both SiCKO and this whole AIG thing makes me think of the relationship we have with the concept. I came across this joke from an insurance education page:

Comedians often joke that, “it shouldn’t be called life insurance. It should be called death insurance because it doesn’t pay unless you die. And even then it still doesn’t pay you; it pays everyone BUT you!” (http://www.ensurance.com/lifeInformation.asp)

That's kinda what Moore's film is dealing with and that the taxpayer bailout frustration is about. Feeling exploited and vulnerable. If you haven't seen the movie in a while, it's worth another look. Bring your hankies...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6555965314375016580

(Some of the links might need pasting, btw)

But with the warm weather other possibilities seem feasible:

Happily [excerpt]
by Lyn Hejinian

What is not is now possible, a ponderable
You muse on musing on—so much now but you do
You can rearrange what the day gets from accidents but
you can’t derive its reality from them
The dot just now adrift on the paper is not the product of
the paper dark
Nearly negative but finite it springs from its own shadow
and cannot be denied the undeniable world once it is
launched—once it’s launched it’s derived
Tonight sounding roughly it isn’t quite that only words can
reason beyond what’s reasonable that I drop my eyes to
Something comes
The experiences generated by sense perception come by the
happenstance that is with them
Experiences resulting from things impinging on us
There is continuity in moving our understanding of them as they appear
Some which are games bring with them their own rules for
action which is a play we play which we may play with
an end we value not winning
The dilemmas in sentences form tables of discovery of
things created to create the ever better dilemma which is
to make sense to others


(hope Lynn doesn't consider this too much of an abomination of her poem...I used the Poets.org website to cut & paste from.)

In like Flynn...the Lion!

(If you read the subject heading with a New York accent, it rhymes!)

Well dahlinks, the last few weeks have been kinda interesting and the new month is keeping yours truly a'hoppin'... This'll be a little long. Just pretend I wrote 3 and put them together -- which is basically what I did.

Couple weeks ago I got a chance to see two really yummy mainstream films just before Oscar's Day, Milk and The Wrestler. (Still got lots of catching up to do in this regard, obvs.) Milk was one of the most endearing an elegant films I've seen. Just lovely and Penn was astounding. Such a nice light touch and he made me ask my favorite types of questions when I'm watching a film: "*That's* the guy from 'Mystic River'/'We're No Angels'/'Dead Man Walking'? Really lovely storytelling from Van Sant. I saw it with one of my buddies and we had to get T shirts afterwards, we were so giddy!

The Wrestler's tone was very different, gritty. Mickey Rourke was almost unbearable to see. Just heartwrenching. I didn't get a T-shirt that time but another friend of mine and I did take away lots of food for thought. I saw the film as more of a meditation on aging but that might just be because I don't care about sports not even contrived ones. Without that 'distraction' it was easier to look into the trajectory of this modestly hopeful character stubbornly plodding forward. After the movie I saw the comedian Marc Maron's new live show "Scorching the Earth". Very intense. My brother and I saw the first draft of it in Brooklyn and it's definitely gotten stronger. Raw, unapologetic and toward the end Marc reads this letter he wrote (that's all that I'll say about it -- see it yourself) but prefaces it by saying that he looks just as 'bad' as the person he wrote it to. An understatement. If you see the internet show he does w/ Sam Seder, the performance is like a more combative and raw version of his persona on Break Room Live.

Well that was a couple weekends ago...

Last weekend I hung out at Duke for the Infection in the Sentence experimental poetry conference. Got to hang out with my buddy Fred, jazz musician/poet and bon vivant Cecil Taylor, Brent, Christian, Eileen and lots of folks it's been good to see and been to long to see including two -- Susan and Cecilia -- whom I'd seen last at the surreal Helen Adam reading last year. Well you can find the whole list of participants of the conference (except for Kamau B who couldn't attend due to illness) on the Duke U website by googling the search terms. Lots of fun and way too much food. Quite yummy fare in the south and I swear the plates are bigger in North Carolina! I also got to see a grown up soon-to-be-former teen I know who looks like a lady and everything! I remember when her age was in the single digits. Ah, time fleeting thing.

Speaking of academics, I got a mo to check out a talk at my lovely Institute that featured theorist Randy Martin. It was a great talk and those dancer types sure are lovely and demonstrative! They really can fill up a space! During a really fun lunch organized by Jon Beller, I found out that back in the day Mr. Martin had also met/took classes with an actor I've long been a fan of: Bill Irwin. (His presentation as George in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" was an exhultant character study.) That's some crazy 1 degree of separation stuff right there!

Snow came in this month and I barely dodged it in the air, I swear! My plane touched down before the snow fell. Phew!
Even though 'the weather outside is frightful' -ly cold, feels a little like spring is around the corner. That Puxatawney Phil was right again, I hate to admit but in NY at least, it's sunny!

I'm traveling a bit now and hope to send off another missive soon in higher double digits!

Tracie

A Word dropped careless on a Page
by Emily Dickinson

A Word dropped careless on a Page
May stimulate an eye
When folded in perpetual seam
The Wrinkled Maker lie

Infection in the sentence breeds
We may inhale Despair
At distances of Centuries
From the Malaria --


I Sing the Body Electric
by Walt Whitman (first stanza)

1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.


A Noun Sentence
by Mahmoud Darwish
Translated by Fady Joudah

A noun sentence, no verb
to it or in it: to the sea the scent of the bed
after making love ... a salty perfume
or a sour one. A noun sentence: my wounded joy
like the sunset at your strange windows.
My flower green like the phoenix. My heart exceeding
my need, hesitant between two doors:
entry a joke, and exit
a labyrinth. Where is my shadow—my guide amid
the crowdedness on the road to judgment day? And I
as an ancient stone of two dark colors in the city wall,
chestnut and black, a protruding insensitivity
toward my visitors and the interpretation of shadows. Wishing
for the present tense a foothold for walking behind me
or ahead of me, barefoot. Where
is my second road to the staircase of expanse? Where
is futility? Where is the road to the road?
And where are we, the marching on the footpath of the present
tense, where are we? Our talk a predicate
and a subject before the sea, and the elusive foam
of speech the dots on the letters,
wishing for the present tense a foothold
on the pavement ...

It was a cold and wintry night...

and I got to hang out with some lovely Bardians (newly graduated) under one of those bright, Brooklyn half-moons for a birthday party.

We had a free-wheeling conversation and yummy birthday (cup)cake. Under candles folks started waxing about school and stuff. One of the things I encouraged them to do despite being smarty grad students, was to go the commencement ceremonies. My mother forced me to go to my graduations after I was a full-grown lady and they were fun! The whole ritual process of walking, the gown and stuff, really makes the experience tangible. You can feel time passing in a way that we're often too rushed to see.

Speaking of tangibility, that weekend after the party I slid over to the Watermill Center on longuylan -- that's "Long Island" for non-natives -- and checked out Robert Wilson's spot: http://www.watermillcenter.org . Met some very groovy artists and saw some fun work by them.

Despite the limited experience due to the winter climes (they've got lots going on in the outdoor space too), have to say the art collection in there is phenomenal. From all over the world from very modern to very old in spaces that were super minimal color-wise so each piece seemed to be suspended in animation. It was quite a different perspective for this writer to consider art in workspace (I live in an orange house, so that should tell you something).

Quite the pristine spot and even kinda museum-y what with the no-shoes policy and my mom didn't even have to be there to tell me not to touch anything...guess I kept a few things from my 5-year old self!

Even though my borough is attached, longuylan does feel New England-y in a way the rest of this neck of the woods does not. Some ways good, some ways bad: yesterday I was walking down 6th ave in Manhattan and there were these weird collections of garbage that seemed almost deliberately placed: a gigantic pile of left-over McDonald's food on the sidewalk as if it had been installed and further along in Greenwich village a substantial collection of horse manure almost pyramidal shaped on the sidewalk. It was just there with no indication that a horse had been there at all...odd even by NY standards. Rushing-by people had this look of disbelief on their faces, including me -- and we have a high garbage visibility threshold in these parts.

They were so random yet self-contained that after I said 'gross'! I thought they had to be a set-up: the garbage in New York is like everything else good and bad in the city: not that well-organized.

I did have flashbacks to NY in the 70s though: gritty, nasty, lively. Maybe those piles were milestones marking the end of gentrification as we knew it.

What [The flower sermon]
by Ron Silliman (excerpt)

The flower sermon:
critique is like a swoon
but with a step increase,
the awkward daughter who grows
to join the NBA. All we want
(ever wanted) was to be on that
mailing list, parties at which slim caterers
offer red, yellow, black caviar
spilling off the triangular crackers
while off on the bay
rainbow-striped sails dip and bob and
twist. The woman in the yellow raincoat sits
on a bench at the edge of the schoolyard
while two small children race
across the asphalt plaza. Too many books
sail the moth. A tooth that's lost
while flossing. A short line
makes for anxious music. Not breath
but civilization. The president
of Muzak himself says
that humming along constitutes time theft.
First snow in the Sierras = cold showers here.
The east is past. Margin of terror. The left
is where you feel it (dragging the eyes back
contra naturum). We're just in it
for the honey. Spackling paste
edits nails in wall when painted. Elbows,
shoulders jammed together on the bus.
At each transfer point, glimpse how lives
weave past. A woman with an interesting book
in her purse which I pretend not to see.
Letters crowd into a thought. Green paper
folded around long-stemmed roses
is stapled shut. Rapid winter sunset
lacks twilight.


PS: BTW, if you saw my earlier post from almost exactly 2 years ago (or not), I lamented on the traciemorris.net bulkregister inaccessibility drama. Anyway it's ovah and you can find my little pithy comments via traciemorris.com, traciemorris.net and/or tracieswebsite.com or .net. -- T

...and furthermore: Moo!

Yay for Oxen, including Cows(en)!

Every Chinese New Year I post a Happy one since most of the human population on the earth follow this lunar cycle. I've been chowing down on 'the people's food' after my foray down south and boy could my tummy use the break from the rich Louisiana food. Now I'm having rich Asian food. Not as sleep-inducing but very tasty!

Not that New Year is *all* about the food but folks do celebrate via the plate.

My lovely Korean bodega owner (and if that designation isn't an amalgam that's emblematic of NYC, what is?) said the Ox year is good: hard working, loyal, nice. Well we could all use a bit more of those qualities, no?




THE WISE OX KNOWS:
"You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind."


No need for a poem after that line! (h/t to squidoo.com, Image Credit: kwokshukee@flickr.com)

Snowbirdin'

So I got a minute away from my fifth of the apple and hung out in some sunnier climes in the Gulf State of LA. Still the best food on earth (and I don't concede Brooklyn's props -- on *anything*-- easily).

Everything is tasty and everyone is an enabler when it comes to eating, so I just gave up and 'went with the local culture'. I swear I gained about 15 pounds in 3 days. Not a bad way to go.

In addition to the culinary excess, it was great to visit the area again. I hadn't been to the area since FEMA messed up in 2005 (just to jog the memory hole, Katrina did not hit landfall, it was the levee breaking that flooded the area). People are amazingly resilient and the artist community as well as the culture in general is dealing with the inevitable post-traumatic stress of that event. The whole experience gave me food for thought about Americana in general: how we feel separated from 'different' folks near us and how close, and in some ways, unifying an extraordinary collective experience can be. Not trying to romanticize the situation at all, or mitigate the disproportionate number of poor/Black folks affected by the flooding, but just to note the non-visual but no-less substantive relationships between people. Folks seemed more connected somehow. But I'm just a hick from the Northeast and may not know what the deal is. I am a bit romantic though, and do hope this sense of connectedness between communities I felt is, in fact, the case.

Goes to show why, as Sandra Ruiz and I argued in an edition of the journal "women and performance" that policy matters. We focused on art but it is generally the case. I very much hope that the Federal Government will set a tone that trickles down to less divisiveness. Not to negate cultural distinctions -- unique contributions are often worth keeping -- but they don't have to be sources of antagonism to be sources of pride. (Okay, everyone hold hands and sing Kumbaya! I know, I know. Mushy much?)

Poem:

Restoration
by Mary Cornish

Everyone knew the water would rise,
but nobody knew how much.
The priest at Santa Croce said, God
will not flood the church.
When the Arno broke its banks,
God entered as a river, let His mark high
above the altar.
He left nothing untouched:
stones, plaster, wood.
You are all my children.
The hem of His garment, which was
the river’s bottom sludge,
swept through Florence, filling cars and cradles,
the eyes of marble statues,
even the Doors of Paradise. And the likeness
of His son’s hands, those pierced palms soaked
with water, began to peel like skin.
The Holy Ghost appeared
as clouds of salted crystals
on the faces of saints, until the intonaco
of their painted bodies stood out from the wall as if
they had been resurrected.

This is what I know of restoration:
in a small room near San Marco,
alone on a wooden stool
nearly every day for a year,
I painted squares of blue on gessoed boards—
cobalt blue with madder rose, viridian,
lamp black—pure pigments and the strained yolk
of an egg, then penciled notes about the powders,

the percentages of each. I never asked
to what end I was doing what I did, and now
I’ll never know. Perhaps there was one square
that matched the mantle of a penitent, the stiff
hair of a donkey’s tail, a river calm beneath a bridge.
I don’t even know what I learned,
except the possibilities of blue, and how God enters.


PS: if I can figure out how to add an audio clip to my own blog, I'll include one of my song "Katrina Blues" on Elliott Sharp's group Terraplane from the album "Secret Life".

up and running...

Hey Folks:

I am exhausted thinking about the inauguration. You? Even from the NYC it seems like lots of coordinatin'.

There's so much to get going though after the celebrating. I can't believe our pres.-elect is already campaigning for his "new deal". I'm tired just seeing pictures of him in the news online! I can't imagine what it must be like to be running around moving (from the hotel, to Blair House to the White House -- oh and that last move by Bush to delay the Blair House move: could dude be *more* tacky on his way out? John Howard? Please.) Anyway, I guess all that running is part of the job and Obama seems to be diving in feet first before the swearing in, even. These confirmations have been moving forward and the dinners? My goodness I'd take all sorts of preventative antidotes before breaking bread with some of those folks...(I know, right?: New Yorkers and their paranoia.)

After, after and after is everybody's doing though. I feel more pressure to do, be myself. Talk about raising that bar. Feeling kinda positive about it though! Hence the title of this entry.

And speaking of, yay pilot! (RIP, Canadian geese.) We got plenty of drama in the Tristate area. Last thing we need is a plane crash and folks hurt. That was so great that no one was permanently injured or killed. How scary was that?

Well the outgoing White House persona was hitting the trails and creating, as always, great literature to riff off of. De Hudson wuz deep but De Nile....(yeah, I trotted out that oldie. Sue me.) A person who speaks well representing the country. Yay. I may not always agree with Obama but at least my Elements of Style won't automatically freeze up with the collective sympathy pains of the world, when he's talking. (My books are very animated.)

Speaking of old school, here's some poems.

Feliz Enero,
Tracie

PS: In case it isn't super obvious by now, the poems are an extension of this blog's commentary and, just as the prose isn't usually experimental (even though I'm an 'experimental' poet), most of the poems are fairly transparent as are my little ol' notes. -- t

I Hear America Singing.
Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe
and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off
work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-
hand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing
as he stands,
The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morn-
ing, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,
or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young
fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.



I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Okay, it's really 2009, right?

Is it just me or is 2009 really here? Takes me about a week, don't know about you (or even a month or so depending on the Chinese New Year calendar. Ox/Cow year is coming up fast.) Feels like everyone is abuzz and seriously moving but cautious about the times...

Being one of the "hypersensitive" artsy-types one of the things I've been feeling is folks just not being into shopping. Even if 'broke-broke' hasn't really hit everyone yet, it's like the superconsumer is passe...Even Bill Cunningham (the NY Times fashion reporter, not the right-wing intolerant), said the new fashion is for the well-to-do to go into their closets and wear stuff they've had for several seasons. I confess: the spry octogenarian-on-a-bike's NYT slideshow is one of my weekly guilty pleasures. (Yeah, so? That's what living a fairly clean-cut life leaves you with -- perusing other's fashion statements).

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_cunningham/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=bill%20cunningham&st=cse
(See the "Keepers" audio slideshow.)

On the political tip, seems like everyone is hemming in homeslice! *Now* the Democrats are standing up to executive authority...( -- or in Reid's case, kinda slumping? Dude!) And not to be too US of America-centric, but the situation jumping off in Gaza just had to be encouraged by the current, yet absent, administration. What have they been quietly up to since November 4th?

Sam Seder (actor/comedian/pundit) had a really interesting take on this situation, saying that the hard-liners in Israel are positioning a withdrawal just before the American inauguration to shift the focus of the MidEast discussion. There's also a national election coming up in Israel soon, which probably has a bit more than a little to do with the recent war. One thing I do know is Cheney has been seriously trying to get his war on (some more) and it didn't work out to his liking in Iran, though that dude was *pushing it* so here we all are. For other points of view (in the States) it's excellent to check out Cenk Uygur's Young Turks blog and Mark Levine (from the Inside Scoop, not to be confused with the rightwinger Mark Levin, yikes!) and the other progressive, Tikkun writer Mark LeVine. Very different and passionate perspectives. All good folks.

This isn't my area of expertise so I'm checking it like y'all, from afar, to be real about it. Not to be too sentimentally-based and non-analytical but it's just heartbreaking to see all this death and destruction between two historically oppressed and displaced groups of people. Seriously. Makes me wonder if this was all a set up -- grab your makeshift Reynolds Wrap hat! -- it's not like the folks who organized this situation in Europe back in the day weren't anxious to get *both* parties out of the way. How better than for them to fight each other? And then we've got the nuts here right now who want Israel around so Jesus can smite the country later. Same mindset, different century.

Either way, this is a rock and roll year for sure already. You can see my tone is changing a little blogwise: a bit more overt politics, sometimes. If I jump in more with both feet maybe I'll even post more! God forbid!

Below here's a poem to lick: mmm -- yum!

Tracie


PS: I picked this poem (h/t to poets.org) because, like all great poems, you can many things into it. Most of the notes on this post can be implicated in it in some way, even oppositional stances. Poems aren't to show what's there, they're to show more. -- t


To me that man seems like a god in heaven (51)
by Gaius Valerius Catullus
Translated by Charles Martin

To me that man seems like a god in heaven,
seems—may I say it?—greater than all gods are,
who sits by you & without interruption
watches you, listens

to your light laughter, which casts such confusion
onto my senses, Lesbia, that when I
gaze at you merely, all of my well-chosen
words are forgotten

as my tongue thickens & a subtle fire
runs through my body while my ears deafened
by their own ringing & at once my eyes are
covered in darkness!

Leisure, Catullus. More than just a nuisance,
leisure: you riot, overmuch enthusing.
Fabulous cities & their sometime kings have
died of such leisure.

Happy New Year!!!!

I am so happy to have made it through 2008! Lots and lots of changes. I don't forsee 2009 being exactly quiet but maybe more productive as folks get into "nose to the grindstone" mode.

The money thing is crazy, crazy and I hope our national leadership can help folks "keep their heads up". Perception is really important and if we think positively...things will *still* be difficult but at least we'll be looking ahead.

For those who didn't make it through to the end of last year, I hope those of us still here can gain comfort through the deep meaning your time on earth gave the rest of us. Lots of losses in the popular arts and more 'off the beaten path" folks. Icons and future icons gone too soon, for us.

Still problems and still possibilities, opportunities. Weirdly, I can't get into the 'bunker mentality' even though all signs indicate that I'm supposed to: Planet's messed up, no money, mo problems, etc. Seems like there hasn't been a moment to relax and rejoice since election day. Maybe I'm a bit on the wrong side here but I just can't buy into the 'nattering nabobs'. I feel that so much of the drama since November has been targeted to keep folks 'anti-optimistic'. Being a contrarian by nature, I just gotta go the other way on it. Hunker down, yes. Bunker, no. (Corny, probably!)

Another poem, as usual, to put the spirit on ya.

xo and hny,
T


(excerpt) Endymion, Book I, [A thing of beauty is a joy for ever]
by John Keats

Book I


A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

end of the year

Okay. I'll make a deal. I'll never use the word "finally" again... (see prev. post) Poems and changing my mind are excluded, btw.

Well this has been one heck of a 5 months. Life is *just starting* to calm down a little bit since the frenetic summer and that's just because school is over.

I don't know about you, but it seems that things, a.k.a. my semester, didn't really get back to normal until after the election was over. It just took all the energy "out of the room" as they say. Meanwhile, it has been getting better and I am settling into the new school and my old homestead. I missed Brooklyn!

Backtracking and Recapping is boring but bear with me, I feel a little guilt!

I spent the most awesome Fourth of July at Naropa this year sitting on a blanket with Anne Waldman watching the fireworks of UC Boulder in the distance with Buddhists. This was right after an anti-war reading at NU. It was almost a precursor celebration as the Dem convention was in Colorado as y'all know. I wrote this whole thing about it, forgot to post it with my crazy traveling and now it's kinda dated. Wonderful experience though!

London was amazing and I even got over my weather issues. (I just stopped expecting to see the sun at all this summer and it worked!) Met some lovely folks and finished my article for boundary 2 that should be coming out eventually. Also got a chance to meet the great Stuart Hall at a gathering in his honor. I hung out with my buddy Carole and ran into one of my old-scromies, Kodwo Eshun and that was looong overdue. I miss my people, including Roger Robinson, in London that I haven't seen in about 10 years. Time is a'flying...

Australia was great. Since it is on the other side of earth from me, it was winter there and I still got no sun summer but I was ready because of England. I have been around the world's block a few times but I gotta say, that Australia jetlag is no joke! It wasn't too bad -- the 21 hour flight: yes that's each way -- but I was really trying to make sure that I was conscious at the proper time. I'm a good catnapper but that trip did test me. Besides that minor whining, it was an amazing visit: Met great folks -- and the Polynesian performers roll deep! as they (used to) say: gorgeous, groovy folks -- and the locals are really nice too. Very down-to-earth people with great senses of humor. Melbourne is a super hip city and the shopping is to die for. The festival itself was gigantic so I just did my thing and saw some stuff here and there. Way too much to take in. The wildlife of the country, even at the zoo, is just revelatory: unique and beautiful, the work of a very much *not* mad scientist, and just pretty. Kangaroos are cool but wombats rock the house. I hope to see more of that part of the world. Nothing like a visit to Oz to make a Brooklyn girl feel like a hick.


After I got back from lovely England and wonderful Australia, it was full-drive back into the surrealist world of academe. Art school is very different from other schools and has its own rhythm. The students are great, like all students, and I'm always awestruck by how strong a personality each class, as a collective has. It's really interesting to get a sense of a grop mind at work. (Sorry, new-agey phrasing is the best way I can put it.) It's really like seeing a gem glistening in light. Not that each student doesn't have their own personality but there's also a group thing going on. I love it. Only rarely have I thought: "more individuality please, less gangness" but that just makes me appreciate these performative dynamics more.

Did my little best to help out with the national electoral goings-on, in and out, in my own way. And am happy things worked out as they did, to be honest. I'm sure the folks who know me are shocked -- shocked -- by that little revelation!

Also did some more gigging with my band this fall in New York and Philadelphia. It was great. We're still working on the concept but I was happy to see folks there and I got some amazing support from the attendees...Be forewarned, this'll just encourage me!

I'm getting more into the meditation mode nowadays, (I'd say I was propelled into it, at this point in my lil old life) started minding the food intake some more, etc. Those of you who read this know I'm already a bit mindful but improvement is always available. Working on it.

Settling in also allows me/people to catch up with old friends and I've come across quite a few via Facebook. I must add though that it is a bit overwhelming. Seems like folks practically *live* on the networking sites and I don't know how they find the time! I can barely deal with the emails, yo.

Speaking of being in touch, I do miss some things about Michigan besides "the kids" (as I horribly call my students): the big unobstructed sky, old-school family values thing (I'm not a conservative but I am old-fashioned) and the prices of stuff. The Trader Joe's in Brooklyn is good for that last part but it's not the same as the rent there! And don't let anyone lie to you: the food quality is *much* better in Michigan. Fresher ingredients make up for NYC all-night delivery anyday.

I am back to being home but I can't say I don't like the Piston state! -- even learned a sports reference!

Blah, blah, blah. Here's a poem below. Will post again next year. (See how I'm setting realistic sights for myself?) I don't like the cold but I do have to give it props. Winter is a humbling thing.

Happy Happy,
Tracie

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [Blow, blow, thou winter wind]
by William Shakespeare

Lord Amiens, a musician, sings before Duke Senior's company:

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .

updates coming...finally!

Well Boys and Girls (or boy and girl depending on how many people read this thing):

Lots and lots of updates since (almost) March. As we say to our grandparents way too often "I've been meaning to be in touch.."

It's been almost overwhelming how much has been going on since the spring. Good news, great news and an amazing summer so far. Jet setting (not private), learning, moving forward and eventually settling in. Updates are forthcoming -- no, really -- but at the moment I'm between countries (doesn't that sound too diva-ish?) and am in a bit of a rush.

Short story shorter, things are looking up for the chippee with lots of work moving from the back burner to the front and finally back where I belong in the best borough on earth, soon. But you know the lady does love to fly about! The completely sedentary life isn't for me!

BTW, my email address is good but for a more collective experience, I also have a bit of representation on Facebook. No, I don't write on that much either, but I will be posting updates on my goings (including gigs!) on there, too -- in case my infrequent posts here have jaded you!

When I land for a minute I'll holla,
TM

Leap Year

Hey Febreros:

Well, I just made it into this month! Since, from what I hear, Leap Year is a time when things are done in reverse, I'm actually letting you perusers know about a gig I'm doing *before* it happens, for a change...

It's at the Stone in NYC and it'll be old work and new. Here's the details:

3/7 Friday (DB)
8 pm
Tracie Morris
avenue C and 2nd street

So if you're around, stop by! My band will be Val Jeanty and Marvin Sewell.

Meanwhile, I had a wonderful time introducing one of my mentors, Fred Moten, poet, philosopher and provocateur as part of my University of Pennsylvania CPCW fellowship. Here's a lovely poem of his from his new book: "i ran from it but was still in it" that he read from last night. They're a series of 11-line poems:


I burn communities in shadow underground up on the
plateau then slide with the horny horns. duke remains
enfolded in the overtone series which is a belled cat
stretched out inside his instrument, an underprivilege of
sheets of exposure curled up around an outlaw corner.
curling round corners puts me in mind of Jean Toomer.
think about what it is to be a gene tumor. I want to be
a stream tuner. unfurled in tongues that don't belong

to somebody else either, to make a new sign about God
and theft and the bent starry stars of all love inside. you
can't sit still and fly? can't curl? you go find your thing.



Nice, huh? Well, speaking of "communities in shadow", of people finding "their thing", guess who came by this sweet soiree? The inimitable Mr. Samuel R. Delany, professor and legendary fiction writer. Here's my bad snapshot of two friends. Black future month.

;-)
T

er, um, should we file these under "trying to be down"?

Not to put too fine a point on Kerry's endorsement of Obama but King actually said: "The time is always *ripe* to do right". It's not *right* to do *right*. I mean, it was MLK. He could turn a phrase. Now unless he also gave the version Kerry is saying, he misused the most important part of the quote!

Fact check, dude. I mean, I worry what he would've said had he opened his mouth after bro got 'tazed! (Instead of just standing there...)

You don't mess up *King*! He's one of the most quoted Americans *ever*. I'll mea culpa if anyone corrects me but I've read a bit of the Rev's speeches so I have feelings about this. He needs a poet on permanent staff: every word counts, Senator!

Okay, should anything even be *said* about A****** Cuomo? I know, I know, "he didn't mean Barak Obama". Seriously though, has anyone ever heard the term 'shuck and jive' not be referred to Black people?

I usually try to be a bit more aesthetic on this page but dag: this is like abuse of language by democrats week! I mean we *expect* this from republicans so no need to even go there...Democrats are supposed to have actually earned the right to go to college, the bar is higher.

Anywho, this is gonna be an interesting year to see how things shake electorally. I just had to blow off a bit of literary steam on this one. Here's some meditative King text for you before the observation day comes up. Prescient writer, to be sure. King wrote work constructed to endure. Folks need to get correct! (Okay, I can let it go now...) In honor of King's memory I'll work on being *peaceful*.

(from) Rediscovering Lost Values
by Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Reverend Simmons, platform associates, members and friends of Second Baptist Church, I need not pause to say how happy I am to be here this morning, and to be a part of this worship service. It is certainly with a deal of humility that I stand in this pulpit so rich in tradition and history. Second Baptist Church, as you know, has the reputation of being one of the great churches of our nation, and it is certainly a challenge that, for me to stand here this morning, to be in the pulpit of Reverend Banks and of a people who are so great and rich in tradition.

I'm not exactly a stranger in the city of Detroit, for I have been here several times before. And I remember back in about 1944 or 1945, somewhere back in there, that I came to Second Baptist Church for the first time—I think that was the year that the National Baptist Convention met here. And of course I have a lot of relatives in this city, so that Detroit is really something of a second home for me, and I don't feel too much a stranger here this morning. So it is indeed a pleasure and a privilege for me to be in this city this morning, and to be here to worship with you in the absence of your very fine and noble pastor, Dr. Banks.

I want you to think with me this morning from the subject: "Rediscovering Lost Values." "Rediscovering Lost Values." There is something wrong with our world, something fundamentally and basically wrong. I don't think we have to look too far to see that. I'm sure that most of you would agree with me in making that assertion. And when we stop to analyze the cause of our world's ills, many things come to mind.

We begin to wonder if it is due to the fact that we don't know enough. But it can't be that. Because in terms of accumulated knowledge we know more today than men have known in any period of human history. We have the facts at our disposal. We know more about mathematics, about science, about social science, and philosophy than we've ever known in any period of the world's history. So it can't be because we don't know enough.

And then we wonder if it is due to the fact that our scientific genius lags behind. That is, if we have not made enough progress scientifically. Well then, it can't be that. For our scientific progress over the past years has been amazing. Man through his scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains, so that today it's possible to eat breakfast in New York City and supper in London, England. Back in about 1753 it took a letter three days to go from New York City to Washington, and today you
can go from here to China in less time than that. It can't be because man is stagnant in his scientific progress. Man's scientific genius has been amazing.

I think we have to look much deeper than that if we are to find the real cause of man's problems and the real cause of the world's ills today. If we are to really find it I think we will have to look in the hearts and souls of men."

Source: http://www.mlkonline.net/values.html Photo source: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/doc/newpages/mlk2.jpg

HNY!

I am too excited about 2008! Drama, intrigue, an election and the Brooklyn skyline. I just missed the Michigan snowstorm and am seriously into hibernation. The city that never sleeps isn't trying to hear it though and so, snowless, chilly winds will be beating me down today.

The annual gig at St. Mark's Poetry Project was a blast! It was fun seeing old hang out buddies like Akila Oliver, Lee Ann Brown w/ Family, Edwin Torres and Maggie Estep as well as legendaries like John Giorno. Brendan Lorber is going to be a Pops he told me and folks seemed more upbeat than last year.

Val Jeanty and I took the stage and made some trouble. I got a very, very sweet gift of baubles from a cutie pie kid right after the reading. I was more touched by that than the applause! -- I'm grateful for that, too though. Never can take that for granted certainly.

Easing into the '08. I *just* caught the ball on TV, speaking of baubles. It's a fun year ahead* (with horrors in wait I'm sure) and I look forward to sharing it with my friends. Cross fingers for a better '08 and a healing '09.


Tracie

* for the solar Gregorian folks. Lunar New Year's coming up! All Hail the Rat year... --:-) T

Semester's ovah!

and "boy, are my arms tired!" The tiredest joke -- evah!

Heya peoples from the blog zone (or me talking to myself). Things have been good but busy. *Don't* get me started! In five months I've been to Europa twice after not being there for many a moon. Haven't been to Africa for at least a year (boo hoo!) and co-edited a journal with my girl Sandra Ruiz. That's just skimming the surface, boobalahs!

It's been a bevy of beauties passing on to the spirit realm, that's for another post though. In fact, every time I sat down to write a little somethin' to y'all, I got another note of sad news. I'm am reh-tee for 2007 to be *done*!

Next up is the city of brotherly love with the evocative statues of freemasons -- Philly! If I ate cheesesteak I'd be in heaven but as it is, I'll be happy to be back east with the hard core language school posse as they beat me into submission before I join the club! (I think they got that from the Freemasons, too. Or at least that's what the conspiracy theorists say...)

Anyway, happy lights month: minoras, kinaras, xmas trees, balls dropping from Times Square, whatever, whereever, may your lights shine!




(Thanks to TravelBlog.org. for the image: Now I don't have to send a card to anybody...)

XO and 'tis the season,
;-)

T

summer's ovah!

...and once again, I have been in one of my self-imposed and oppressive hibernations. I swear I'm becoming a big old poster child for a musing poet.

Anyway, I'm gearing up for the fall but have gotten a sneak peak of it while in London which is a great city but has had some of the wackest weather this side of France. The people are groovy though and I've had a bunch o'fun undercover here doing research on performance and philosophy.

The more I study the less I know I know. Here's a poem for ya:

?
by Randall Mann

is only something on which to hang
your long overcoat; the slender snake asleep
in the grass; the umbrella by the door;

the black swan guarding the pond.
This ? has trouble in mind: do not ask
why the wind broods, why the light is so unclean.

It is summer, the rhetoric of the field,
its yellow grasses, something unanswerable.
The dead armadillo by the roadside, indecent.

Who cares now to recall that frost once encrusted
the field? The question mark—cousin to the 2,
half of a heart—already has begun its underhanded inquiry.

From Complaint in the Garden (Zoo Press, 2004). Copyright © 2004 by Randall Mann. Pretty much sums up my state of mind. Thanks to Poets.org, as usual, for the link.

This has been the summer of the reaper. Lots of people dying whose melodious phrasing has touched me: Max Roach, Sekou Sundiata, Jon Lucien, Grace Paley, Elizabeth Murray, and I'm not trying to be funny but, Merv Griffin. I liked his show and Jeopardy is one of those shows (he produced it) that unequivocally celebrates people being smart. We don't have enough thinking affirmed these days (including critical thinking). There are many other luminaries too and am I being extra sensitive or does it seem that the arts have been hit especially hard these last couple months?

Well, I have no words of my own for this but found a piece from my fellow Geminian poet (yet another to whom I cannot hope to hold a candle), Walt Whitman (from the usual place):

A Clear Midnight
by Walt Whitman

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.





"Night, sleep, death and the stars"... we wait for dawn.

I hope the fall begins a new page for you in activity, levity and hope. May your discoveries take you farther as we walk paths giants have paved.





(from the Adinkira Designs website: "SESA WO SUBAN" "Change or transform your character "symbol of life transformation.)


On the news front, I have a new track (as a *singer* if you can believe it) on Elliott Sharp's band Terraplane's Secret Life. Just came out, so you can check it if you like.

Forward ever and ever,
Tracie

tail end of april

Hey Beauties:

Well, between tax season, end of semester stuff and presenting papers at conferences your humble poet has been underground on the blog scene, even though it's pretrty underground as it is...

Here's a poem to belatedly wish you a happy season via Poets.org. It's pretty old school, but hey, so is Spring!

Back in a minute in the month of flowers. I'm so happy the sun is out!

xo,
TM

From you have I been absent in the spring... (Sonnet 98)
by William Shakespeare

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

coming in like a lion...

...'member that adage? Remember when March was really cold?

Well, it's a not-quite-balmy 35 degrees in the borough of churches section of the apple. I suppose that's "normal" given Punxsutawney Phil's commentary last month (he is eerily accurate). Speaking of, I'm glad Gore got that Oscar! (I've still got issues with his Mrs. from back in the day but...) I remember seeing that movie and looking for Brooklyn. It's messed up but when he showed lower Manhattan under water my first thought was: that include Brooklyn? I am fanatical about few things, but the BK is one of 'em. So sue me.

(BTW, Punxsutawney Phil must be up to date. Dude has a website! http://www.punxsutawneyphil.com/. Hope he's not registered w/ you know who. But that would explain why he hides most of the time, just pissed off, I bet! Maybe I'm projecting on him though -- ya think?)

As those of you who know me know, I've got tons of opinions on things but/and as a belated raison d'etre, I have to add that I see this lil blog as an oasis of sorts from all the hardcore political blogs that I personally obsess over multiple times a day. Not that I won't/don't insert political opinions here but I'm taking a slightely different tack. (If you've ever had a conversation with me, you *know* how much I talk politics. Back in the day, before poetry came and took over, I was a Political Science major and am still a news junkie. Here though, I see Poetry (with a capital P) as a great summator, so I like to let the other words speak for my mood at the mo: sometimes political, sometimes aesthetic, often both.

At this, my usual crack of dawn hour, I can almost feel spring coming around, not quite but not so far away. The moon is waning outside of my window and through the curtains looks like the center of a cross. The diffused light brought to mind this poem by Marilyn Nelson (that I found, as usual via Poets.org, the Academy of Am Poets website). I like it b/c it has the name of this month in it, great lighting and to me, political undertones that could be applied to human rights, US politicians, war and contraints of today. Just my take. Here's the poem for you to assess yourself:

Daughters, 1900
by Marilyn Nelson

Five daughters, in the slant light on the porch,
are bickering. The eldest has come home
with new truths she can hardly wait to teach.

She lectures them: the younger daughters search
the sky, elbow each others' ribs, and groan.
Five daughters, in the slant light on the porch

and blue-sprigged dresses, like a stand of birch
saplings whose leaves are going yellow-brown
with new truths. They can hardly wait to teach,

themselves, to be called "Ma'am," to march
high-heeled across the hanging bridge to town.
Five daughters. In the slant light on the porch

Pomp lowers his paper for a while, to watch
the beauties he's begotten with his Ann:
these new truths they can hardly wait to teach.

The eldest sniffs, "A lady doesn't scratch."
The third snorts back, "Knock, knock: nobody home."
The fourth concedes, "Well, maybe not in church. . ."
Five daughters in the slant light on the porch.

link: http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15820

Here are links to a couple of other poems that are more to the point:
Dear George Bush by Kristen Prevaliet: http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16613
and For the Union Dead (and old school standard that unfortunately still applies): http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15280

Okay, so much for "oasis". Hey, no one can live in a bubble away from the world, even if one is in a perpetual poetry bubble. But what about the second part of the phrase I used as the title? The lamb part? March is also a verb as in marching to war, and like the month one wishes to conclude with a more gentle environment. Poets, even when they're upset still have hope in their hearts and it's worth agitating for. Now I'm going to close this post by going really old school and going in peace:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
by Anonymous

To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.


Take it as non-denominationally as you like. It is certainly some of the most well-known literature on earth. Be well and think warm thoughts to keep you warm -- and take a coat.

Chinese New Year poem

Hiya Lovelies:

If you've found me, thanks.

I'm still into this celebratory week that about 1/5 of the globe celebrates.

Here's a poem for you and the website I got it from.

I wish you a Happy Pig year, even though I don't eat pork!

May 2007 and the Boar be good for you and yours:



Winter Night

My bed is so empty that I keep on waking up;
as the cold increases, the night-wind begins to blow.

It rustles the curtains, making a noise like the sea.
Oh that those were waves which could carry me back to you.



at: http://www.springsgreetingcards.com/catalogs/store.asp?pid=206956&catid=22647

What can I tell you. I've been in the Midwest and New York and it's been chilly!

PS: Have a happy belated Valentine's day, too. -- tm

about TracieMorris.net

Hi, Y'all who are checking this out:

Well, it is a hot mess up in bulkregister land (where I have had traciemorris.net for a couple years). It's a shame. Since they were purchased from Enom last summer I have not been able to pay for my website, nor upload onto it. Really unfortunate as it was really great up until then and there has been much going on in Tracieland.

For now, please go to the site tracieswebsite.com or tracieswebsite.net for the latest. Hopefully before hell freezes over I'll be able to link my old and new web addresses so it won't be an issue. I'll give you some musings later but wanted to say:

Happy Pig year! Eat, drink, be loyal, friendly and merry, dahlinks.

Love ya,
Tracie from Tracieland
(a very special place I've created in my mind!)

2007

Happy New Year, Folks!

May 2007 be better for you and all of us -- less war, a cooler planet, more rights and more joy. Homework: Have fun, do your absolute best then stop worrying!

In like Flynn,
Tracie