Cannot Exist 3

I just received my copy of Cannot Exist 3 in the mail, which includes a couple of my poems. It's a nifty journal, and delightfully Andy Gricevich included the previous issues, including lovely writers like Andrew Zawacki and Lisa Jarnot. (This reminds me: if you haven't read Andrew Zawacki's Anabranch, go get a copy--it's one of the best recent books of poetry I've read this past year.)

Take a look at the lineup, and submissions are open for the next issue.

Issue 3:
Alex Burford
Mark Cunningham
Carrie Etter
Lawrence Giffin
William Gillespie
Kevin Killian
Mark Lamoureux
Bonnie Jean Michalski
Sheila E. Murphy
Andy Nicholson
Dirk Stratton

Cannot Exist

Holly Woodlawn

A few videos with Holly Woodlawn, Warhol Superstar and my personal idol.







Holly Woodlawn has always been my favorites Warhol Superstar, ever since I saw her in Trash. I think what drew me to Holly was that she wasn't immaculate, like Candy Darling, but her appearance was more human and imperferct than that. And also that she her intelligence and sharp humor were always front and center in any interview or any performance--she came to the screen as an entire person, instead of a vapid image, as Joe Dallesandro perhaps did.

But that's too dismissive of what Joe did manage on-screen, which was very enticing and enigmatic--I can't explain, even to myself, what it is about Joe that made him engaging. Instead, let's just celebrate Holly Woodlawn a while longer.

Exile in Guyville

We all know the commonplace story about Liz Phair--that after her brilliant work on Exile in Guyville the quality of her work quickly dropped to nothing as her determination for fame grew--and I'm neither going to argue or agree with that story. Quite frankly, I've haven't heard a song off of any of her other albums that made me interested to listen to any of her other work. But Exile in Guyville has been re-released, and as I can't afford the album right now, I've gone looking for other ways to celebrate.

Below is that album as best as I could construct it, although a few songs don't exist in the land of You Tube. The songs remain beautiful and painful, even in some low-fi formats. It's especially wonderful to listen to "Fuck and Run" again--I forgot how tragic Phair's voice sounds as she strains beneath her vocal range into the awkward whisper of "I want a boyfriend/ I want a boyfriend."

We might never see this Liz Phair again, but let's remember here she was an artist to admire.


6'1"


Help Me Mary


Glory


Dace of the Seven Veils


Never Said


Explain It to Me


Canary


Mesmerizing


Fuck and Run


Girls! Girls! Girls!


Divorce Song


Flower


Stratford-on-Guy


Strange Loop

Peter, Bjorn & John

I'm enjoying these singles from Peter Bjorn & John:


Young Folks


Objects of My Affection

Taylor Mead

I'm crying quietly to myself because I'm in Las Vegas and this Friday (September 19), Warhol's film Lonesome Cowboys will be playing in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. I've been dying to see the film for years, and it's shown practically nowhere. To make it all the more painful (or wonderful, if you can actually go), a discussion with Warhol Superstar and underground film legend Taylor Mead will follow the film.

So, in an attempt to pretend that I'm not envying the citizens of San Francisco, I've been watching a few You Tube videos of Taylor Mead this week. Highlights include...



Taylor Mead reading his poem "Song to Jake Gyllenhall" at The Bowery


Taylor Mead remembering Jackie, Candy, and Hollie. Apparently they all went to poetry readings back then. My week is made.


An interview with Taylor Mead.


A preview of Excavating Taylor Mead, a documentary about Taylor Mead that will be shown at the Yerba Buena Center on Sunday, September 21.

What Happens in a Poem

I recently found the You Tube videos from the Philoctetes Center--a series of multidiciplinary discussions about imagination, sponsored by the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.

Although a number of the discussions look interesting, the one I'd like to point out is the roundtable discussion "What Happens in a Poem." The panel consists of Michael Braziller, Timothy Donnelly, Anne-Marie Levine, David Pollens, Alice Quinn, and David Shapiro, and each panelist presents a reading of a poet.

The poets who are read/discussed are Elizabeth Bishop, Cavafy, ee cummings, Wallace Stevens, Vincent Andres Estelles, and Frank O'Hara.

If you only have a few moments, fast forward to the beautiful discussion of Estelles--the contributions of the Catalonian Modernists remain painfully unaknowledge, by large--and Shapiro's tender reading of O'Hara's "To the Harbormaster."

The embedded video has been disabled by request, but the video can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkF6JHwGbp0