Friday, February 26, 2010

Poem for a day


What Does It Mean

It does not know it glitters
It does not know it flies
It does not know it is this not that.

And, more and more often, agape,
With my Gauloise dying out,
Over a glass of red wine,
I muse on the meaning of being this not that.

Just as long ago, when I was twenty,
But then there was a hope I would be everything,
Perhaps even a butterfly or a thrush, by magic.
Now I see dusty district roads
And a town where the postmaster gets drunk every day
Melancholy with remaining identical to himself.

If only the stars contained me.
If only everything kept happening in such a way
That the so-called world opposed the so-called flesh.
Were I at least not contradictory. Alas.

--
Czeslaw Milosz

A poem if only because it's raining, it's February, and it's time to feel, feel, Feel what is to become of this and that.

xoxo

Friday, February 19, 2010

Beeeeeerrrokkkkkk!!!

Breathe easy. Tme has elapsed. And it's time to relax.

More Beerok (yes: beer + books + an iota of selective taste ... = better, more intoxicating reading) ... coming right up.




Lagunitas Brewing Co.'s (Petaluma, CA) A Little Sumpin' Extra! Ale and Sam Shepard's Day Out of Days (Knopf, hardcover, 25.95) -- Get the boldly weird here, with the added plus of their elliptical coolness. Short stories, poems, dialogues, stringy, sinewy narratives done right by a master. And an imperial IPA to die for. Or get weird for. Or maybe just pay for a few dozen times.

Odell's (Fort Collins, CO) Woodcut No. 2 Oak Aged Golden Ale and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Puffin Classics, 4.99, etc.) -- We shouldn't, can't forget about the book that Hemingway lovingly announced 'all modern American literature comes from' and Fitzgerald rah-rahed as the first to look on us objectively with domestic eyes (Huck's). It's just as well that we can't, mustn't overlook one of the nation's best breweries most exciting new brews. Built of mud and blood it manufactures one of the clearest, honestest palates you can find in a beer, much less a golden. Good together just because. They're just right for each other. And that's all.

xoxo

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Valentine's Day!

Lovers, loathers, lopers, leeches, lederhosen-wearers, lolliopoppers, lollygaggers, loopers, bloopers, babes and boys! Yes it's Valentine's again -- that precious time of year when it's ok to kiss in public, buy your girlfriend funny underwear, and tawk vewy cute like dis to all the women you see! Or just about.

At this point, it's hard to mention Valentine's Day without at least giving a passing reference to Nicholas Sparks' newest bestseller turned mega-blockbuster, Dear John (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0fq5dd0C60). I haven't seen it and probably won't (because John Cena isn't in it), though just the other day in the lift line a girl was literally sobbing as she told told her friends the book's story. I was impressed. So... I guess, check it out, if that's the sort of thing you like...!


In other news, there hasn't been much other news. Don Delillo released his latest book, Point Omega, about an intellectual defense analyst, which breaks out as the highlight of the last few weeks. While I wasn't so fond of Falling Man, and thus didn't read Cosmopolis, the reviews of this one have been so polarized it'll be hard one not to pick up, if only just to see what all the commotion is about. Oh and Patti Smith came out with a new memoir, Just Kids, that's supposed to be as heartbreaking and elegiac as it is inspiring and nostalgic. Erdrich, Boyle, and Bolano (posthumous) have new ones to look for as well. All in all, enjoy! Kisses!

xoxo