At the Train Station

At the Train Station, by Vlad Pogorelov (seen here at a reading in Cali), now up on P.F.S. Post, is a poem I knew and enjoyed in the Nineties. Vlad released the poem as part of the chapbook collection Derelict, which was slanted towards a multi-media presentation, and which appeared in '98. 

There was a night in early 2000, when I got up and read the poem at an open mike reading at the Painted Bride in Philly. It was an homage to Vlad, who'd left Philly by then and migrated to San Fran (he's now based in Rocklin, near Sacramento). Genevieve Walsh, who I was with that night, congratulated me for having "balls of steel" for getting up in front of Kevin O'Neill and the rest and reading such a provocative piece. 

Vlad is now finally about to release a second edition of Derelict, and as I re-read it, remembering other old favorites like No. 105, all my memories of the 90s Philly poetry scene come rushing back.  

The Great Recession

The progression of my thirteenth book, Plymouth-Whitemarsh treatise, onto perma.cc.

Viaje Entre Las Luces: Avant-Jazz Pt. 2

Viaje Entre Las Luces, by Vince El Mejor, extends the avant-jazz range of Speck and Stone the Devil with some incantatory Sun Ra influence. The sample used this time is from Opera Bufa (Opera Bufa #38). 

From American Writing: A Magazine, Issue 19, page 37 (2001)

Stone the Devil: Avant-Jazz

Speck, on CC Mixter, used some sound-samples from This Charming Lab to build this avant-jazz piece, Stone the Devil. 

Westminster Arch

The Ballad of Robert Johnson, now out on PennSound, was recorded here, at Westminster Arch in Logan Square, Center City Philly, in 2011. I lived here from 2008 to 2012, wrote Apparition Poems and the Cheltenham Elegies here, and stared out my fourth floor window at the PECO Tower to gauge the time & temperature. The cross-streets are 23rd and Arch. Nice to get WA mentioned on PennSound as a poetry venue, too.

Plain Jane

The Wayback Machine has done its own, innovative number on Cheltenham Elegy #420's Seattle Star page. Here, we see a stark, whited out version of 420. Which is of note, for those who might prefer stark/whited out to the SS's also interesting graphic.