Tag: Book

This is an absolutely amazing book of poems. I am going to get the complete cycle and likely reread the first 77 as soon as possible.

Here is number 66, for fun:
‘All virtues enter into this world:’)
A Buddhist, doused in the street, serenely burned.
The Secretary of State for War,
winking it over, screwed a redhaired whore.
Monsignor Capovilla mourned. What a week.
A journalism doggy took a leak.

against absconding coon (‘but take on virtue,
without which a man can hardly hold his own’)
the sun in the willow
shivers iteslf & shakes itself green-yellow
(Abba Pimen groaned, over the telephone,
when asked what that was:)

How feel a fellow then when he arrive
in fame but lost? but affabale, top-shelf.
Quelle sad semaine.
He hardly know his selving. (‘that a man’)
Henry grew hot, got laid, felt bad, survived
(‘shoud always reproach himself’.

This is a fantastic book. The narative flourishes are fantastic. The overall story arc is dark and wonderful. Much better then I thought it was going to be.

This is a great book about coffee obsession. The writing is smart and moves quickly. The focus on three individual who share a passion for coffee is solid–though a little one sided perhaps. Toward the end it reads like an interview without the analysis and intrigue found earlier in the work.

The book is Pynchonian in the number of names dropped–it is a basic who’s who of coffee.

The tips & resources at the end of the book are good.

The section on LA was very week–focuesed on Intelli’s move into the market and barista olympians or some such sillyness–part of the general issue of outsiders writing about LA I guess, but I was hoping for more on my home town–the current center of coffee, right?

The focus on the economics of coffee was great, the traveling sections were awesome.

A very fun read that opened my eyes in a lot of ways to the inner workings of high end coffee.

Yet another fun book by Simic. He appears to have moved beyond the point where he fears being a Hemmingway like parody poet–you know the kind that the Paris Review holds contests to write like.

I did not find anything in this book earth shattering or life changing, but I did enjoy the witty absurd observations and noted a lot more naked women in this book then I remember from past books.

A fairly quick fun read.

A great spiritual book on the quest for Music. Wooten breaks music down into ten categories (or not):

1. Notes
2. Articulation
3. Technique
4. Feel
5. Dynamics
6. Rhythm
7. Tone
8. Phrasing
9. Space
10. Listening

And then shares experiences on learning how to express them. This is a very helpful way to learn about anything & the book is absolutely crucial in its exploration of the spiritual side of music–the crazy world in which everything is connected and resolves back down to the zero (which can be funky). An amazing book, by an amazing writer.

I have so many favorite parts (as evidenced by my recent string of Wooten quotes) that it is hard to identify just what speaks to me most about this book–but in general it has significantly changed my life for the better & I cannot say that about too many books.

An incredible read.

I have been trying to get other people to read it to “validate” my findings, and no one has. I am not sure if this means I am on the right track or significantly off the path–I guess that only time will tell.

A life changer.

I read this mostly because the back cover said “England’s best hope for the Noble Prize”–which France won this year. Having read this I really understand why.

There is some great stuff in this book, but mostly it is a collection of reading notes, obituaries, and other wet ink writing that might work in monthlies, but does not hold up that well between the covers. A lot of it is very hyper connected and the general voice is consistent throughout the work. My most favorite piece is likely:

On Looking Through 50 Jahre im Bild: Bundersrepublik Deutschland

It is not a matter of justice. Justice is in another world.
Or of injustice even; that is beside the point, or almost.
Nor evne of the continuity of hirelings, the resourceful;
those who are obese — the excellent ehads of hair —
the beautiful or plain wives, secretaries and translators.
The riots and deomstartions that now appear
like interludes, masques, or pageants, or students; rags;
the police water-cannon: yuou look for the film’s director
but cannot find him. There is the captioned Wall;
there the Reichstag, the Brandenburger Tor
variously refurbished, with and without wire;
there’s Willy Brandt kneeling at the Ghetto Memorial
on his visit to Warswa, December of Nineteen Seventy:
I did what people do when words fail them.

which is much more political then the majority of the work, despite the title and some good notes on Blake.

I liked this book, but could use more of the longer pieces–in fact, a book length poem from Hill would be fantastic.

I generally do not review books until I have finished. But this one really has me thinking. First of all, like Kurt and Courtney, it suffers from the major problem of the biographer placing himself in the story. Over and over again–in almost comical Warhol fashion. In some ways the British are so far off the pace.

Also, the author asked Bacon to help with the book three times and Bacon said no–every time. This is from the book. This changes everything.

A dark story of Soho and beyond–lots of drinking and gambling and gossip. Very little about art–most of which is taken from other interviews.

This book feels like it was put together in a weekend.

But, even with all this I am still really enjoying it. Dark, but there is something there.

This book was awesome. It started with an interview with the author. Then there were two fantastic reviews and appreciations–very well written. A great introduction to an important author.

This was great. I really liked the Kerouac, Olson, and Kesey articles. Kerouac was old, bitter, and very random. Olson would not answer a question no matter what & actually got frustrated with the interview process. Kesey said a lot of kind hearted things and was very respectful.

The Ginsberg class was awesome. I learned a lot about being serious and spontaneous at the same time.

The final two articles on Rosset (of Grove Press) and Ferlinghetti (of city lights) were more about publishing then writing. I would have like to have seen them replaced with maybe Ed Sanders and someone from the west coast–Brother Antonius would have obviously be fantastic.

Over all this was an amazingly good read.

I finished this last night & was once again blown away. Without a doubt one of my favorite books of all time.

I thought it hilarious that the end of the book had been eaten by Lucien Carr’s dog!

I had not remembered all the mayhem that was created in Mexico.

But the road tales–the driven driving was still as fresh as the first time that I read it–I actually did not find the scroll all that different then the published version (which I had not read in a very long time). So glad that I picked this up.