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Showing posts from June, 2014

Poetry Wednesday: Famous Blue Raincoat

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Famous Blue Raincoat It's four in the morning, the end of December I'm writing you now just to see if you're better New York is cold, but I like where I'm living There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening. I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record.  Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair She said that you gave it to her That night that you planned to go clear Did you ever go clear? Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder You'd been to the station to meet every train And you came home without Lili Marlene And you treated my woman to a flake of your life And when she came back she was nobody's wife. Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth One more thin gypsy thief Well I see Jane's awak

Poetry Wednesday: My Yoko Ono Moment

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My Yoko Ono Moment for Nick Twemlow It’s annoying how much junk mail comes through the slot & accumulates at the foot of the stairs mostly menus from restaurants in the neighborhood endlessly coming through the slot despite the sign we put on the door: No Advertisements No Solicitors One night I scoop up the whole pile on my way out (as I do periodically) & dump it in the trash can on the corner of West Broadway & Spring just as Yoko Ono happens to be strolling through SoHo with a male companion She watches me toss the menus then turns to her friend & says, “I guess no one reads those.” by David Trinidad courtesy poets.org 

Re-Thinking the 'E'

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Amidst the heat of summer and the heft of books being carried in the summer heat, now is a good time to ponder the e-book. I used to think of my e-book reader (Kindle, for those keeping score at home) as a tool I kept for convenience and desperation. I am a Print Girl, now and forever. But as I considered how to find new homes for my already-read books, I had to wonder: why remain married to print for every book? I'm not keen on the control Amazon has over my reader and its contents. Sure, I can get a refund, but if Amazon can put a book on my reader, it can take it off. (And has, for other readers in the past.) I prefer my e-books inexpensive. Right now I'm considering an e-copy of my favorite Marge Piercy poetry book, but it's more than a couple of bucks. I realize that some older books haven't yet gone "e," but the absurd price of an e-book astounds me. Maybe I don't know enough about the process of e-publishing, but I also can'

Review: Year of No Sugar

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Eve O. Schaub would like you to know that She and Her Family Survived a Year Of Limited Sugar Consumption. But they're okay now. Schaub was inspired by the research and lifestyle changes of Robert Lustig , a professor at University of California, San Francisco, who convinced her in a 90-minute video that sugar was poison. She did her own research, found resources, and in turn convinced her family to spend a year not adding fructose to their diets. (Her children are in elementary school, so she made exceptions.) At the end of the year, everyone was relieved and the experiment was over. She blogged about it, and she turned her blog posts into a book titled Year of No Sugar: A Memoir . I'm sure her blog was fine, but the posts didn't succeed in creating a successful, readable memoir. I didn't enjoy the book for a number of reasons. As a memoir, Year of No Sugar was written in too casual a tone. The language was chatty, the vocabulary colloquial, the humor forced