Hands scrubbed till they bleed.
School replaced with videos.
Carts crammed with toilet paper and guns.
Culturewatch
Interview with Michael Rumaker
The following interview with Michael Rumaker, conducted by Ammiel Alcalay and Megan Paslawski, appeared in the City Lights Books edition of Rumaker’s Robert Duncan in San Francisco. Appended to the interview is a note Alcalay wrote for Rumaker’s Memorial service last year.
Encountering Steiner
I first met literary critic and philosopher George Steiner, who died February 3, in early 1964.
Intercommunalism (A New Decade of Ghosts)
my delusion is soaking through/makes my whole world wet with the idea of you
Eclectic Boogaloo & Participation Theory Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrrJvYLH_kc
What follows is a poem—inspired in part by the grainy yet graceful video above—and a short program for the Academy dashed off by Charles Keil.
Old Ideas and New Blood (Alvin Ailey, 2020)
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, January 2, City Center: “Ode,” “Fandango”, “Mass,” “Revelations”
Liner Notes
A folklore professor from the Ivy League was scowling when he came up to me at the 1969 meeting of the American Folklore Society. He stabbed a finger in my direction and, without a hello, said, “There’s one thing I can never forgive you for.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You wrote the liner notes for Phil Ochs’ album.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“That’s not authentic folk music,” he said.
“Who cares?” I said.
