Mission Accomplished

I finished the Martin Johnson Heade manuscript––yes, it feels very done––and sent it out to a contest. I then put five packets of poems together for journals and sent them out this afternoon.

Time to party.

In circumspect moderation, of course.

And then, Project X.

______________________
The painting is Sailing by Moonlight (1875) by Martin Johnson Heade

Theodore Roethke Returns to Saginaw

"First Class," based on professor Roethke's poetry classes and teaching personality, was written by former Roethke student and later colleague David Wagoner and premiered in 2007 in Seattle.

On Saturday, May 30, the one-man show will play in Saginaw with Steve Berglund, chairman of the drama department at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, cast as Roethke in all four planned Michigan stops.

A Tasty Piece of Pie

Humble Pie is (IMHO) one of the great, under-recognized bands in rock 'n roll history. And this is one of the all-time great songs. This is the band circa 1989. Jerry Shirley is still on drums, but it's long after the days of Steve Marriot and Peter Frampton. That is Michigan's own Charlie Huhn* on lead vocals and rhythm guitar--doing a more than credible job.

_______________

* He's from Grand Rapids.

So an Aggie and a Lumberjack Walk into a Bar...

Second panel was a sham. I overstate the case, but if you're going to bill the event as bad poetry by good poets, don't allow two panelists in a row to get up and say, "Well, there really was nothing bad by this poet, so let me talk about an early work and a later work." The whole point of the panel was to be gossipy and shocky and other words that end with -y (I've been watching too much Buffy lately). We demand satisfaction.

Thought for the Day

We are so prosaic, so ordinary. Do we even deserve poetry? But we, too, will be legends for future generations, because we once lived, and our word will mean more than we care to admit today.


-from Adam Zagajewski, "The Shabby and the Sublime" in A Defense of Ardor (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004), p. 49.

Crossroads: John Mayer and that Other Guy

One poem to go, so I am at the crossroads.

Busy day––and midterm grades are due.

Très épopée.

Robert Johnson forever.

Progress Note

I am finishing up a new poem and have a busy day at work.

It's 9 degrees (F) out.

You'd think Spring might make a bit of progress.

Onward.


______________________

Note: The "F" stands for "Fahrenheit."

In case you wondered.

Lyle Lovett: The Road to Ensenada (1996)

Here's one for the novel.

Epic.

Viva, Mexico.

Steve Forbert from Jackrabbit Slim (1979)

While I lick my wounds, let's listen to a bit of music from back in the day.

Romeo's Tune.

Epic.

I feel better already.

Rejection

Blech.

My spine!

Who Are the Great Poets? Why Do We Care?

David Orr's essay in today's New York Times Book Review* is interesting. He writes:

Poetry has justified itself historically by asserting that no matter how small its audience or dotty its practitioners, it remains the place one goes for the highest of High Art. As Byron put it in a loose translation of Horace: “But poesy between the best and worst / No medium knows; you must be last or first: / For middling poets’ miserable volumes, / Are damn’d alike by gods, and men, and columns.” Poetry needs greatness.

But do we really need to sort the good––at least, among the living––from the great? And at what price? My sense is that the frantic preoccupation with poetic reputation among living practitioners is divisive and inimical to the best interests of the art. I would settle for a stronger sense of community among poets, and a place for any serious poet at the poetry table. One of the strangest experiences I have had (more than once)** at the AWP Conference is talking to a fellow poet while their eyes dart about the room, searching out someone more interesting, more important, to talk to.

Yes, I can laugh about it, but it makes me very tired, and sad about the whole enterprise.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, it also leads me to believe that they have never read my work.

Our first duty as poets is to write the best, most true work of which we are capable. To do so is an act of grace. Pay attention, work hard, be kind, and let the devil have the rest.

_________________________________

* "The Great(ness) Game," by David Orr, New York Times Book Review, February 22, 2009, p. 14.

**And as recently as the Conference in Chicago.

DRAFT of New Poem

*poof!*

Ridiculous

Snow, snow and everyone in the ditch.

Project X

I am working on one more poem, but have also begun gathering materials and reading for "Project X." Among the books I am reading, Mexico: A Study of Two Americas (1931) by Stuart Chase, with illustrations by Diego Rivera. I picked this up several years ago at Raven Books in Amherst, Massachusetts. Chase (1888-1985) was an economist, philosopher and advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Chase is generally credited with coining the phrase "The New Deal."

If I said more, I would be way ahead of myself.

We are supposed to have a bit of a blizzard. A good day, in other words, to build a fire and read. Went to the doctor's yesterday to have the bolts on my psyche tightened a bit. Next week I have an appointment at the retinologist's.

Gaak.

A Moment with Joseph Stroud

THE OTHERS, O LORD, FOR MY TIME HAS NOT YET COME

In a room of the Prado many people stop to gaze
at Breughel's The Triumph of Death, a window
into the nightmare of plague––a great battlefield
where Death's legions begin the massacres.
Like everyone, I search for myself among the living,
the ones fleeing, among those trying to escape the canvas.

_______________________________
From Of this World: New and Selected Poems, by Joseph Stroud,
Copper Canyon Press (2009).



I bought this excellent book at the AWP Conference, after recommendations from Dan Gerber and Rick Bursky. I had never previously heard of Joseph Stroud, and now I think he is one of America's greatest living poets.

The cover--a painting by Martin Johnson Heade--is entirely coincidental to my analysis.

Good News! Sundance to the Rescue!

Somehow, in all the AWP Hoopla, I missed the news that arts funding had been restored to the Federal Stimulus package. Read about it here:


The tide turned. In addition to preserving the $50 million allocation, the final bill eliminated part of the Senate amendment that would have excluded museums, theaters and arts centers from any recovery money.

“It’s a huge victory for the arts in America,” said Robert L. Lynch, the president of Americans for the Arts, a lobbying group. “It’s a signal that maybe there is after all more understanding of the value of creativity in the 21st-century economy.”

An AWP Wrap-Up and a Few Random Notes

I took the train to Chicago on Wednesday morning, traveling down with Sue William Silverman and the poet Pablo Peschiera. Sue and I always laugh about the fact that, though we live in a small town with a non-existent "writing community," the only times we ever see each other are at the Post Office or at AWP. Pablo and I walked from Union Station to the Hilton to register, and then went out for lunch. Because sushi is impossible to find in Grand Haven, that's what I went for. I thought the Tamarind (I think that was the name of it) just around the corner from the Hilton, was pretty decent, sushi-wise.

I enjoyed the panels, particularly when it was apparent that the presenters had actually prepared. Too many people seemed to be "winging it" in Chicago. The only disconcerting moment was when an audience member at the panel on writing about illness made a lengthy statement about how the panel was "failing" the audience by not recognizing that people were suffering and...well, uhmmm, ...I am not entirely sure what her point was. I do think the panel moderator handled the situation gracefully.

One of the most interesting presentations I went to––and this surprised me––was the poetry pedagogy forum. I went only because friends Mike Theune and Todd Davis were both presenting papers. If you haven't gone to one of these at the AWP Conference, I strongly encourage you to go. The presentations were great and the format--sitting in a circle of six to eight people and trading ideas--is strangely effective.

On Thursday, I had lunch with the poet and playwright Barbara Lau, a good friend from our Warren Wilson days. I hope to see her again in June when I am in Iowa at the Summer Writing Festival (Barbara lives near Iowa City), and also in Michigan, where there is a good chance one of her plays will soon be staged. On Friday, I had long and wonderful lunch with poets Todd Davis and David Shumate.


I stayed at the Hotel Blake on South Dearborn, which was formerly the Hyatt at Printers' Row. I love the Blake; a tiny––nearly boutique--hotel. The staff is friendly and unobtrusive, they recognize their guests by sight, the rates are decent, the rooms are very nice (though they could use refrigerators) and the neighborhood (kitty-corner from the Harold Washington Library) is quiet. Because I arrived in Chicago exhausted on several counts, I was asleep in my room before 9 each night. I didn't go to any of the evening events, completely missed the Warren Wilson party, and even excused myself from a post-panel dinner because of a crashing post-panel headache.

I sometimes wonder whether it might be possible to hold an occasional non-alcohol-fueled social event at the AWP Conference; perhaps an afternoon tea. For several reasons––some obvious, some not––I completely avoided the party-scene in Chicago. I suppose I am old and boring, but I do the best I can.

I probably should have gone to a meeting.

The Book Fair was large, interesting and confusing––am I the only person who had a difficult time telling the "Southwest Hall" from the "Southeast Hall"? Only occasionally could I find my way back to the appropriate tables after making a mental checklist of what I wanted to purchase. I did, however, manage quite a haul of new books, and will be writing about them here in the near future. I made a special point to look for fellow bloggers, and was very pleased to meet Anne Haines, Christine Hamm, and John Gallaher. I also had a chance to catch up with the amazing Matt Hart (a friend from our Warren Wilson days). I saw the beautiful and elusive Mary Biddinger from a distance (the second installment of Barn Owl Review is fabulous, by the way), said hello to my friends at the University of Arkansas Press, and several fellow Michigan poets, including Philip Sterling, Rob Haight, Kathleen McGookey, Joe Matuzak, Josie Kearns, Christine Rhein, Julie Stotz-Ghosh, and David Dodd Lee. I bought Robert VanderMolen's new book, Water from Michigan State University Press, but somehow missed his signing, which was Friday at 10 a.m., not Friday at noon. My apologies, Robert!

My train didn't leave until late in the afternoon on Sunday, so I went to the Art Institute to see the Edvard Munch show. No, they did not actually have "The Scream," (my guess is that the Norwegians, since getting the painting back, don't want to let it out of the country) but the show did include several of my other Munch favorites. If you like the work of Edvard Munch (what poet doesn't?) the exhibit is worth a special trip to Chicago. Quite by fortunate accident, I had lunch at the Institute with the poet Gail Peck (another Warren Wilson friend); it was a perfect coda to my trip to the AWP.

More later!

LATER:

And our presentation? I thought our panel, Bad Poems by Great Poets: Where They Went Awry, What We Can Learn went very well. We had a capacity crowd (though we were in one of the smaller rooms on the 8th floor of the Hilton) and didn't lose much of our audience during the proceedings. Everyone was articulate and well-prepared, if I say so myself. There were also some good questions and comments after we were finished. I am hoping we can have the same team ( Roy Jacobstein, Laura Kasischke, Margaret Rabb, Robert Thomas and myself) put a proposal together for the Conference next year in Denver. It was also good to see so many friends in the audience, including the poets Karla Huston and Rick Bursky.
_______________________________

The painting is Night in St. Cloud (1890) by Edvard Munch.

Home!

At last.

Just got in.

Countdown

Talk on Larry Levis? Finished.
Handouts? Ready (Thanks, Robert!)
Train Ticket? Purchased.
New Manuscript? In the mail to two places.
Reservations? Confirmed.
Bag? Packed.

Going to AWP in Chicago?

See you there.

Larry Levis and Orson Welles

The numbered sections of the poem may be viewed as independent snow squalls within a larger metaphorical storm, or perhaps more accurately, as blizzard-like meditations that dissolve, in nearly cinematic fashion, in and out of the poem, permitting the discursive meditations of the poet. The device is reminiscent of the opening scene in Citizen Kane, where memory is triggered by decorative bric-a-brac––the swirling snow within a shaken crystal ball, the scene becoming clear only for a moment when the snow settles.

Manifesto for a Shovel-Ready Poetics

After AWP, I may publish a manifesto.


"Polo is My Life" has already been taken.

MEANWHILE, FAR FROM THE DREAMCOASTS...

Between rants, I've finished a rant-free draft of my remarks for our panel at the AWP Conference.

See you all in Chicago, standing in the coffee-and-donuts line.

Okay, Be that Way. I Do Have Other Projects to Work On

Such as:


If our notions of poetic form are arrayed along a continuum of poetic discourse from lyric through to narrative and dramatic structures, the multi-track, extended lyric resides in that line segment where multiple narratives are brought into the poem to expand, enrich, and add texture to the song. The poet who walks this section of the wire must simultaneously and by turns, sing, juggle, swallow swords, exhale flames, and snap a whip at the ferocious lions growling below. The work is dangerous. Every performance has unique challenges. Strategies and structures must be imagined and put into place to allow a successful crossing above the waiting crowd.

Hold Out Your Mittens...Demand Your Flippin' Pie

The Kittens are named Art, Music and Writing.

Their brother, Theater-adore, is still out looking for his mittens.

The Mother Cat looks a lot like Governor Granholm, don't you think?

You Are Not a Real Person...No Pie for You!

The Coburn amendment that passed last night restricts the use of federal funding in the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act from being used by those in the arts. The actual language states:

None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, arts center, or highway beautification project..

Rep Jack Kingston actually said in reference to giving money to the NEA: ”We have real people out of work right now and putting $50 million in the NEA and pretending that’s going to save jobs as opposed to putting $50 million in a road project is disingenuous.” (found on the createequity blog) Did you catch that? Real people. Artists aren’t real people our jobs don’t count.

Oh-Oh, Did Someone Take a Dive?

Did traditional arts advocacy groups in Michigan "take a dive" on Governor Granholm's proposals to cut arts-funding (along with the Department of History, Arts & Libraries), in return for a promise (express or implied) that the Governor would assure funding for the arts in the President's Stimulus Package?

That would explain the silence after the Governor's State of the State message and the (otherwise, inexplicable) endorsement by ArtServe of Michigan of the HAL-elimination proposal.

If so, with Congress about to vote, and arts funding out of the Federal Stimulus package due to the Coburn Amendment, that looks like a very bad bargain on someone's part.

Makes one want to press a wheel of brie directly against one's black eye, doesn't it?

Pass the Chardonnay, Muffy.


_______________________

The painting is Stag at Sharkey's (1909) by George Bellows

...And the Alliance for Arts Education

If the Coburn amendment language is included in the final conference version of this legislation, many arts groups will be prevented from receiving economic recovery funds from any portion of this specific stimulus bill. It is clear that there is still much work to be done in the Senate and in the media about the role that nonprofit arts organizations and artists play in the nation’s economy and workforce.

Culturebot Speaks Up

Are they insane???? Do they have NO IDEA how many jobs could be created by investing in arts and culture? how much impact funding arts & culture could have in terms of education, infrastructure and civic engagement? community-building?

I’m sure they’ll find money for football/baseball stadiums and sports arenas as gifts to their corporate friends.

Go to http://capwiz.com/artsusa/issues/alert/?alertid=12612041
to send a letter to your senator. do it NOW!!! (in NY, Chuck Schumer voted FOR this amendment - meaning he wants to CUT your funding!)

No Pie for You, Either! A Lack of Arts Funding: It's Not Just for Michigan Anymore

And if you are an artist in Michigan (or anywhere else in America), and were looking for help from the Federal Stimulus Package, think again:



Immediate Action Needed to Keep Arts Funding

February 06, 2009—Your action is needed immediately, as $50 million in federal funds for the arts hangs in the balance. The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 is being considered by Congress today, and a growing number of media reports have portrayed the arts funding included in the House version of the bill negatively. Americans for the Arts is calling on all of our members and arts advocates from around the U.S. to take two minutes to send a short letter to the editor to your local media outlet. We've provided the talking points and we just ask you to customize it to your community.

National Endowment for the Arts funds, on average, leverage $7 in additional support through local, state, and private donations, for every one dollar in federal support. Fifty million in economic stimulus will leverage $350 million of investment in the nonprofit arts, which will help prevent 14,422 jobs from being lost.

From ArtServe of Michigan (Saturday, February 7):

As some of you have already heard, yesterday, the US Senate voted to adopt an amendment to the federal stimulus that would bar any stimulus money for arts and culture. Please read the message below from Americans for the Arts as well as our steps of action needed.

Just a few minutes ago, the U.S. Senate voted to accept, by a vote of 73-24, an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) which states, "None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project."

This amendment, which was supposedly intended to restrict objectionable spending in a few select federal infrastructure programs, will resulted in prohibiting any spending through the economic recovery in these areas. This is the first clear vote on the arts that has occured in the U.S. Senate since July 12, 2000. The Senate final bill passage is still unclear, although it is expected to take place later tonight. Next week they will have a House-Senate conference committee to agree to a final version for the President to sign.

If this is not taken out of the final bill the project submissions that were sent to Governor Granholm would be void. Senator Debbie Stabenow voted for this amendment and we need your help to get her to re-think her decision as she could be vital in getting this language taken out while the bill is in conference committee.

NOTE: I just e-mailed Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., MI) on this issue, who (for reasons I do not understand), apparently supported Senator Coburn's amendment. I also e-mailed Senator Carl Levin (D., MI).

If you value the arts, act NOW.

If you want a piece of the pie, you'd better demand it this weekend.

Last Word on the Subject

Look at your wrist bands, people.

"W.W.B.M.D.?"

Forget it Man, Granholm Dropped the Big One...

So I am the only person in the State of Michigan who thinks slashing arts funding and eliminating the Department of History, Arts & Libraries are bad ideas.

You all agree with Governor Granholm that "the arts are not a priority in Michigan"?

Is this the spirit of the UAW?

Is this the spirit of Jimmy Hoffa?

Of Cranbrook and Ox Bow?

Of Iggy Stooge and the Chili Monster, of the Grande Ballroom and the MC5 and "Kick Out the Jams," the spirit of the home state of John Sinclair?

Of Pewabic Pottery and Interlochen?

Of the Stone Circle Poets?

Of Diego Rivera and the murals at the DIA?

Is this the spirit of the workers, weeping, when they first saw the murals? When they realized how Rivera had glorified their labor and their lives?

Is this really the state where they wrote the Port Huron Statement? Where the Students for a Democratic Society was founded?

Is this the spirit of the 73 miners and their wives and children, trampled in the Italian Hall in Calumet because they dared to organize a solidarity dance during the Copper Strike of 1913?*

Where is the old spirit, the good old, "Hey, kids! I know! Let's put on a demonstration!"

Is this the spirit of Kukla, Fran and fucking Ollie?

To quote Marvin Gaye, "What's goin' on?"

What the Hell happened to you people?



___________________________________________

*
1913 MASACRE
by Woody Guthrie

Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.
I'll take you through a door, and up a high stairs.
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
I will let you shake hands with the people you see.
And watch the kids dance round that big Christmas tree.
You ask about work and you ask about pay;
They'll tell you that they make less than a dollar a day,
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.
There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you know it, you're friends with us all
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.
Well, a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights,
To play the piano, so you gotta keep quiet.
To hear all this fun you would not realize
That the copper-boss thug-men are milling outside.


The copper-boss thugs stuck their heads in the door;
One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire!"
A lady, she hollered, "There's no such a thing!
Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing."
A few people rushed, and it was only a few.
"It's only the thugs and the scabs fooling you."
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down;
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.
And then others followed, a hundred or more,
But most everybody remained on the floor.
The gun-thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
While the children were smothered on the stair by the door.
Such a terrible sight I never did see.
We carried our children back up to their tree.
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree.
And the children that died there were seventy-three.
The piano played a slow funeral tune,
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon;
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
"See what your greed for money has done."

Why Won't ArtServe of Michigan Stand Up for Michigan Artists?

Why is ArtServe of Michigan, which bills itself as an advocacy agency on behalf of the arts, supporting the elimination of the Michigan Department of History, Arts & Libraries? Here is their explanation,* which makes no sense to me.

Friends, if you support arts funding, if you are an advocacy agency for artists, if you believe as I do that "arts are a priority" even––especially--in a difficult economy, demand a seat at the table and fight for arts funding.

Put down the brie and Chardonnay. Back slowly away from the Eames chair.

Get back in the fight.

_______________________
* To paraphrase: "Golly, times are tough, and after all, this is what the Governor wants to do. If we don't complain, maybe someone in Lansing will come up with a different way to fund the arts. Pass the brie, Muffy. Be a darling, Biff, and get me another glass of Chardonnay."

O Artists? Writers? Poets? Dancers? Musicians? Historians? Tourism Officials? Librarians? Where Art Thou?

The silence is deafening in Michigan from everyone who should be rising up to question and oppose Governor Jennifer Granholm's poorly thought out proposal to eliminate the Department of History, Arts & Libraries.

No wonder everyone from this state with any real talent R-U-N-N-O-F-T'ed a long time ago.

Pass the biscuits, Governor Pappy.



_______________________________

How best to oppose small minds?

Think smaller; that's our Governor's on-liest answer.

Junior O'Daniel: We could hire our own midget, even shorter than his.

Pappy O'Daniel: Wouldn't we look like a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies, bragging on our own midget, doesn't matter how stumpy.

_____________________________________

A Night at the Symphony in Michigan, circa 2010:*




*Please note, I actually do like Old Time music.

Good News!

Editor Edward Byrne at the Valparaiso Poetry Review accepted two of my poems from the Martin Johnson Heade series. My work will appear in the 20th Anniversary Issue of VPR, due out in the fall of 2009.

I am very excited about this; VPR is a great place.

Larry Levis: A Condition of the Spirit

Romania is perhaps the only country in the world where young women come up to you after you have read your poems, poems which some of them haven't understood a word of, to hand you flowers, bouquets of flowers. As a custom it seemed very sweet, and if some poets consider it insincere and false, because you're even more incomprehensible over there than you are here, I think their reaction is shabby and selfish. What the Romanians respect is poetry, any poetry: whether they've understood it or not, they think it civilized to hand you a bouquet out of respect for the art. There's no such respect in this country: here you are more often thought of as some con-artist guru, or as a clown who isn't terribly funny, or as someone pretentious, someone who doesn't understand that he lives in a democracy, where we are all equal, and therefore all equal in talent and brains. And always, in such a country as ours, the poet, who publishes his work in the naive expectation of being thanked for this gift, is often judged not on the merits of the work, but for his or her life, his or her behavior, judged for his or her morals. For finally, you see, there's no money in poetry, so why is this man or woman doing it? There must be something wrong with him, with her. This is capitalism in concert with that detestable vestigial Calvinism that grows everywhere here. It's depressing. How many people attended Poe's funeral? Whitman was one of the few.

-Larry Levis being interviewed by Robyn Selman, "Roll Call: The Many Lives of Larry Levis," in A Condition of the Spirit: The Life and Work of Larry Levis, Edited by Christopher Buckley and Alexander Long (Eastern Washington University Press, 2004), p. 271

State of the State

Governor Granholm:

There is a profound logical disconnect between congratulating yourself on attracting several thousand new jobs in the film industry to Michigan in the same speech in which you propose to eliminate the Department of History, Arts & Libraries on the grounds that (as your press secretary put it) "The arts are not a priority."

Sharpen your pencil and try to reconnect the dots.

Department of Bad Ideas, Lansing, Michigan

We may be jumping to conclusions here, but for a governor who has championed the strength of the creative class to rebuild our state, cutting the department who is responsible for much of that mission is unthinkable. As our state struggles along, there has been a lot of chatter lately about the fight for arts funding. At times it seems that when we most need it, opportunities for artist growth are dwindling. Part of Michigan’s recovery is through the hands of our state’s artists and preservationists — and we have to wonder: How much more damage would losing HAL do to our state’s artistic and creative future?


NOTE: "HAL" is the Michigan Department of History, Arts & Libraries. Governor Jennifer Granholm is apparently set to announce tonight in her State of the State message that she is eliminating HAL, as a means of balancing Michigan's budget. Her press secretary says, "Right now, arts are not a priority."

The current budget of HAL is approximately $52.2 million. The state's anticipated deficit is approximately $1.6 billion.

At the same time she is announcing the elimination of HAL, Governor Granholm is going to announce the creation of a new film production studio in Pontiac. The total investment in the studio facility will be $54 million. It is estimated that the studio will directly employ 1,500 and indirectly employ 3,500 people. Which government agency was instrumental in bringing this privately-funded project to Michigan? The Michigan Film Office. Where is the Michigan Film Office located? Let's check our handy chart on the organization of Michigan government. Oh...right. It's part of the Michigan Department of History, Arts & Libraries.

UPDATE: I called the Department of History, Arts & Libraries and spoke with Mark Hoffman, the Acting Director of that office. He told me that the Michigan Film Office was moved out of HAL a year ago, when a state tax-credit program for the film industry went into effect. I don't think this seriously affects the point I am trying to make, however.

A Few Minutes with Paul Auster

From an Interview with Joseph Mallia:

...[If} there is one thing we all hate in books, it's losing interest, feeling bored, not caring about the next sentence. In the end, you don't only write the books you need to write, but you write the books you would like to read yourself.

JM: Is there a method to it?

PA: No. The deeper I get into my own work, the less engaging theoretical problems have become. When you look back on the works that have moved you, you find that they have always been written out of some kind of necessity. There's something calling out to you, some human call, that makes you want to listen to the work. In the end, it has probably very little to do with literature.

George Bataille wrote about this in his Le Bleu du Ciel. I refer to it in The Art of Hunger, in a essay on the schizophrenic [Louis] Wolfson. He said that every real book comes from a moment of rage, and then he asked: 'How can we read works that we don't feel compelled to read?' I believe he is absolutely correct: there is always some indefinable something that makes you attend to a writer's work––you can never put your finger on it, but that something is what makes all the difference.

From Paul Auster, The Red Notebook: True Stories, Prefaces and Interviews (Faber & Faber, 1995), pp. 112-113.

Super Bowl Sunday

I'm not saying that it is a sign of things to come, but I heard two cardinals singing this morning–––one near, one far––when I took the dogs out.

Jack Ridl will be so upset if Pittsburgh doesn't win.

I went to the store this morning and got everything we need to make tacos. We are ready for the game, whatever the result.

And, mirabile dictu––it is already 35 degrees out this morning (F). As Liam said, "Spring is walking to our house."