atom robinson

bampls: MayDay Parade By Alex

Sat, 26 May 2012 19:05:03 -0500

MayDay Parade

By Alex

vintageanchor: “What is madness but nobility of soul at odds...

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:03:45 -0500

“What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance.”
—Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke, the 1954 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, was born today in 1908 (he died in 1963).

Photo

Thu, 24 May 2012 21:55:40 -0500

mightyflynn: Bob Dylan reading Baseball Weekly, 2000 photo by...

Thu, 24 May 2012 14:35:28 -0500

mightyflynn:

Bob Dylan reading Baseball Weekly, 2000

photo by Ken Regan

“If girls love diamonds so much, then why do they get so mad when you take them to the ballpark?”

- Bob Dylan

pitchersandpoets: Todd Hebert “Ball with Lights” 2012 at Devin...

Wed, 23 May 2012 22:09:39 -0500

pitchersandpoets:

Todd Hebert “Ball with Lights” 2012 at Devin Borden Gallery.

yeah that’s a painting.

QFT

Wed, 23 May 2012 11:56:03 -0500

QFT

Okay, everyone knows about this song already, right? 2:16 in the...

Wed, 23 May 2012 08:45:00 -0500

Okay, everyone knows about this song already, right? 2:16 in the attached video is Minneapolis. I-94 is a featured character, too. Also, these lines are spectacular:

“I wanna lie in the cracks of this lonely road

I can fill in the blanks for every time you don’t phone

Here is the truth: I swear I used to be fun

Go ahead run…”

Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) produced.

Kathleen Edwards - Change The Sheets (by KathleenEdwardsVEVO)

Apparently, I am deeply amused by British people calling video...

Wed, 23 May 2012 08:34:45 -0500

Apparently, I am deeply amused by British people calling video basketball games ESPN-highlight style. Wait, that sounds lamer than this actually was.

LA Clippers v San Antonio Spurs | NBA Playoffs 2012 Highlights | CPUvCPU (by CPUversusCPU)

vintagesesame: Grover and John John count. I love you, John...

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:22:27 -0500

vintagesesame:

Grover and John John count.

I love you, John John!

"This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several..."

Mon, 21 May 2012 10:19:24 -0500

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”

- Gary Provost (via danceabletragedy)

Odysseus to Telemachus

Mon, 21 May 2012 10:08:31 -0500

My dear Telemachus,
The Trojan War
is over now; I don’t recall who won it.
The Greeks, no doubt, for only they would leave
so many dead so far from their own homeland.
But still, my homeward way has proved too long.
While we were wasting time there, old Poseidon,
it almost seems, stretched and extended space.

I don’t know where I am or what this place
can be. It would appear some filthy island,
with bushes, buildings, and great grunting pigs.
A garden choked with weeds; some queen or other.
Grass and huge stones … Telemachus, my son!
To a wanderer the faces of all islands
resemble one another. And the mind
trips, numbering waves; eyes, sore from sea horizons,
run; and the flesh of water stuffs the ears.
I can’t remember how the war came out;
even how old you are—I can’t remember.

Grow up, then, my Telemachus, grow strong.
Only the gods know if we’ll see each other
again. You’ve long since ceased to be that babe
before whom I reined in the plowing bullocks.
Had it not been for Palamedes’ trick
we two would still be living in one household.
But maybe he was right; away from me
you are quite safe from all Oedipal passions,
and your dreams, my Telemachus, are blameless.

by Joseph Brodsky from poets.org

curiositycounts: A Brief History of John Baldessari, as read by...

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:43:57 -0500

curiositycounts:

A Brief History of John Baldessari, as read by Tom Waits

I love you, Fozzie.

Sat, 19 May 2012 21:03:56 -0500

I love you, Fozzie.

In the Library

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:16:25 -0500

for Octavio

There’s a book called
“A Dictionary of Angels.”
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered

The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.

Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.

She’s very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.

by Charles Simic from poets.org

Nick Hanauer (by WatchExtraVideo) This is the TED Talk video...

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:07:40 -0500

Nick Hanauer (by WatchExtraVideo)

This is the TED Talk video everyone is talking about right now. Listen, it’s not fantastic or anything; they guy’s presentation style is not in the top tier of TED Talks I’ve seen, but his message is interesting, clearly stated, and worth listening to.

Brave people are brave. (via Ex-priests come out against MN...

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:33:36 -0500

Brave people are brave. (via Ex-priests come out against MN marriage amendment | Minnesota Public Radio News)

mightyflynn: Rogers Centre Toronto photo by biancanevee I...

Thu, 17 May 2012 11:01:07 -0500

mightyflynn:

Rogers Centre

Toronto

photo by biancanevee

I spent some of my honeymoon at this ballpark.

Oh, Wisconsin! Let’s get ready for some recalls! (by...

Thu, 17 May 2012 10:58:51 -0500

Oh, Wisconsin! Let’s get ready for some recalls! (by aaronetc)

I’m in love with this song right now.

Bon Iver “Holocene” SNL 2012 (by santiagocond) You...

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:59:24 -0500

Bon Iver “Holocene” SNL 2012 (by santiagocond)

You know what this video made me think of? That every musician I know would love to play on SNL. Every single one of them would see it as an honor and a career highlight. It’d feel good; you watched the show as a kid and on Saturday nights when you weren’t out at the bars, and you saw all kinds of bands playing - ones you thought were cool and ones you thought were dumb and corny. You imagined what it’d feel like to be crowded onto that stage, knowing your Mom is watching back home and your Grandma stayed up late to watch you so she could tell her friends on Sunday afternoon at the Slovenian Hall (I might just be projecting on that one…).

And, watching this, I felt like the guys in the band remembered this for a second. The saxophone player smiles at the end of the performance, his eyes are looking around to make eye contact with another band member as if to say, “hey - we just did that, right?” That’s not a gesture you make when you’ve played a hundred (or even a dozen or even a handful of) shows with the same band. Usually, you finish a song, grab a drink or tune up and get set for the next song. Or you start thinking about the load out or the afterparty or what went wrong with the song or what could go wrong with the next (again, maybe I’m projecting).

That moment, right there, where they just show some happiness, some tiny celebration of having “made it,” made me feel really giddy for them. I’m not a gigantic Bon Iver fan. I like the second album and can’t seem to get deeply into the first, and I can see why some of my friends see Justin Vernon and Co. as pretentious or soft or boring. But live music is beyond the sonic experience of hearing the song. It’s about capturing a moment in both its visceral and external senses - how you feel about it as well as how it’s being projected to the world. This performance sticks with me because the thing they’re projecting (in a tiny sense) of, “hey! We’re playing with this dude from Wisconsin and we’re on the TV on one of the most historically important showcases for live music” is at odds with the soft, dreamy nature of the song and performance, and it’s not rushed or jittery. It just is.

That’s worth noting and praising.

"They want to hear something heroic and poetic, and I tell them that I was just another high school..."

Tue, 15 May 2012 15:13:10 -0500

“They want to hear something heroic and poetic, and I tell them that I was just another high school kid who wrote poems in order to impress girls, but with no other ambition beyond that.”

- Why I Still Write Poetry by Charles Simic | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books