Dumbo Books of Brooklyn

Richard Grayson's "EIGHTIES' END: AUTUMN" Now Available as Trade Paperback or eBook at Amazon Kindle Store

2012-02-02T03:42:00.009-05:00

This week Superstition Mountain Press published Richard Grayson's Eighties' End: Autumn. It is available in a 298-page trade paperback edition for $15.99, as well as an e-book published by Art Pants Company available at the Amazon Kindle store for 99 cents.

The promo stuff says in part,

Richard Grayson has been keeping a daily diary compulsively since the summer of 1969, when he was an 18-year-old agoraphobic about to venture out into the world -- or at least the world around him in Brooklyn.

Earlier, Grayson published the first six volumes of the diaries of his late teens and twenties as THE BROOKLYN DIARIES, featuring SUMMER IN BROOKLYN: 1969-1975; WINTER IN BROOKLYN: 1972-73; SPRING IN BROOKLYN, 1975; AUTUMN IN BROOKLYN, 1978; MORE SUMMERS IN BROOKLYN: 1976-1979; and A YEAR IN ROCKAWAY, 1980.

In EIGHTIES' END: AUTUMN, Grayson alternates his fall diary entries from 1987, 1988 and 1989, when he is variously spending time with other writers, artists and musicians at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire; living on the Upper West Side and serving as a writer-in-residence at the suburban Rockland Center of the Arts under one of the state arts grants he has at the time; with his emotionally troubled grandmother at the beach in Rockaway; and in Florida, training Miami schoolteachers on the use of computers and teaching writing classes at Broward Community College.

Grayson is juggling a massive credit card chassis, putting out two new books of short stories, and embarking on a strict diet to lose forty pounds. He's also getting himself into the newspapers as a social activist, demonstrating on Wall Street against leveraged buyouts and at Florida shopping centers against a Halloween mask denigrating to Arabs.

EIGHTIES' END: AUTUMN is the final volume of THE EIGHTIES DIARIES, whose other books include SOUTH FLORIDA WINTERS, LATE SPRING IN SUNRISE, WEST SIDE SUMMERS, INDIAN SUMMER: PARK SLOPE, and SPRINGTIME IN LAUDERHILL.

(The author, 1988)

The book will also be available on Scribd and Lulu for free online reading.

East Valley Tribune Covers Campaign of Green Party Presidential Candidate Richard Grayson in Arizona Primary

2012-01-23T13:15:00.007-05:00

The East Valley Tribune (Mesa, AZ) has covered the campaign of Green Party presidential candidate Richard Grayson in Arizona's February 28 Green Party presidential preference primary:

Three East Valley residents on presidential preference ballot

Posted: Sunday, January 22, 2012 12:41 pm | Updated: 9:18 am, Mon Jan 23, 2012.

By Garin Groff, Tribune

If Arizona voters aren't convinced Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich or other nationally-known figures are presidential material, there's no shortage of Arizona-grown candidates to consider.

Nearly two dozen obscure candidates will appear on Arizona's Feb. 28 presidential preference ballot, including three East Valley residents.

About half the lesser-known candidates are from out of state, with the rest from across Arizona.

One thing all candidates have in common: They got on the ballot with ease.

All they had to do was fill out a two-page form with the Arizona Secretary of State, swear they met Constitutional requirements for the office and have the paperwork notarized. There was no fee to get on the ballot.

The 23 Republican candidates include Cesar Cisneros of Mesa and Wayne Arnett of Tempe, who join national figures Romney, Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Richard Grayson of Apache Junction is one of six Green Party candidates on Arizona's ballot.

Cisneros spoke earnestly about his bid for commander-in-chief. The trucking company owner and big rig driver said he's talked to thousands of people in numerous states since he began campaigning in 2010.

Cisneros, 62, is a Mormon with a wife and seven adult children who has never run for office. He is disappointed none of the other candidates have called for religion to play a greater role in public life.

"In order for us to prosper as a nation and to really be protected, we need the teachings of almighty God," Cisneros said.

Many of his views are standard for a Republican. He's for a strong national defense, low taxes and the Keystone gas pipeline. However, he wants to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants without felony records. After that, he'd seal the border.

Cisneros has never spoken to a big crowd and has only been able to get to other states because of his trucking job, he said. He's raised a few thousand dollars.

Americans of ordinary means are perhaps more qualified for the White House than wealthy candidates, he said.

"If they have these millions and billions of dollars, believe me, they're out of touch with the American people," he said. "How can they be in touch?"

He isn't included in the CNN Republican debate at the Mesa Arts Center on Feb. 22, but asked that voters call CNN to urge his inclusion. Cisneros said his desire to run comes from the heart but he acknowledges his odds of winning are slim.

"My slogan is: Miracles happen," he said.

Arnett didn't return a phone call left at his Chandler law firm.

Grayson did speak, though he said that "any publicity will probably just lose me votes."

The 60-year-old writer figures this is his fourth time on a ballot in Florida and Arizona since 1982. He first ran for a town council seat in a small Florida community.

"The people were starting to outnumber the horses, and I was mad about that," Grayson said. "My proposal was to give horses the right to vote, and I got 25 percent of the vote."

He ran for the 6th Congressional District in 2010, which is represented by Republican Jeff Flake. The Green Party sued to kick him off the ballot, but he prevailed. Just before election day, Grayson blogged that he didn't care if voters chose him. He added that most voters in the district "are ignorant morons."

Grayson said he doesn't tell people he's running, doesn't campaign and doesn't care if he gets any votes. He figures he'll get a handful of votes.

"Green Party primaries are pretty rare and Arizona, to its credit, has the easiest ballot requirements for presidential primaries," Grayson said. "For someone like me, it was irresistible. I mean, how can you just let it go by?"

Given the potential voice a presidential candidate could use, does Grayson at least have a message?

"No," he said. "I think more people should run. Or maybe Arizona should change its law or change its requirements so you have to be an actual, serious candidate."

Contact writer: (480) 898-6548 or ggroff@evtrib.com

Monday Afternoon in Downtown Mesa: Mesa Martin Luther King Jr. Day Festival at the Mesa Arts Center

2012-01-16T18:23:00.012-05:00

We were in downtown Mesa at the Mesa Arts Center on this cloudy, cool afternoon for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Festival,

a community celebration featuring music, dance, food, retail and organization booths, a youth area for kids and information on job opportunities, health, and outreach programs.

We had a terrific time watching the entertainment, checking out the various booths, and talking to people.

We're old enough to remember the heyday of the civil rights movement. In our teenage years Martin Luther King Jr. was important to us,

so we're grateful we got to spend this Martin Luther King Jr. with everyone in downtown Mesa.

Saturday Afternoon in Downtown Chandler: Chandler Multicultural Festival at the Chandler Public Library Courtyard

2012-01-14T20:04:00.017-05:00

On this beautiful 70-degree afternoon on the Saturday of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, we were in downtown Chandler for the city's 17th annual Multicultural Festival,

part of the Celebration of Unity, to highlight the cultural diversity of the community through music, dance, art, storytelling and more.

We saw great performances by the Chandler Centennial Choir (top, on the Celebration Stage) and the magnetic Ken Koshio and his taiko drummers on the Unity Stage,

where we also got a chance to enjoy the music of Orquesta Kaliente.

A 2012 Arizona Centennial Designated Event, the festival ran today from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the public library courtyard

and featured, in addition to the work performing and visual artists, great food from different cultures, information on sponsors and organizations that promote cultural diversity, along with arts and crafts that represent various cultures.

As it moves into its second century next month, the state of Arizona is more diverse than ever, but the political culture is taking time to catch up with the demographic changes.

These pics were taking at the booth of the Center for Cultural Interchange, which organizes high school exchange, short-term group homestay, intern and trainee, work and travel in the U.S. and study, teaching, work, volunteer, and language programs in over 30 countries around the world.

In addition to the Chandler Centennial Choir (below), other groups that performed on the Celebration Stage included Ballet Folklorico Quetzalli,

the North Indian/Afghan Trio, Cool Hands and Dulcimer Times.

The Telaraña Weavers and Spinners were quite amazing to watch. Here's an account of their day from Jenn at Wind Rose Fiber Studio.

We've been signed up for the emails from PFLAG Phoenix -- originally Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, now updated for more inclusiveness but hard for us oldtimers to remember -- ever since we moved to Arizona the first time in 2000. They are a truly wonderful organization made up of the finest people around.

The LD21 Republicans were just one of the groups represented at the festival. People could also register at another booth from the Maricopa County Recorders office. Did we mention there is a Green Party presidential primary on February 28?

Molly's Tamales seemed to have the biggest lines of all the food stands when we passed by the first time.

There were also people waiting on line for gelato

and frybread, which make a great fusion mashup eating combo.

At the Unity Stage a big crowd, in seats and on the grass, was the audience for an 11 a.m. naturalization ceremony, when about 150 new U.S. citizens were sworn in, and great musical performances. Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay to see the traditional Polynesian and Scottish dances of Tia's Royal Islanders and the Maschino Highland Dancers, but we hope we can catch them another time.

The festival had, as part of the Arizona centennial, these posters with interesting information about the state's counties. During the Iowa caucuses we heard a lot about candidates going to all of that state's 99 counties? How come Arizona, with almost twice as many people, gets by with only 15 counties? (Hint: they're a lot bigger.)

There were also posters about Chandler history for its centennial, like this one about N.J. Harris, one of the city's first African-American residents and business owners.

There were a lot of families at the festival, as well as people of all ages as well as all backgrounds.

We grew up in Brooklyn so we've seen bocce ball played all our lives, but we guess this demonstration enlightened the clueless and those people not lucky enough to have lived in Italian neighborhoods.

At the information pavilion by the gazebo, there were prize-winning artworks by kids, like this one, "Panda Family," by a talented third grader, Grace Cao.

And this mural was painted for Dia de los Muertos at Dr. A.J. Park last November by artists like 3-year-old Alvaro Quintana.

Representatives from the Muslim community, the Asian community and others had tables with information and some goodies. Here is the current Miss Indian Arizona, Jaymee Li Moore, from the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Parker, who's a student at Northern Arizona University.

There was a lot to eat, read, watch and listen to at the Chandler Multicultural Festival

and we're very grateful to everyone who put this event together on the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Tuesday Morning in Downtown Phoenix: Official Drawing for Arizona Presidential Primary Ballot at the Historic Senate Chambers at the State Capitol

2012-01-10T21:01:00.015-05:00

This morning we were again at the Arizona State Capitol

in downtown Phoenix for the official drawing for the Arizona presidential preference primary ballot order

for the Green and Republican parties.

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett presided as candidates or their representatives drew lots

from a historic trophy, given by the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1915 to the USS Arizona in 1915,

and announced the results. We went up first of all the candidates because we were the first Green to file,

and had our campaign manager, Bunny Greenblatt, draw for us.

She handed the paper to Secretary Bennett and he announced that we got ballot position five out of the six candidates in the February 28 primary. We had made sure to wear all Green for luck, but it didn't work.

Neither did evil Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who drew number 17 out of 23 for Texas Governor Rick Perry on the Republican ballot.

Many of the candidates are part of Project White House 2012,

a civic project of the Tucson Weekly newspaper, which has encouraged ordinary people to get on the ballot.

All of Secretary Bennett's staff worked hard to make this a great event and were extremely helpful to everyone.

Secretary Bennett himself, using white gloves, drew for those candidates who weren't there, and one of his staff members, as he said, "played Vanna White" and put up the candidate's name in the proper ballot order. (Bunny and I did it ourselves.)

It was a tense moment as Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin went to draw for Mitt Romney, who got ballot position number 9, which the Speaker hopes was good enough to get him a job as undersecretary of something.

When Sheriff Arpaio went up to draw for Rick Perry,

he apparently noticed Bunny sitting next to me. The next we thing we knew, a deputy asked her for proof that she wasn't in this country illegally.

Actually more annoying to Bunny was news radio station KFYI getting her name wrong:

Arizona's lax requirements to get on the ballot leads to colorful candidates on the ballot. Green Party candidate Richard Grayson brought his stuffed animal, Bunny Green Black, who he claims is his campaign manager to pick his ballot number.

This is presidential candidate Gerard Davis of Phoenix, who was accompanied by his wife Sonya and their child. He is number 6 out of six on the Green Party ballot, but the last shall be first, according to Rick Santorum (whose representative, a really nice man, was wearing a sweater vest just like his candidate).

This is Kip Dean, one of the Republican presidential candidates you've never heard of, perhaps because unlike Romney, Paul, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, Cain and the serious ones, Kip actually knows that we're not in the 1950s anymore and he's not running for leader of Leave It to Beaverland.

Kip wrote this and posted this pic on Facebook:

Favorite part of my day--the rolling of Sheriff Joe's eyes and his comment of "gawd" when he saw Richard Grayson's campaign manager (the bunny hand puppet pictured in the middle of us) pull his ballot spot slip for the Green Party Presidential Primary. My thoughts were different as I thought the bunny puppet was smarter than John Huntsman's campaign staff and Rick Perry's racist jackass slip puller (Joe himself).

These people in the back looked like politicians and seemed out of place.

The press was really interested in why former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China did not make the ballot when all anyone had to do was sign a simple declaration of candidacy and get it notarized. Secretary Bennett said that if Gov. Huntsman was going to challenge his not being on the Arizona ballot, he'd better do it fast because Maricopa County planned to start printing their ballots tonight.

Arizona Green Party co-chair Angel Torres drew for both of the presidential candidates officially recognized by the Green Party of the United States, Jill Stein and Kent Mesplay, and at the end of the drawing took photos of the ballot so the Arizona Green Party will know which of its own candidates it will sue to kick off the ballot this year.

Bunny and I were grateful to everyone at the Secretary of State's office and to all the fine candidates running in the Arizona presidential preference election.

It was wonderful to see American democracy at work, sort of.

Monday Morning in Downtown Phoenix: Stop the War on Women Rally at the Arizona State Capitol

2012-01-09T14:42:00.018-05:00

This morning we were at the State Capitol in Phoenix at the opening session of the Arizona state legislature to join the Stop the War on Women Rally

sponsored by AZ NOW, NARAL Pro-Choice Arizona, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, and Arizona List.

As the call to action said,
In our state legislature, the war on women wages on and the future of women’s health hangs in the balance.

During the 2011 Arizona legislative session, anti-choice legislators passed extreme legislation preventing women and families from accessing care and limiting health care professionals from providing needed services.

In 2012, women have the power to choose which candidates will ultimately determine whether our health care will remain accessible.

Join Arizona List, BPW, Phoenix/Scottsdale NOW, NARAL Pro-Choice Arizona and Planned Parenthood Arizona on Monday, January 9—the opening day of the Arizona Legislature—as women from across Arizona gather at the Capitol

to remind our legislators… women are watching, educating their friends, sharing, taking action, and WE WILL BE VOTING.

This was one of the best demonstrations for women's rights we've seen since August 26, 1970, when as an 18-year-old boy we were at City Hall Park in New York for the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women's suffrage, when we took photos of second-wave feminism's icons like Betty Freidan, Bella Abzug, Elinor Guggenheimer and others before the historic march for women's rights that day.

Someone took a pic of us expressing our devotion to Planned Parenthood, one of our favorite organizations of all time.

We're grateful to the organizations and advocates who made today's Stop the War on Women rally at the Arizona State Capitol such a rousing success.

Saturday Afternoon in Downtown Phoenix: Occupy Phoenix presents Occupy Education Rally for Public Education at Cesar Chavez Plaza

2012-01-07T18:21:00.022-05:00

Late this morning we took the light rail from Mesa to Central and Washington in downtown Phoenix to attend Occupy Phoenix's rally for public education in Arizona, Occupy Education, at Cesar Chavez Plaza.

It was the kickoff for Occupy Phoenix's January “Month of Education,” and as the press release stated,

Together with teachers, parents, and students, we will be
discussing vouchers, merit pay, high-stakes testing, the rising cost of college tuition, and many more important topics.

Are you a parent who has seen cutbacks damage your children’s public school?

Are you a teacher struggling with low pay, large classes, and little support?

Are you a college student buried in debt? Join us on January 7th at noon and speak out!

Let’s send a message to our legislators that our children’s education is not for sale!

A good education is a right, NOT a privilege for just the wealthy few!

Bring your signs and friends of all ages!

Obviously, Cesar Chavez Plaza was not anything close to what we saw at Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park in the fall, but on the other hand, we met people who've been here since the very beginning of Occupy Phoenix and we were impressed with how well everything seemed planned, without the loss of any spontaneity.

We spoke to a number of people who were highly informed, dedicated, energized and passionate about the concerns of the Occupy movement.

The human microphone wasn't really necessary as a bullhorn gave the speakers resonance over the whole plaza.

On the steps of Phoenix's Old City Hall, people from Occupy Phoenix discussed the issues regarding public education, from inadequate state funding and the corporatization of education to the problems of massive student loan debt and attacks on programs like ethnic studies.

The facilitators of the breakout groups announced what they'd be discussing and we met in these groups at various spots in Cesar Chavez Plaza.

We attended a terrific session, "Higher Education Secrets for the 99%," with college students and recent graduates, university and community college faculty and administrators, all providing interesting testimony and ideas about the crisis in higher education.

Chelsea Starr, Ph.D., the facilitator, gave us terrific handouts with charts showing the exponential rise in tuition over recent decades (we attended Brooklyn College for free from 1969 to 1973!), the net college costs as a percentage of median family income for all income quintiles, the sources of undergraduate aid, and more.

Another breakout group was titled "What Happens When Public School Becomes a Business?," in which Megan and Connie Leach, Ed.D., discussed the ways in which taxpayer money is taken from public education to support corporate profit, vouchers and tax credits, class size/student-to-teacher ratio, and other topics.

"What's Money Got to Do With It? How Income Affects Educational Opportunities" had Ana Ramos-Pell, Ed.D., leading a session on the status of the nation's public school system and dealing with questions like "Are schools really failing?" and "Does income affect our public schools and prevent students from attaining the American dream?"

Joya Scott led a breakout session on "Why the Arts Matter in Public Education," discussing the value of arts education in a high-stakes-testing-in-basic-skills system, why recent severe cuts to arts education are harming American children, and what parents and others can do about it.

There was also an open topic discussion breakout group led by Mike Royer.

Unfortunately, we had to get back to Apache Junction before the reconvening of the whole group when session participants read their calls to action and people made closing remarks.

Although we wish we could have stayed longer at Cesar Chavez Plaza, we were really glad we finally got to see Occupy Phoenix in action and look forward to returning for other events.

During the January "Month of Education," special guests will conduct teach-ins about nonviolence, sustainability, and the housing and foreclosure crisis here in the Phoenix metro area, and there will be regular teach-ins focusing on the History of politics and current events.

We're grateful to Occupy Phoenix for giving a voice to the 99% on numerous issues, including those surrounding public education.
You can find a treasure trove of information and livestream at the Occupy Phoenix website.

Tuesday Afternoon in Apache Junction: Richard Grayson interviewed by ABC15 about his Green Party presidential campaign

2011-12-27T21:22:00.006-05:00

Back in Apache Junction, we were interviewed this afternoon by Eric English of ABC15 of Phoenix about our candidacy for the Green Party presidential nomination. We are running in the February 28 Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary.

Saturday Afternoon at the Brooklyn Museum: "HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture"

2011-12-24T17:14:00.005-05:00

We spent several wonderful hours this Christmas Eve afternoon in an uncrowded Brooklyn Museum, taking in HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, nearly intact a year after its controversial mounting at the National Portrait Gallery that got right-wing nuts -- in other words, Republicans in Congress -- all agitated.

The New York Times called HIDE/SEEK "the first major museum exhibition to focus on homosexuality and to trace some of the ways that same-sex desire — and unconventional notions of masculinity and femininity in general — have been manifested in early Modern, Modern and postmodern American art, as evinced primarily in portraiture."

We found it utterly fascinating, even it did focus on the big names, both as artists and subjects, and are grateful to the Brooklyn Museum for bringing it to New York and to the exhibition's organizers, Jonathan D. Katz, an art historian at the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York, and David C. Ward, a historian at the National Portrait Gallery.

After spending a long time at HIDE/SEEK, we wandered around the Brooklyn Museum, which we used to go to starting when we were about four years old in 1955. Our pediatrician until we turned 18, Dr. Jacob L. Stein, had his office on the ground floor of Turner Towers directly across Eastern Parkway, and we often combined a checkup and polio shot with a visit to the museum, which has changed considerably over more than half a century.

On our last day in Brooklyn before we go back to Arizona tomorrow, it was great to visit the Brooklyn Museum, a place we've gone back to many, many times over the decades of our life. We hope to be back when we can.

Early Tuesday Evening in Williamsburg: Chabad's Menorah on the First Night of Chanukah at N. 7th Street and Bedford Avenue

2011-12-20T17:12:00.004-05:00

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah (our old-school preferred spelling) and we caught the Chabad menorah at North 7th Street and Bedford Avenue lit for the holiday. We're heading west in a couple of days. Happy Chanukah!

Richard Grayson's "BROOKLYN, KENT STATE, MAY 1970" Is #1 Best Seller for Children's 20th-Century American History eBooks at Amazon Kindle Store

2011-12-16T07:31:00.007-05:00

Richard Grayson's BROOKLYN, KENT STATE, MAY 1970: Diary of an 18-Year-Old College Freshman is currently the #1 bestseller at the Amazon Kindle Store in the category of Children's Nonfiction Twentieth Century American History eBooks.

BROOKLYN, KENT STATE, MAY 1970 is also currently #3 Kindle ebook bestseller in the category of Childen's eBooks in U.S. History and Historical Fiction and #11 in the category of Biographies and Memoirs of Educators.

Here is the promo material for the ebook, published by Art Pants Company:

In the spring of 1970, college students across the country protested the widening of the Vietnam War after President Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia. On May 4, National Guardsmen, sent to Ohio's Kent State University to quell a student demonstration, opened fire and killed four students and wounded others. In the nationwide firestorm of campus protest that followed, colleges and universities were shut down as angry students brought a halt to the spring semester with strikes and takeovers of buildings.

Brooklyn College in New York City was no exception, and his account of the day-by-day events at the school, acclaimed author and diarist Richard Grayson (The Brooklyn Diaries, With Hitler in New York, Lincoln's Doctor's Dog), then an 18-year-old freshman, gives a young student's perspective to this scary, exhilarating time in American history.

Sunday Afternoon in Chelsea: US Veg Corp presents First Annual Green Holiday Festival at the Altman Building

2011-12-11T16:46:00.013-05:00

On this cold, sunny afternoon we attended the first annual Green Holiday Festival presented by the good folks at US Veg Corp.

We were lucky enough to win a free ticket from our friends at The Skint, the wonderful website and email listing free and cheap events in New York, so we didn't have to pay admission to get into the Altman Building on West 18th Street.

We spent a long time amid a cornucopia of green products, services, food and organizations, with an emphasis on stuff for the holiday season.

We're grateful to The Skint and US Veg Corp for allowing us to spend a couple of hours at the Green Holiday Festival and see various green-minded gift vendors, non-profit information tables, live entertainment, and activities, all in celebration of green living.

Sunday Afternoon in the West Village: Marathon Reading of Frederic Tuten’s "The Adventures of Mao on the Long March" at the Jane Hotel

2011-12-04T17:25:00.014-05:00

Although we have to teach on Sunday, we did get to go to the first ninety minutes of today's marathon reading of Frederic Tuten's postmodern fictional masterpiece The Adventures of Mao on the Long March to celebrate its fortieth anniversary and the seventy-fifth anniversary of New Directions, who published it in 1971.

The marathon was an extraordinary special presentation of The New Inquiry, BOMB Magazine, and ForYourArt, and the place was jam-packed with audience members listening to over sixty well-known readers, each taking a portion of the novel, which we first were entranced by in 1975 or 1976 when we were in the MFA program at Brooklyn College and working for the Fiction Collective.

The Fiction Collective is how we first came to Frederic Tuten's work, through his contribution to its 1975 anthology, Statements: New Fiction. (We had a story in Statements 2 two years later.) Jonathan Baumbach and Peter Spielberg, our teachers in the MFA fiction program and co-directors of the Collective, told us we had to read The Adventures of Mao on the Long March.

We met Fred Tuten at some of the Fiction Collective publication parties in the mid- to late 1970s and were always in awe of him. Teaching at the School of Visual Arts back then (as we still are now), we heard from several of his creative writing students at City College what a terrific creative writing workshop he ran.

And we learned so much from reading The Adventures of Mao on the Long March about the uses of history, appropriation of texts, humor, documentary, pastiche, irony, and that mixture of serious and playful narrative that makes it such an exhilarating read.

It was a pleasure to hear it read today by such great artists, editors and writers as Deborah Eisenberg, Laurie Anderson, Walter Mosley, Wallace Shawn, Grace Schulman, A.M. Homes, Paul La Farge, Ross Bleckner, Barbara Epler, and others.

Among the later readers would be Linsey Abrams, Dawn Raffel, John Haskell, Philip Lopate, Amy Hempel, Ernesto Quiñonez, Oscar Hijuelos, Lynne Tillman, Richard Howard,

Francine du Plessix Gray, Jerome Charyn, Edmund White, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Brad Gooch, Patricia Marx, Cecily Brown and Wayne Koestenbaum.

Our cellphone takes horrible pics indoors, but we're sure there will be lots of good photos of this event as well as better, more detailed accounts by smarter, cooler people (update: see a professional's work at Philip Turner's post at The Great Gray Bridge) but we're grateful to the folks at The New Inquiry, BOMB Magazine and ForYourArt for making today's marathon reading a reality. Most of all we're grateful for Frederic Tuten, who spoke charmingly at the start of the reading, talking about being a 15-year-old in the Bronx who dreamed of the world of Manhattan intellectuals, artists and writers, who began submitting to New Directions even at that age.

We can say for sure that Mao on the Long March and Frederic Tuten's other innovative books were inspiring to an outer-borough kid in his twenties who wanted to be a writer many years ago. Now, at sixty, we were happy to stand on a crowded staircase and squint at the author and his readers and listen to the magic of a book we first loved a long time ago.

Saturday Afternoon in Williamsburg: The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church

2011-12-03T18:36:00.007-05:00

Late this afternoon when we got home from teaching at the wonderful Borough of Manhattan Community College, we strolled over to the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel for the 2011 Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival,

where we had a terrific time among the cornucopia of great art and brilliant ideas committed to print in all its myriad forms.

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is an annual curated event organized by Desert Island, PictureBox and Bill Kartalopolous. It consists of three parts: artists and publishers displaying and selling publications; a gallery of original art; lectures and conversations on comics.

We just had time -- and not enough, really -- to see the exhibitors on two floors of the church.

Wow, there were so many!

Sunday Morning in Hunters Point: Breakfast at Gantry Plaza State Park

2011-11-27T12:09:00.007-05:00

On this gloriously warm and sunny Sunday morning of the long Thanksgiving weekend, we took the G train to its terminus at Court Square, where we could now make an indoor Metrocard-free transfer

to the 7 train two stops to Jackson-Vernon Avenues just before it entered Manhattan and walked to the gorgeous Gantry Plaza State Park

with the Sunday Times and our bagel and iced tea from Dunkin' Donuts on Vernon to sit and enjoy the view of the United Nations and the buildings around it from a bench on the park's Pier 1

just west of the giant towers of Queens West.

Walking back to the subway, we spotted this tree with fiery red leaves at one of the Queens West playgrounds.

It really is a pleasure to be able to transfer from the 7 train

to the faithful G train heading back to Brooklyn. And we like the escalator view of Long Island City's Citicorp Tower, the only skyscraper we can see from our bedroom window as we wake up or go to sleep.

The Gantries are not an iconic view of Manhattan like the Brooklyn Heights Promenade but they are just as beautiful.

It was a great morning to be alive in Long Island City.

Friday Afternoon in SoHo: Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir and Picture the Homeless Occupy Bank of America to Protest Foreclosure Policies

2011-11-25T15:17:00.019-05:00

Early this afternoon -- Black Friday to some, Buy Nothing Day to others -- we joined with the New York City community groups Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir and Picture the Homeless for a protest action at the Bank of America branch at the corner of Houston and Lafayette Streets.

On this day when so many around us were shopping, we occupied the bank in the heart of chic, fashionable SoHo (okay, technically just over the border of NoHo) to sing and pray and have a dinner, courtesy of the kitchen of Occupy Wall Street, in honor of Kendall Jackman,

who just two years ago was living an ordinary life renting a brownstone in Brooklyn but who today is homeless,

the victim of one of millions of home foreclosures across the country.

We walked over from our organizing point at the corner of Crosby and Jersey Street, across from the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, around 1 p.m. with chairs, a table, dishware, silverware, the delicious dinners, and two nice paintings donated by the late Kurt Vonnegut and Reverend Billy Talen to make Kendall feel at home in the bank which foreclosed on her landlord and forced her to leave the still-unoccupied building that BofA foreclosed upon.

For us, the most moving part of the creative protest was when Reverend Billy & The Choir sang their beautiful song "We are the 99%" (as we gather together)"

The occupation of the bank lasted about twenty minutes after we entered and set everything up.

Apparently at least one police car drove by and looked in and decided just to move on. Beforehand, Reverend Billy said this was not going to be "an arrest situation," and with no cops around or interested in interfering, it didn't turn out to be.

We were incredibly impressed with the efficient planning that went into this action, which itself reminded us of the "zaps" of the Gay Activist Alliance of the 1970s and ACT-UP in the 1980s and some of the more imaginative Vietnam war protest we were involved in.

Savitri D and the other members of the group are extremely competent and amazingly savvy.

People were assigned individual tasks, and they seemed incredibly determined and dedicated.

The group had its own media people, and someone from WNYC covered the event.

Everything seemed to move with the proficiency of some kind of Navy SEALS covert action as the group moved from Crosby Street

with all the food, furniture and props.

Like us in Arizona, Bill Talen ran for political office as a candidate of the Green Party. He won about 8900 votes for Mayor of New York City in 2009.

The takeover of the Bank of America branch made a serious point about the need for financial institutions to take responsibility for their role in creating the crisis of the past few years and the continuing vast inequalities that have spurred the Occupy movement.

It was nice to see Reverend Billy's own father, above, at the event. We're very grateful to everyone who made it possible, and we know they'll keep fighting the good fight.

Early Thanksgiving Morning in Downtown Brooklyn: Breakfast on the Fulton Street Mall and ESPO's "Love Letter to Brooklyn" at Old Macy's Parking Garage

2011-11-24T12:32:00.025-05:00

Up at 4 a.m., we left the house early, taking the G train to Fulton Street at Lafayette, getting a muffin and iced tea at Connecticut Muffin, and taking a leisurely Thanksgiving morning stroll down the Fulton Street Mall, which has so many memories for us, as ESPO's (Steve Powers') "Love Letter to Brooklyn" on the vintage Macy's (A&S) parking garage reminded us.

We're going back to Arizona in a month, but we'll long remember our trips from Williamsburg to Fowler Square. We call this side of Flatbush Avenue Fort Greene, but neighborhood boundaries are so indistinct.

A liquor store was decorated for the holidays with Santa and Snoopy.

Brooklyn Tech and its radio tower.

People were working out at Crunch even early on Thanksgiving morning.

You can't beat St. Felix Street.

BRIC's Media Center is getting a new house soon.

We've taken pics of this ghost sign before but we can't resist: parking for a quarter!

Duane Reades are everywhere. And they're owned by Walgreens.

Long Island University was the first college we taught at, from March 1975 (English 11, freshman comp) until August 1978 (English 22, we think, in that summer session: The Novel).

There were about ten courses in between those. The view looking north up Flatbush Avenue Extension to the Manhattan Bridge didn't have those luxury housing skyscrapers till recently.

Looking south on Flatbush from DeKalb, the Williamsburg Savings Bank building (One Hanson Place) is still there. Until our friend Linda visited from Los Angeles last month, we didn't know anyone had ever called it "the penis building" as she said she and her friends had. (She worked across the street teaching swimming at the YWCA when we were in college. We briefly worked there at Midtown Florist.)

We started eating alone at the counter of Junior's back in the 1960s before we could drive. We remember one happy Saturday afternoon when we ate there after seeing The Graduate at the Albee Theater up the block.

We were carnivores till the 1980s, and possibly the burgers still had the same letters. We swear we used to order the "E." One Southern waitress called everyone "dollin'" and we had a special unspoken arrangement with a young African American waiter, George: we'd overtip him and he'd underbill us.

Sometime in the late 1970s, we interviewed the Rosen brothers, owners of Junior's, for some Brooklyn newspaper that our friend April Koral was the editor of. (She and her husband Carl Glassman publish the great Tribeca Trib.) The Rosens weren't very friendly even though it was basically a puff piece to publicize their restaurant. Maybe they figured they didn't need the publicity -- and they were right.

So it's hard for us to remember it's called "the Fulton Mall." We always said "Fulton Street" and in our family, "Fulton Street" meant only the stretch that is now the Fulton Mall: the place where people shopped and we had our first retail job.

Speaking of retail, on the upper right quadrant of that pic, there's an ancient sign on the building for the old J.W. Mays department store, which closed in December 1988, while we were up from Florida living in Manhattan and working under a New York State Council on the Arts grant as writer-in-residence at the Rockland Center for the Arts. Our pic is blurry, but maybe you can make it out vaguely.

The Albee Square Mall replaced the Albee Theater, but it didn't last long, at least from this alter kocker's POV, just long enough to be remembered in the legendary rapper Biz Markie's "Home, Sweet Home." Some giant development called City Point is coming to the site.

It's heartening to those of us who remember the low point of downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s to see these shiny new towers going up.

"All I need is you . . . and new shoes." And a luxury highrise in back.

We hope gentrification doesn't make places like Sneaker Point run away.

The Fulton Mall Christmas tree is up! And Christmas music started being piped in yesterday!

As a little kid, we were impressed with the majestic interior of the old Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn (later Dime Savings Bank of New York, later Washington Mutual, now Chase). We miss our passbook savings account and our Christmas Club account.

Although a couple of stores were open, the Fulton Mall was mostly deserted so early.

It made seeing ESPO's "Love Letter to Brooklyn" that much better not to have crowds around.

We, too, grew up in Brooklyn's arms.

Life is a fight for life.

We copped futures here, too.

ESPO's "Love Letter to Brooklyn" seems outstanding to us, a great work we're grateful we finally got to see. Steve Powers is a brilliant artist even if he's from Philly.

We continued on Fulton Mall, past Hoyt

further down Memory Lane.

I won't go to Macy's anymore, more, more
There's a big fat policeman at the door, door, door
He'll squeeze you like a lemon
A kalatchgezollenemon
No, I won't go to Macy's anymore

Back in the day, the Brooklyn Macy's was at Flatbush Avenue south of Church in Flatbush, and starting in 1970, a few blocks from our house at the Kings Plaza mall (a real indoor mall). Abraham & Straus -- A&S -- on Fulton Street seemed classier and less middlebrow. But of course now so many great department stores we loved -- the astonishing Marshall Field in Chicago, the great Burdines in Miami, Strawbridge's in Philadelphia -- are just Macy's, with maybe a plaque like this as a reminder.

On Fulton Street, we miss Mays, E.J. Korvette, and . . . oh, baby boomers are so annoying.

We took this pic in the early '70s while driving on Fulton Street on a Sunday, when the stores were closed. Our uncle Matt Sarrett's Slack Bar, which sold pants (including those manufactured by our father and grandfather Nat Ginsberg at Art Pants). We worked in the store with our grandfather Herb Sarrett, Carlos, Joe Ford and Marty starting in the summer of 1965, when we turned 14. (We wrote about it in The Boy Who Could Draw Dr. King).

Today the two little stores are combined into a store that sells something we couldn't imagine in 1965. Or 1975. Maybe in 1985, when we were taking grad classes in computer education at Florida International University?

Hey, back in the 1960s, credit cards like BankAmericard and Master Charge seemed like the latest thing.

We kept walking west, past the construction by what was Loew's Metropolitan, where we went to movies as a kid and in our early twenties,

checking out the side streets where cars can drive and park,

wondering if Fulton Mall can really be a pedestrian mall with so many buses.

Our fingers were cold from taking pics with our crappy dumbphone.

Finally we got to Jay Street. Further north, we taught briefly at New York City Community College, now City Tech, and went to our psychologist, Dr. Robert Wolk, whose apartment and office was in Concord Village the other side of Tillary Street. You don't want to hear about how we used to put our car in the parking lot across from where the Myrtle Avenue el ended, do you? (It's MetroTech now.)

Everything is different but still the same. We're always thankful we grew up in Brooklyn in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and we're grateful we got a chance to come back for the past five and a half years.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Early Sunday Morning in the Financial District: Few Remnants of Occupy Wall Street Left in Zuccotti Park

2011-11-20T08:31:00.004-05:00

At 7:30 a.m. on a bright, sunny Sunday morning, few Occupy Wall Street protesters were left at a heavily guarded, heavily fortified Zuccotti Park. If bank regulations had been policed as heavily as this place, we might have been spared the financial crisis which wrecked the U.S. economy.

Thursday Afternoon in Union Square: Occupy Wall Street November 17th Day of Action Student Rally

2011-11-17T16:23:00.009-05:00

At 3 p.m. today we were out in the cold at Union Square, at the Occupy Wall Street's Day of Action student protest rally, which included many non-student supporters as well. (Above is a view we took from the Barnes & Noble fourth floor window when we went into the store to use the restroom.)

Thursday Morning on the Upper East Side: Student Strike at Hunter College

2011-11-17T14:02:00.003-05:00

Arriving on the Hunter College campus for our 11:10 a.m. class in American literature after our crosstown bus ride from Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus, where we'd taught composition starting at 8:30 a.m., we saw a group of Hunter students outside on strike.

Today's CUNY-wide student student activities were protesting budget cuts and tuition hikes and part of the Occupy Wall Street's November 17th Day of Action.

Our faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress, will be at Foley Square at 5 p.m. and asked members to "march with us to demand full funding of CUNY, a renewal of the NYS millionaires’ tax and an end to policies that that have enriched the 1% and impoverished the 99%."

Thursday Afternoon in the Financial District: "I Would Prefer Not to: A Marathon Reading of 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'" at The Atrium at 60 Wall Street

2011-11-10T18:04:00.025-05:00

This afternoon we had the privilege of attending "I Would Prefer Not To," a marathon reading of Herman Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener at the Atrium at 60 Wall Street.

Organized by Justin Taylor, whose The Gospel of Anarchy was one of the best new novels we've read this year,

along with the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe and McNally Jackson Books, and supported by People’s Library at Occupy Wall Street and to Melville House, publisher of the Art of the Novella edition of Bartleby, the Scrivener, this terrific event featured about two dozen acclaimed writers and editors taking turns reading the entirety of what Melville called "A Story of Wall Street."

We've read the story more than a dozen times, taught it half a dozen times (and will be teaching it again in our American Literature to 1865 class at Hunter College in a few weeks), seen several dramatic versions, and heard a fascinating lecture on "Bartleby" by novelist Stanley Elkin at the 1977 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, but listening to it read in one sitting, in the neighborhood of its setting, was a powerfully moving experience.

Among the readers were: Nitsuh Abebe, New York magazine; Jami Attenberg, The Melting Season; Polly Bresnick, Pony & Midge;

Amanda Bullock, Housing Works blogger; Ryan Chapman, Farrar Straus Giroux; Joshua Cohen, A Heaven of Others;

Robert Colorafi; Allison Devers, Writers’ Houses; Stephen Elliott, The Adderall Diaries;

Rachel Fershleiser, Bookish; Molly Fischer, journalist; David Goodwillie, American Subversive; Michele Hardesty, People’s Library at Occupy Wall Street;

Michelle Legro, editor, Lapham’s Quarterly; Sam MacLaughlin, McNally Jackson Books; Maureen Miller, editor, Rap Genius; Maud Newton, When the Flock Changed;

Tom Roberge, New Directions; Sarah Sarai;

Erich Strom; Brendan Sullivan, Text, Drugs, & Rock ‘N’ Roll; Adam Wilson, Flatscreen;

James Yeh, editor, Gigantic; and Daniel Zilio.

Starting off with David Goodwillie, who's a terrific reader (we saw him at powerHouse Arena a couple of years ago) and Maud Newton, the readers could all be heard clearly even without a mic, through the story of Bartleby as told by the narrator, Melville's brilliant creation of a middle-aged, cautious, "unambitious lawyer" and bureaucrat, whom Stanley Elkin told us "probably never split a Republican ticket in his life."

Someone called this "the nerdiest protest ever."

Adam Wilson's segment of the story contained the first time Bartleby says "I prefer not to," but James Yeh, much later, got the comedy gold part in which all the members of the narrator's law office unconsciously start using versions of the word "prefer," much to their own amazement.

When Bartleby says, "I am occupied," people naturally laughed, and every mention of the O word got noticed, especially when the narrator says, "I endeavored also immediately to occupy myself. . ."

The best coverage of this protest comes from Molly McArdle, a wonderful writer, in Library Journal. She wrote, in part:

Less a production of or from Zuccotti Park, the gathering was an expression of solidarity with the protesters by a community of young, savvy, lit-oriented folks. (The event has been tumbled & tweeted vociferously and iPhones were a-flash as the reading commenced.)

It occupied a small corner of the large, faux-tropical atrium at 60 Wall Street—a room out of a Keaton-era Batman movie. For all of the space’s scale, it was terribly echo-y, and the readers’ voices were often overwhelmed by late lunch-hourers, chess players, backgammoners, groups of Occupiers in their own meetings. Where was the People’s Mike?

Still, many people had their own varied editions of Melville in hand and we tried to follow along. A police officer stood to the side, disinterested, and observed the proceedings. Snippets of dialog from a smaller Facilitation group directly behind us floated up and above the story. (I heard an impassioned “he screwed the pooch!” and a dark “then the GA turned on him…”)

On the other side of the reading, two ratty young men in unwashed-stiff black jeans and black hoodies pulled out a banjo and harmonica and played old-time folk music. As the story stretched on and the audience thinned, Occupiers themselves filtered through us, harvesting chairs for their groups.

The audience cheered on Bartleby’s first “I would prefer not to” and we all murmured when Stephen Elliot-as-narrator asserted, “Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.”

Savarese calls Bartleby the “ultimate disillusioned egalitarian” and Taylor claims he “starts out as a functioning part of the system he comes to oppose. His is not an outsider’s but an insider’s critique.” But for all of Bartleby as ur-Occupier, what has always struck me about the story is the character’s profound aloneness.

One could, and I’m sure many have, read the absence of Bartleby’s relatives or friends as the scrivener’s rejection of the hegemonic, rigidly classist structure of a family and connections—the stuff of which so many 19th century novels were made—Bartleby’s solitude as protest of all things nuclear and patriarchal. But it’s strange to do so in light of yesterday’s reading and this year’s Occupy movement, which is all about solidarity and community, the creation of new societal structures. I suspect, should Bartleby be set down in present-day Zuccotti Park, he would still “prefer to be left alone.”

Bartleby does not tell his own story; Melville’s narrator is a man who today would be in the one percent—a Wall Street lawyer. His reactions to Bartleby’s preferences veer dramatically, even comically, from resentment to pity, anger, powerlessness. Most effecting, I think, is his fear that his employee’s actions are somehow tainting him, that Bartleby’s very language is infecting the minds of all who surround him . . .

Bartleby’s protest (if we are to see it as such) is communicable, contagious. This ultimately is where Occupy Wall Street and the scrivener’s efforts best mesh. While the Occupy movement has avoided naming specific goals, and Bartleby speaks more about what he would rather not do than do, both have changed the conversation and indeed the very language we use to participate in it . . .

If you can read all of Molly McArdle's commentary here.

"Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!"

As a rather elderly lawyer ourselves, we're grateful we got to attend "I Would Prefer Not To."

Thanks to Justin Taylor, McNally Jackson, Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, and everyone else who worked so hard to make this a meaningful event.

Tuesday Evening in Chelsea: Denise Duhamel and Amy Lemmon reading at Barnes and Noble at Fashion Institute of Technology

2011-11-08T22:55:00.012-05:00

Early this evening we went over to the fabulous Fashion Institute of Technology's Barnes and Noble college bookstore to see two of our favorite poets, Denise Duhamel and Amy Lemmon, read from their collaborative books, ABBA: The Poems and the just-published Enjoy Hot or Iced: Poems in Conversation and a Conversation.

Denise Duhamel is an old friend, and we were glad to see her photo in the New York Times on Saturday although the story of her reading at Horace Mann with another old friend from Miami, Maureen Seaton, was a little discomfiting. It was great to see her in person again as well as hear her read. We've enjoyed Denise's poetry since the 1980s although we didn't meet her until November 1993, when we did a reading together, along with others, for the anthology Mondo Barbie (coincidentally, it got a nice writeup by Dave Housley at The Lit Pub just this past weekend) at the Miami Book Fair International. And it was great to see her with Amy Lemmon, whom we've had the pleasure of knowing since she hired us to teach business writing at FIT in the fall of 2006.

Their joint reading from their collaborative books was a terrific hour of poetry, probably the best reading we've gone to this year. It had an intimate feel, and the poets -- as they do in their texts -- play off one another expertly. Denise has done a great deal of collaborative work, and both the playful ABBA poems and the somewhat more elegant Enjoy Hot or Iced (beautifully designed by the publisher) gave us, and the others in the audience, a great deal of excitement and fun.

Take this collaboration, "Ex Post Facto":

"Remember me?" the subject line. My college beau
was now HUGGYBEAR3@yahoo.com and a VIP at Sysco.
He'd worn tie-dye and Birks on our first tryst. "Oh
you're in a sorority?" he'd said. I'd just made a pledge, though

I couldn't afford the dues. "Um, I joined Chi-O,"
I lied. "It's not Greek at all. We sit around and discuss Tao
and the benefits of soy." "Cool," he said. "Let's go
figure out our charts." I was a Gemini. He was a Leo.

Back at his place, he put on Elvis Costello,
lit vanilla candles, and unwrapped his Tarot
deck and ceramic bong. "In a past life, I was a Pharoah,"
I said, showing him my spread: a sword, a wand, and a fellow

with cups, dead ringer for Benny from ABBA. "Bingo!"
he teased until I became defensive. "Hey, I belong to the AFL-CIO
and NOW." "Not bad for a girl from Ohio,"
he whispered. He was from Miami, land of flamingo-

colored hotels and retirees in low-slung Speedos.
His kisses were sweet, a mixture of grass and Gallo.
In the mornings, we would eat marshmallow
clovers and hearts, Lucky Charms inciting our libidos

and sending us back to the lumpy futon. "Presto!"
I'd say, waving the sheets, beginning my strip show
to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." Crypto-
karaoke was at the core of our love-manifesto,

"You Spin Me Round" by Dead or Alive. Ergo,
I traded in my shit-kickers for lime green stilettos
and my Tom Robbins novels for Brecht librettos.
Would he recognize me now? My clothes hamper so

clogged with black, my closet full of faux
Fendi and knock-off Manolo Blahniks? Apropos
or no, humming Schubert's allegro ma non troppo,
I typed "Refresh my memory!" and sipped Bordeaux.

Here's Amy's title poem from Enjoy Hot or Iced:

You’ve brewed this stuff, now drink it—
these dreggy-dregs, this filter-silt,
the tiny bits that cling to tongue.
You always liked it strong and now
you’ve got it at its darkest, split
us at the core to brew a full bold flavor,
so each must shoulder/bear the double-weight
of everything except the other’s body.
I hope you have your fun and drink it, too,
iced now as much as it was hot. I don’t. I didn’t
order it this way. I wanted café au lait,
and when the waiter brought it and I asked for water,
he said flat “No” and mugged—a joke, I thought,
but sure enough, he never brought a glass, left me
to fend with froth and squeeze a dollar tip. He thought
he was funny. You think you’re kind, you think
you’re sensible, you think you’re something
I can’t quite imagine. What of the Monet’s
lily-pads of mold on Earl Grey cooling in the jar?
The brown scrub-nulling scum that clings
to the worn Picasso mug? The ghosts of shattered crockery,
the cartoon souls of slain French press carafes?
Yours, yours, mine, ours. It’s a tossup,
so you clay-pigeon it again and pull! Shoot! A hit!
My heart, I mean, that flat and battered thing
you had and lately thought so little of.

And Denise's "Boxed Set Sestina":

I hid my hopes in a cigar box on Christmas, but you gave them away on Boxing Day (in Canada). I clipped box tops for coupons while you gobbled an expensive Bento box lunch. You were a noshow as I waited in line at the box office in the satin pillbox hat I bought at the thrift shop. I collected hatboxes while you flew your box kite wearing only your boxers. Our lovemaking once wore out the box springs, but now you said you felt boxed in. I slumped in the last row while you glowed with someone else in our box seats. You slept in first class while I shivered in the boxcar. I never got your love letter because you forgot to put it in the mailbox. I felt so neglected I ate fistfuls of croutons right from the box in my boxy, unflattering housedress. My shadow box was filled with ceramic figurines of you. Your toolbox was as empty as our icebox. I stayed home, blaring my boom box, while you drank at the bar, wasting quarters on a dusty jukebox. You told me to get off my soapbox. Were our problems bigger than a breadbox? Yes! Especially when I caught you peeing in the sandbox or dipping into the cashbox while you thought I wasn’t looking. It’s true I was a chatterbox, but you can’t deny you put your affection in a lockbox while you played with your vintage Matchbox cars. It was up to me to open the fuse box and fix the problem—up to me to take kickboxing to defend myself. I thought outside the box when I played your favorite song, Daddy Cool’s “Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box,” on my squeezebox. I was hoping to win you back after our most vicious boxing match—thirtynine rounds of screaming that made the German boxer nextdoor growl. It had all started when your word “boxwallah” wasn’t in the Scrabble dictionary; then I won with “carboxyl.” You snatched up your ebony snuffbox while I tore the boxberries from our flowerbox. I stuffed a shoebox with regret. You packed up your Hot Wheels lunchbox and left.

After the reading, the poets signed our books. We're really grateful for the work of Amy Lemmon and Denise Duhamel, and even more grateful to have them as friends.

Thursday Morning on the Upper West Side: Peter Woytuk's "Falling Apples" at Dante Park

2011-11-03T20:08:00.009-04:00

It's a busy fall semester for us, teaching seven classes six days a week at four colleges. Today, for example, we teach a composition class at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m. and then have to get to Hunter College to teach American literature from 11:10 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. (and we later today substituted for a Baruch College professor, teaching some of our favorite Yeats poems from 5:50 to 7:05 p.m.) -- but we stopped in mid-morning on our way to the M66 bus on its crosstown crawl from Broadway through Central Park to the East Side to admire Peter Woytuk's bronze "Falling Apples" at the north apex of the Dante Park triangle.

This is one of many of Peter Woytuk's terrific sculptures being presented by the Broadway Mall Association between Columbus Circle and Harlem.

Early Friday Evening in Williamsburg: Harvest Festival at P.S. 132 The Conselyea School

2011-10-28T19:24:00.001-04:00

With Halloween just around the corner, we walked down Conselyea Street to the corner of Manhattan Avenue for the annual P.S. 132 Harvest Festival.

Our wonderful neighborhood elementary school featured festive decor, good food, lots of activities, costumed children (and parents), and lots of fun among the boos and ghouls.

Pumpkins and ghosts were a major motif.

There was face painting, of course, for those Williamsburg kids too young to get tattoos.

We patiently waited on line to get in to the school.

A skeleton greeted us as we walked in the building. (That used to happen to us every day at P.S. 203 back in the 1950s!)

We saw spiders but not Spidey.

And we saw lots of people, young and not so young, enjoying themselves on this very chilly late October evening -- with possible snow (yikes!) tomorrow.

You could get as many $1 tickets as you wanted, good for admission, food,

various activities, and the haunted house on the third floor, which we were too scared to visit.

Although we had to leave early to have dinner with some neighbors,

we're very grateful we got to attend this evening's Harvest Festival at P.S. 132.

Thanks to everyone who must have worked really hard to make it a success.

Friday Morning in Cobble Hill: Track Inspection Car at Bergen Street F/G Subway Station

2011-10-28T15:36:00.003-04:00

We've been riding the subways for more than a half a century, but not until this morning did we ever see a track inspection car, which stopped at the Bergen Street subway stop around 9:45 a.m. as if it were some futuristic, scary new F or G train.

Friday Afternoon in Williamsburg: Distiller Promo CMJ Marathon Day Party at The Knitting Factory

2011-10-21T17:55:00.014-04:00

Around 3:45 p.m., we went over to The Knitting Factory for the second Distiller Promo CMJ Marathon Day Party.

Running from noon to around 6 p.m., the party had a lineup of eight bands. We got to see two great sets, starting with The R's from Brsscia, Italy, consisting of Pierluigi Ballarin (vocals, guitar), Gaetano Polignano (drums), and lead Pietro Paletti (bass, vocals).

Formerly The Records, they made their U.S. debut this spring here in the city and at SXSW and their new album is De Fauna Et Flora, which Indie Eye called "Un microcosmo raccontato in 13 storie di ordinaria follia, sia questa espressa dalla quotidianità della city o dall'accidia del vivere casalingo" (roughly: "13 stories told in a microcosm of ordinary madness, expressed in the everyday urban life of mundane sloth.")

The R's were a lot of fun: poppy, fizzy, a little wild and more than slightly off-kilter, making us smile with their songs about hipster disappointments and "juicy girls." Of the tracks from the new album, we especially liked "I Love My Family."

Next up was the estimable WATERS, the new project of Van Pierszalowski, formerly of Port O'Brien, whose debut record Out in the Light (TBD) is just out. Stereogum said "the material retains Van’s knack for scruffy and rambunctious, catchy melodies, but here with a high-gain college radio guitar and just one loud, rousing voice."

A month ago, WATERS' song "O Holy Break of Day" was Song of the Day on NPR, and it was great to hear it live. Will Butler called it "one of the slow-burners, simultaneously reveling in second chances and throwing caution to the wind. The song ends in a deluge of distortion, a downpour that can't help but sound like a fresh new start." That "deluge of distortion" was an incredible denouement and made us feel uncharacteristically optimistic on a gray and gloomy afternoon.

Spunk called WATERS' music "a mix of fuzzy, pealing guitars and crashing drums, and easy, alternately soaring and languid, indelible melodies." Our favorite song from their set today was "Mickey Mantle," whose tone of nostalgic wistfulness eventually gets eclipsed by a a kind of optimistic resignation.

There were about forty to fifty people in the back room at this all ages (16+) event, and they raffled off some prizes like Audible7 headphones and T-shirts from the skateboard magazine Thrasher. People won some of this stuff playing Indie Band Trivia answering questions like "What was the second Broken Social Scene album?" (asked after no one could name the first one) or what year REM's first album appeared (1983).

We're grateful to Distiller Promo and its co-sponsor of the event, Audible Treats, a Brooklyn-based entertainment marketing and publicity firm specializing in print and online media coverage. And we're sorry we couldn't be there for the whole party and see other bands: Yellow Ostrich, PUJOL, Lightouts, Radiation City, FIDLAR, and Superhuman Happiness. On our walk back home, we saw a beautiful new mural being finished on Union Avenue.

Friday Morning in Prospect Heights: Fall at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

2011-10-21T17:49:00.008-04:00

After ten days straight of work, we had one day off today before another six days in a row teaching, and on this chilly, overcast morning, we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to experience autumn -- and, in the conservatory, the desert and the tropics.

We are always grateful for the quiet beauty of the place.

Friday Morning in the Financial District: Marching with #Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-14T10:39:00.008-04:00

At 7:20 a.m., we came out of the 5 train at Wall Street to join the march of Occupy Wall Street protestors through the Financial District. An hour earlier, the city postponed the cleanup of Zuccotti Park and so averted a a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts to evict them from their encampment.

The crowd chanted various slogans, including "The Whole World Is Watching."

It was pretty peaceful and mostly celebratory, given that there would be no eviction from Zuccotti Park (renamed Liberty Square by #OWS) today.

However, we did see people arrested as we wound our way through the streets of the Financial District. One man, wrestled to the ground by police, had a bloody gash on his face and others were piled into a paddy wagon at Maiden Lane and Water Street.

Eventually we all returned to Zuccotti Park.

We ran into our friends, Brooklyn City Council members Jumaane Williams and Letitia James, who were instrumental, along with other elected officials, in convincing Brookfield Properties to postpone today's cleanup and avoid any real serious confrontation.