Word
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Gloucester's Song of Milarepa
Excavating Cultural Legacy
By: - Sep 10th, 2016Seeking enlightenment Milarepa was tasked by his master to tunnel through a mountain. Elightenment would be revealed at its other side. Digging is actually its own reward. This describes the process of probing deeply into the richness of Gloucester an endangered polis by the sea.
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Vincent's Crib
Retreat by the Sea
By: - Sep 09th, 2016It was a productive week at the Gloucester Writer's Center. Astrid completed four new artist's books assembled from cutouts of her photographs. Surrounded by the unique library I read deeply into Gloucster and wrote related poems.
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Key to Olson's Maximus
Time, Space and Polis
By: - Sep 08th, 2016From the beginning my the poetry project that began in August, 2014 my consigliore, Robert Henriquez, has emphasized Charles Olson, and his epic Maximus, as a resource and connector. For most it is a complex and daunting work. As he put it "an acquired taste." It takes fortitude to take it on and bend to its monumentality and density. In one of his best poems Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 (Withheld) Robert feels that we have the essence of his intentionality. Imagine my astonishment yesterday to find "Letter # 27" in The World Famous Non Stop Seagull Opera Meets the Fishtones at the Strand an evocative CD by legendary rocker and Gloucester native Willie "Loco" Alexander.
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Many Gloucesters
An End to Great God Cod
By: - Sep 07th, 2016Circumnavigating Cape Ann there are many harbors and inlets each with their own flavor. There is a vast social, political, economic and ethnic spectrum. Initially they came to fish and farm. Now, behind the scenes, speculators are buying up priceless but decrepit waterfront property with its wharves and fish processing plants.
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Gloucester Movie Night
Dating Au Pair
By: - Sep 07th, 2016Making out with the au pair after a night at the movies I parked little Pip on the swing. She was scared of the dark.
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Olson’s Short
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Blessing of the Fleet
Our Lady of Good Voyage
By: - Sep 06th, 2016During Colonial times they settled in Gloucester's Stage Fort Park to work the Grand Banks. Ever diminished that continues to this day. Now a handful of boats earn a living from the sea. Hard times impact ethnic balance as Italians and Portuguese sell their homes, abandon neighborhoods, and move away from the trade of their ancestors.
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Quixotic Windmills
Gloucester's Man of La Mancha
By: - Sep 06th, 2016Windmills generating renewable energy. A good idea in a terrible location marring forever the precious Gloucster profile.
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Leviathan
Gloucester's Maud / Olson Library
By: - Sep 05th, 2016Ralph Maud (1928-2014) was a colleague and friend of Charles Olson, and a leading authority on Olson’s life and work. Maud was interested in the sources of Olson’s poetry, and undertook the ambitious task of identifying and collecting a copy of every book Olson had ever owned, read, or referred to. The Maud / Olson Library opened close to the Gloucester Writers Center in June.
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Old Movies
Annisquam Family Dinner
By: - Sep 04th, 2016Sister Pip, a Buddhist and vegetarian, is a fabulous cook. For this family dinner in Norwood Heights there was entertainment, old movies that Mom shot, and cassatta a Sicilian cake that Paula and Aunt Esterre brought from Brooklyn.
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Willie Loco Alexander
Ill Be Good with The Fishtones
By: - Sep 04th, 2016Back in the '60s I covered The Lost with Willie Loco Alexander at The Cheetah in New York. I remided him of the gig when he came to my reading at the Gloucester Writers Center. We swapped a book for his latest CD. We played it one the ride home to the Berkshires.
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Artist’s Retreat
Media Not the Message
By: - Sep 04th, 2016Without the usual distractions of computer and TV there was initial frustration. In retreat the reactive mind unwinds slowly gradually allowing in more gentle thoughts. Making room for Gloucester and its fishy legacy.
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Fitz Henry Lane
Gloucester's Harbor Master
By: - Sep 04th, 2016Walking with crutches the artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804-1865) made his way down from a stone house to a dory in Gloucester Harbor. There as a passenger on schooners he visited and painted the harbors and inlets along the Atlantic coast. A large collection of his paintings are on view in the Cape Ann Museum.
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Gloucester Frame Shop
126 East Main Street
By: - Sep 03rd, 2016The former frame shop of poet Vincent Ferrini is now home to the Gloucester Writer's Center. We spent a week in its book -lined single room touched by the poets.
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Grateful Dead
On Dad’s Head
By: - Aug 27th, 2016Like Queequeg in Moby Dick collecting heads. Not shrunken. Dad's from med school and my Tibetan skull bowl used for drinking blood.
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This Old House
Signs of the Time
By: - Aug 26th, 2016Zipping along the back road. Short cut tom Pittsfield taken thousands of times. Passing old house ever more decrepit. Interesting to look at as a romantic ruin. Then, good grief, can it be Trump for President signs. Can it be a prank? The surreal semiotic of the creep who would be president.
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Little Richard
Those Fabulous Fifties
By: - Aug 25th, 2016Back in the Fifties rock and roll incinerated my generation. Nobody smoked it like that wild child Little Richard.
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Orson Welles
Citizen Kane Trump of His Day
By: - Aug 17th, 2016In 1941 a very young Orson Welles stood up to the yellow journalism of William Randolph Hearst. In every sense he was the reviled right wing Trump of his day. Citizen Kane earned nine Oscar nominations and won just one. It got the 26-year-old genius banned from Hollywood through the vindictive efforts of the Hearst tabloids.
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Depression Glass
Letting Go
By: - Aug 17th, 2016Buy low and sell high I thought decades ago. Planned to make a fortune on depression glass. Bought cheap at Revere Flea Market. We used some but not all of it every day.
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Journey
Here to Beyond
By: - Aug 16th, 2016The journey of an artist is not a straight line. Guided by an inner compass the creative path twists and turns. Initial plans morph and change as the work follows its own momentum.
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The Walk To The Paradise Garden
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On the Beach
Making Waves
By: - Aug 10th, 2016Bracing against a ferocious Nor' easter. Elders closing ranks and holding fast resisting crashing waves.
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Bald Eagle
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Farm Stand
Not the Same
By: - Aug 06th, 2016Now early August we grilled the first sweet corn of the season from the local farm stand. But something wasn't right.
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Swamp Talk
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