International secrets international objects of desire


american dream, by robert indiana

The American Dream
-- by Robert Creeley

Edges and disjuncts, shattered, bitter planes,
a wedge of disconsolate memories to echo fame,
fear of the past, a future still to blame--
Multiple heavens, hells, nothing is straight.
You earn your money, then you wait
for so-called life to see that you get paid.

Tilt! Again it's all gone wrong.
This is a heartless, hopeless song.
This is an empty, useless song.

The Face of Love
-- by Frank Stanford

he has one of them
like a very famous
nobody
her mother was good looking
and drove a convertible
her father a drunk
they invited me to their home
several times
they went over my shoes
looked at my pistols
they had lovely affairs there
the grandmother
was hard of hearing
and wore a disfigured cameo
she told of days gone
when she rode an Arabian to the Landing
to meet the boat
there would he books and cologne from Paris
material and perhaps a piano
and no counts from New Orleans
as the story goes she married one
it turned out this way
and the legend continues
blood and starlight in the river
African violets and capes
Chopin and back roads
and her granddaughter was just like him
silent and cruel
always taking her beauty rest
and her best friend's
friends

* Soi disantra analyzes the first half of Tanglewood Numbers. excerpt:

"This is the best record of the year. This is the best record of the Silver Jews career. All you Natural Bridge devotees will scoff at that, but it’s the truth. This is the record that cements DCB as one of the great songwriters of our time. Let’s see, what more ridiculous hype can I throw out there … best record of the decade so far? Um … yeah, I think so! Not even close, actually! It can be the latest to take the 'best since In the Aeroplane' title, but I think this is the album that might hold on to it for a while. Like the best work of you know who, it has all the ingredients of a perfect album: it makes you think, it makes you laugh, it makes you want to jump up and down sometimes, it makes you just want to sit there and listen, man sometimes. It’s a Silver Jews record, so it obviously has incomparable lyrics, but it’s also a fleshed out rock ‘n’ roll record. You could argue that past Joos records were one-dimensional. That’s not the case here."

* The Caribbean play the Black Cat (it's a cd release party as well, for their new album on Hometapes Plastic Explosives -- for those outside DC the record is available Tuesday) September 15th (tomorrow night). Opener Nick Butcher starts at 9:30.