Myth of Arrival

Happy Islamic New Year! It's also the 3rd day of the Chinese New Year (year of the dog). Let the world revamp; they say change is painful but I'd like to see some "out and out" changes take place for starts. I want a little vamping.

Today I have been thinking about stories and series and something my brother, Eli, wrote in 2004, When Science And Appliance Meet We All Go Bare:

[The] entry for Douglas Wolk's blog, Lacunae, contained an invitation to its readers to participate in something called "NaSoAlMo:" National Solo Album Month. The idea, in a nutshell, was for readers to write and record an entire LP's worth of music entirely by themselves during the month of November. The album had to be at least 29 minutes long and could contain one cover song.

So I thought, what a neat idea. Why not have a "NaSoAlMo" for poetry as well? After all, what poet wouldn't like the idea of having 28 new pages of work to show case and present to friends, win awards with, get published?

So, since today is the last day of January and tomorrow will be wonderful February, let us set the rules for our NaWUPoBo, National Whomp Up Poetry Book Month:

* The book will be 28 pages long, one poem for each day.

* All poetry is welcome. since we are open to all genres, forms and styles.

I imagined this as something we can post daily on our websites, so we can follow the creative developments, but since not everyone has a website and this is open to any and all who want to participate, just keep your poems together and we can email, snail mail or telephone the poetry to each other at the end of the month.

What do you think of this, my friends?

Q: What does Eva Cassidy, Nellie Lutcher, Diana Ross, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta Jones, Deborah Coleman, Erskine Hawkins, Gene Ammons, Terence Blanchard, Carmen McRae, Topsy Chapman, Patty Waters, Mary Stallings, Ranee Lee, Carrie Smith, Lezlie Anders, Sonji Kimmons, Clark Terry, Ruth Brown, Tom Skinner, Roy Rubenstein, The Brooklyn Repertory Ensemble, Clarence Lofton, Miss Henry, Albinia Jones, Merline Johnson and Juanita Holiday have in common with Billie Holiday?

A: They all covered (I believe) her tune Fine and Mellow.

This leads to another question: where were you on December 5th, 1957? Not at the CBS 30th Street Studios in New York, apparently, watching history be made, I guess. I saved all my pennies and recently bought a collection of Billie Holiday, Lester Young and the Mal Waldron All-Stars' finest, a musical romance.¹ I got it for one reason alone: there was a new version of Fine & Mellow I had not yet heard.

I love this song.

But credit needs to go to Nat Hentoff, who I first listened to on a sensational NPR segment explaining the reason why "so many jazz enthusiasts … consider Billie's performance of Fine & Mellow on this broadcast to be among the best of her career." There are a variety of websites you can go to to listen to one or two versions of the song. But even the words makes me want to become a torch singer:

My man don't love me,
treats me oh so mean.
My man, he don't love me,
treats me awful mean.
He's the lowest man
that I've ever seen.

He wears high-draped pants,
stripes are really yellow.
He wears high-draped pants,
stripes are really yellow.
But when he starts in to love me,
he's so fine and mellow

Love will make you drink and gamble,
make you stay out all night long.
love will make you drink and gamble,
make you stay out all night long.
Love will make you do things that you know is wrong.

But if you treat me right, daddy,
I'll stay home every day.
If you treat me right, daddy,
I'll stay home every day.
But you're so mean to me, baby,
I know you're gonna drive me away.

Love is just like a faucet,
it turns off and on.
Love is just like a faucet,
It turns off and on.
Some times when you think it's on, baby,
it has turned off and gone.

In a review of Hentoff's collected essays, Bill Kirtz writes:

Hentoff brings to life Robert Herridge, the iconoclastic and now-forgotten television pioneer. The two produced the best jazz program ever to grace the small screen: 1957’s “Sound of Jazz.” When Billie Holiday silently sways to Lester Young’s poignant “Fine and Mellow” saxophone solo, you can, says Hentoff, see their souls.

I think someday when I win the lotto I'd like to put together a collection of every cover of this song would rock my socks. I have seen photos of Lady Day singing in this recording session, but the entire event (for me at least) falls into the realm of myth. In an interview on March 21, 1996, Hentoff writes of his experience with Lester Young and Billie Holiday on that famous recording session:

Lester and Billie had been very close for years. They gave each other nicknames that the other musicians picked up. Billie called Lester "Pres," and it was always Pres after that, and Lester called her "Lady Day" … And the thing with Billie was a small group, Roy Eldridge, Lester, and Billie was singing one of the very few blues she ever did, "Fine and Mellow," which she wrote. Lester got up and he played the purest blues I have ever heard, and they were looking at each other, their eyes were sort of interlocked, and she was sort of nodding and half-smiling. It was as if they were both remembering what had been, whatever that was. And in the control room, I was there … [and] we were all crying. I mean it was, there was this, it was just a natural reaction, it was so utterly moving.

1. This whole long mediation on one song started when I wrote to my friend Brina about finding the song. I said:

   You know when you think you've heard every version there is to a song and suddenly you put something on the stereo and it blows the top of your head off? (not literally, that would be messy) so it was with me with this one song by Billie Holiday, Fine and Mellow. Have you heard this? I had this one live version, I think, something like Billie at Carnegie Hall, and one studio version (the problem with lending out your CDs to friends is that they are never there when you need them) anyway I was feeling as if I knew this song pretty well. That there were no more surprises. But suddenly … I thought: "wow! I've never heard this version before." It wasn't just Billie's voice, it was all the instruments. By the time the song was over I was exhilarated, with goose bumps all over my arms. That's how I know something wild and primeval and hotheaded is happening, some deep part of me reacts to it.

   [back]

What are you listening to as you read this? Music? Screaming? The silence of an empty apartment? My friend Katya wrote to me asking if I could find a jazz cover of Dream a Little Dream (of me) for her. I was only familiar with Mama Cass' version from The Mamas & the Papas; though I had this dim memory I had heard other versions … by someone, somewhere. Strange, even while NPR named it as one of the hundred most important American musical compositions of the 20th century, it was not a torch song covered by the "greats" (Holiday, Fitzgerald, Simone, etc.). I finally found two recordings, from the Nat King Cole Trio and a Tony Bennet/ k.d. lang's cover, which I have playing right now.

While I slogged about in the dusty drawers of CDs that rarely see the light of day¹ I decided to put a play list of music I am listening to this rainy/slushy/sleety afternoon. It being an alto saxophone kind of day, it looks a little like this:

Nat King Cole, Dream a Little Dream (of me)
Earle Hagen, the theme from I Spy
Freddie Redd, Now
Spike Jones, Harlem Nocturne
Charles Mingus, Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul
Freddie Redd, Cute Doot
Diana Kraul, Look of Love
Tony Bennet & k.d. lang, Dream a Little Dream (of me)
Billie Holiday + Lester Young, Fine and Mellow

1. At least at the public library I go to in Lansing, since I cannot afford to drop $15 a CD everytime I want new music. The Hip hop, rap and rock selections are looted and ransacked, but no one seems to listen to (or even touch) jazz or classical. This is a good thing, I think. I was able to check out the entire Ken Burns Jazz Collection at one go. O happy days! [back]

Poetry Workshop, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2:40-3:40 PM, Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbott Road in East Lansing — in conjunction with the Mid-Winter Singing Festival. Their flyer reads:

Want to make words jump off the page, stand up and shout? This workshop will show you how to infuse a poem, story or speech with vital energy, how to catch and hold the attention of your audience. Together, poets Ruelaine Stokes and Bob Rentschler will teach oral performance techniques that will infuse verbal magic into any spoken word performance. This workshop will be interactive and allow participants to practice a variety of spoken word techniques. Fun!

$5 wristbands for the Singing Festival workshops will be available for sale at the Hannah Community Center on Saturday, Feb. 4th. One wristband grants access to any and all of the 13 workshops! Kids under 12 are free! The 11AM Children's Concert is also free.

If today's chalk talk/ homework assignment is to find one secret website on your favorite poet and share it with your friends, then I must thank Laura, who helped me by sending me this link to Red Poppy, a Pablo Neruda on-line project. A Pablo blog!

So Laura, thank you and let me share this photo I found earlier today, "Neruda looking out to sea."

"Feminism is for everybody," wrote bell hooks, and I couldn't agree more. So with that in mind, I list here a collection of grrl 'zines that need your support. Originally I was looking for information on a San Francisco 'zine called electricfemme. But it has either folded or changed addresses and my search did not take me as far as I hoped.¹

I did find many other interesting publications, however. The only requirement I had when trolling through cyberspace was that they must include poetry, or poetry-like writing (there is a lot of "fiction" that might be poetry and a lot of "poetry" that might be fiction, for that matter).

* GeekGirl from Australia has an interesting Art section that includes various writing. It was reviewed on Grrl Zine Network as: "web site with lots of fun and interesting stuff (like gallery: wallpapers - sound - bugs - archives - monthly cycles: news - hot flushes - arts - entertainment - snitch city)!"

* Hermana, Resist's flyer reads: "Living in the Rio grande valley, the holidays & new year's, renewal and winter, being hungry, numbers, the working poor, obligations, Durham-a sea of nice white crisp whiteness, elite hipsters, cubicles,revolution-when it meant something to me and a primer on racism- - and so much more. half size. 40 pages. wt: 2 oz."

* Bamboo Girl has just come out with issue #11. They describe their manifesto as: "challenging issues of racism/ sexism/ homophobia from the point of view of smart, loud, non-traditional girls of color, especially from that of the feminist Pinay (Filipina)-mutt perspective. There's more to life than straight white male patriarchy. Pro-Asian/ Asian mutt, pro-female, pro-f*ck oppression."

* “I believe in the power of dreams,” Lynne L. writes at Java Turtle. Issue #4 is out, "the coffee-oriented comic anthology." I highly recommend both Java Turtle and Lynne's Blackgirl Stories.

* Cherrybomb says they are: "an indie arts and culture magazine by, for and about real women. It's a space for us to share stories, exchange ideas, and inspire each other in print. Our goal is to create something we'll all want to read and share with our friends–something less academic than Ms, but still intelligent, and feminist; something less trashy and fashion oriented than Cosmo, but still sassy and funny!" Grrl Zine Network adds: "The issue on “Cutting Out the Middle Man” highlights women making art, music, film and poetry outside the commercial mainstream- ladies doing it their way, on their own time and their own dime.”

* Mimi Thi Nguyen, who might be in Ann Arbor, MI as I write this, says: "I've been writing for alternative and mainstream non-academic publications for over ten years. Here are some of those publications, including my Punk Planet columns." I recommend her journals as well.

* Finally in things you should spend your hard earned money on, Planting Seeds has a CD, spoken word: poet tongues on fire. It looks exciting.

Hurrah for Alternative Presses!

1. If anyone knows how I can get hold of the editor, Qianya, please drop me a line. Cheers! [back]