At Lake Minerva
Clouds brush by my notebook to lose cohesion
downhill: No smoke from someone’s campfire.
Chipmunks beg — or worse — near the snack bar.
Fix your mind on this moment, and the mountain
asks: “Who are you?” But you hear “Who am I?”
art
Poetry: Stropharia semiglobata
Stropharia semiglobata
I awoke to see
pupils floating
in balls of light
In that shade
enchanted by
the music of
Time missed,
they hovered
in the darkness.
Like a guru
meditating.
Strange creatures
haunting every room
of my brain. Oval and
mushroom shaped.
Like the red and white
knapsack of a dwarf, so
mischievous and charming.
As quaint and extraterrestrial
as an English fairy tale.
Showmanship: The Master of Brass Meets The King of Waltz
The era of “Monster Concerts” started in Vienna in 1839 when Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny organized a performance to raise money for victims of a flooding of the River Danube.
Twenty pianists at ten pianos performed a program of four-hand duet pieces. In the history of musical entertainment, the tradition was raised to a new level after the end of Civil War in America. [Read more…] about Showmanship: The Master of Brass Meets The King of Waltz
Poetry: Wild Predator Attacks
Wild Predator Attacks
What’s the chance that you will
be attacked by a wild predator?
Slim. Attacks are so rare each one
rates its own listing on Wikipedia.
If the 20th Century was an indicator,
you’ll more likely die domestically.
Black bears, wolves, and mountain lions
killed fewer Americans than lightning,
bathtub drownings, or getting crushed
underneath falling vending machines.
The most recent reported black bear
attack in the Adirondack Mountains
(2018) came when a man hospitalized
after his ATV crashed lied, reporting
how he had fought off a black bear.
Veeder (Vedder) Family in New York, Rome and Yokohama
Young Alexander and Elihu Vedder were raised in Schenectady, New York. The family had Dutch roots (their parents were cousins). The elder brother was a physician, the younger a painter. In their career choices they showed an outward-looking attitude, cherishing the challenge of foreign experiences while assimilating the riches of cultural exchange. [Read more…] about Veeder (Vedder) Family in New York, Rome and Yokohama
Poetry: I Know You Know
I Know You Know
I accepted your apology
implicitly, but the aftertaste
of those emails stuck in
between my teeth like a
kernel of popcorn. I tried to
pick it out, you know I did.
Yet, it remains below the
crevice of the gums, a half
buried fleck of fake gold.
Banjo Pickers and Harlem-On-The-Seine
The modern banjo derives from mid-1600 instruments that had been used in the Caribbean by enslaved people taken from West Africa. The original version was made from a hollowed-out (hard-skinned) gourd and a varying number of horsehair strings. [Read more…] about Banjo Pickers and Harlem-On-The-Seine
Poetry: After Snowfall
After Snowfall
I have come to like
the simple symmetry of
snow-blowing
our driveway.
It is like erasing
a great white board
revealing
a dazzling surface
on which to write again
the equations for
the rest of our lives.
About the Poet: Gene Ervine loves the crisp snowy winters of Alaska. He grew up in the cool, wet woods of the Pacific Northwest praying for snow. When his wife Nancy took a teaching job in a one-room school in a logging camp they moved to Alaska “for a year,” that adventure has stretched into lifetimes.
He studied English Literature and Creative Writing at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Exposure to the Imagists and Beats have shaped his writing. Gene worked as an exhibit planner and writer for the Department of the Interior. He now lives in Anchorage. For over forty years Alaska’s varied landscapes and seasons have inspired him.
Facing Slavery: Lloyd Family Portraits in Context
Preservation Long Island has announced the gift of a group of important early American portraits from descendants of the Nelson and Lloyd families of Boston and Long Island.
For over three hundred years, portraits of Elizabeth Tailer Nelson (1667–1734), John Nelson (1654–1734), Henry Lloyd I (1685–1763), and James Lloyd III (1769–1831) remained in the possession of the same family that commissioned them centuries ago. [Read more…] about Facing Slavery: Lloyd Family Portraits in Context
Lipstick & Lady Chatterly: Modernism, Feminism, and Cosmetics
Chaja Rubinstein was born in December 1872 in a Krakow ghetto, the eldest of eight girls. Having escaped from an arranged Orthodox Jewish marriage, she would become a dominant personality in business circles in London, Paris, and New York. [Read more…] about Lipstick & Lady Chatterly: Modernism, Feminism, and Cosmetics