SWIM FREE

"Swim Free (Sandy Fest 3)." Speedball block printing ink and India ink on 3" x 4" colored index card.

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Each year since my mother died, I celebrate her "Feast Day" with a day of art and poetry and food and family. The past couple of years included a visit to the cemetery to clean gravestones of family members, to the Bremerton Art Walls to paint, to a memorial garden, and out to dinner with members of my family. But most of that was unmanageable this year due to the global pandemic and stay-at-home emergency measures.

Even though, this year's celebration would primarily be at home and, later, with family via videoconferencing software, I wanted to make sure it hit most of the touchstones that make the day for me.

The primary focus of the day was this year's version of "Swim Free." The first "Swim Free" (Year 0) was painted in acrylics on the Bremerton Art Walls. The second "Swim Free" was painted in spray paint on the Bremerton Art Walls. The third "Swim Free" was painted at the Bremerton Art Walls, with the first spray painted on the Walls and an additional three painted onto concrete panels.

This year's fourth "Swim Free" (Year 3) was an attempt to capture the spirit of the previous three versions in a new medium—linoleum block printing. I spent the day carving two 3" x 4" linoleum blocks and one 3/4" x 3/4" eraser, and then printing the layers onto index cards that were cut in half.

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Later in the day, family members gathered via Zoom to hear a couple of poems read—"For Grief" from To Bless the Space Between Us by John O'Donohue and "Washing My Mother's Body" from An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo—and give a "Coca Cola" toast in memory of my mother.

BIRD BOX

I finally viewed Bird Box (2018), directed by Susanne Bier. At its heart, it's a mixture of a zombie film and a quest film, with elements from H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and Thomas More's Utopia acting as anchors of each. There are echoes of A Quiet Place (2018) and The Book of Eli (2010) throughout.

The film's story strangely resonates in a world filled with COVID-19, Black Lives Matters protests, MAGA, notions of community versus the individual, freedom and the rights/responsibilities that come with it, and whether or not one should wear a face mask (blindfold). I wonder how this film would have "read" for me prior to March of this year. Alas, I will never know.

All in all, the movie was too tense/intense for me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

THE BAUDELAIRE FRACTAL

The Baudelaire Fractal is promoted as the first novel by poet Lisa Robertson. But this "novel" is just as genre-bending as much of Robertson's prior work in poetry, essays, and creative non-fiction.

It's a coming of age novel. It's a "portrait of the artist as a young woman." It's a selected biography of Charles Baudelaire. It's a sci-fi/fantasy novel. It's an ekphrastic exploration of various paintings made by contemporaries of Baudelaire, many of those paintings of Baudelaire himself, his partner Jeanne Duval, or others in their various circles of friends. It's an examination of some of the influences on Baudelaire, such as Edgar Allan Poe. And, ultimately, it isn't really about Baudelaire at all, but rather the fictional character Hazel Brown, who feels as though a stand-in at times for Lisa Robertson. So, perhaps it's also a thinly veiled autobiography in some sense.

I also know that it was a fantastic and welcome read. I found myself slowing down and savoring the text. I read deliberately and methodically. I used the internet to search for the many paintings referenced in the book, in order that I could connect the words on the page with the paint on the canvases.

SPLID

The splendid creature that is Splid: Special Edition by Kvelertak.

Pictured, clockwise from upper left: black vinyl A/B; cover of the special edition; white vinyl C/D; gatefold inside "cover" of the regular edition.

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My second album purchase since obtaining the new turntable is the fourth album by Kvelertak. This Norwegian heavy metal band continues to grow into their fusion of rock, punk, thrash, and black metal. With a new vocalist and new drummer joining their bassist and three (!) guitarists, it is good to hear that they've lost none of their bite. In fact, I think this may be their strongest album.

Similar to their first album, there are a couple of guest vocalists. Troy Sanders of Mastodon sings on "Crack of Doom" and Nate Newton of Converge sings on "Discord." Ivar Nikolaisen, who was a guest vocalist on 2010's Kvelertak, is the new front man for the band and does an amazing job taking over after the departure of Erlend Hjelvik. (Something that many fans thought could not happen!)

After a couple of initial listens, my favorite tracks are pulsing gut-puncher "Bråtebrann" and, for its shifts in tone and tempo, "Fanden ta Detta Hull!"

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The album artwork by Marald van Haasteren, which is a strange "organic" combination of various repetitive animal parts that borders on the cancerous; the multiple gatefolds; and the colored vinyl all add to the craziness that this album contains.

10:20

After being without a turntable for approximately eighteen years, I fixed that problem.

The first few days with the new turntable were spent listening to old albums. The Lords of the New Church. Still Falling. Devo. Depeche Mode. Motörhead. Run DMC. Black Flag.

The first vinyl album I bought in twenty-four years was 10:20 by Wire.

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10:20 is a beautiful piece of art.

It was originally intended as a Record Store Day release, but then a global pandemic got in the way. The band decided to release it as a "regular" album rather than a limited edition RSD offering.

Side one (10) consists of four tracks recorded in 2010 with then new guitarist Matthew Simms and touring guitarist Margaret Fiedler McGinnis. 

Side two (20) consists of four tracks recorded in 2020. 

All of the tracks are studio versions of favorite live tracks of the band members. Reimaginings of reimaginings.

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10

Track 1 > "Boiling Boy"
Originally appearing on A Bell Is a Cup...Until It Is Struck (1988) the tempo of this track is faster here. Robert Gotobed's metronomic drumming on cymbals for the first half, joined later by snares, as well as the bass line really propel this song. Gritty guitar noodling in the latter half replaces vocals for a wonderful mirroring effect.

Track 2 > "German Shepherds"
This is my favorite version of "German Shepherds," which had its first proper album appearance on It's Beginning to and Back Again (1989). I'm in love with the interplay of voices between Colin and Margaret.

Track 3 > "He Knows"
One of Wire's "quieter" tracks, the lyrics are so surreal that I'm not quite sure what's going on. And that's okay, because Colin's delivery over the ever-increasing-in-volume instrumentation, until it mostly drops out into some beautiful sound washes and shifts to Graham's voice leave us, as they sing over and over, "hypnotized."

Track 4 > "Underwater Experiences"
The most punk-leaning track of the album, this is a bit more discordant than the first recording as found on live album Document and Eyewitness (1981).

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20

Track 5 > "The Art of Persistence"
A "soft" and lilting pop track that could have easily found its way onto Mind Hive (2020), this is the first proper recording of it, with the exception of it's "demo" appearance on the rare The Third Day EP which was only sold at one particular tour.

Track 6 > "Small Black Reptile"
The original track appeared on Manscape (1990) in a "squishy" and slow mechanical rendering. With this reinvention of the song, Wire have managed to humanize it and make it more relatable and accessible.

Track 7 > "Wolf Collides"
This is the first appearance of "Wolf Collides." Once again, this feels like something akin to tracks on either Silver/Lead (2017) or Mind Hive (2020). It's a pop tune that has enough meddling with minor chords to pull us in and then push us back. And I'm okay with that ebb and flow of music and lyrics. It's a really beautiful track.

Track 8 > "Over Theirs"
There is a drone that anchors this track, credited to guitarist Matthew Simms. It reminds me a bit of the guitar squall that Helmet guitarist Page Hamilton created for the Wire track "All Fours" on Object 47 (2008). It originally appeared on The Ideal Copy (1987) and then in a fairly similar version on IBTABA (1989). There's an extra tinge of paranoia in this new version. They also play it at a much slower tempo. I like it a lot!

MONTH

And just like that a month passes.

YELLOW JACK / DEATH NOTICES

"Yellow Jack," watercolor and iridescent calligraphy ink on parchment, 2020, by Troy's Work Table.

Inspired by my own recently published poem, "Death Notices."

The maritime signal flag "Lima" is also known as the "Yellow Jack" and when flown alone symbolizes a ship under quarantine due to contagion.

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"Death Notices" was published in the May 2020 issue of Creative Colloquy. You can read it at http://creativecolloquy.com/death-notices-by-troy-kehm-goins/

The poem was inspired by the "death notices" published in the classified section of newspapers, as well as the four main characters found in 1 Samuel 28:3-27—King Saul; the witch of Endor; the shade of the prophet Samuel, conjured forth from Sheol; and the Lord God. The poem presents the "death" of each, although in an oblique manner. (And the deaths are related to the passage, although none of them actually occur within the framework of the Bible passage but elsewhere.)

STUDY in YELLOW

Study in yellow: Dogfish Head SeaQuench Ale + ramen bowl.

Second Hand Smoke Stout, an Imperial Stout, by Midnight Sun Brewing.

22 ounce bottle served in a tulip.

8.4% abv.

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With "Stay Home, Stay Healthy" emergency measures in place throughout the state of Washington, due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, many small businesses are hurting. When a local bar, CaskCades, posted a few bottled beers new to their refrigerated cases, I decided that I needed to go and provide them some business.

I've been without an independent beer bottle store that I can claim as "home base" since the closure of 99 Bottles. But COVID-19, as well as causing a bunch of trouble for everyone, has also provided me an opportunity to rethink things and reimagine how I can operate within the world. I'm declaring CaskCades as my new bottle store.

They had to reimagine how they served beer, since people cannot visit them in the manner of a bar. But they can stop by and purchase canned and bottled beer, as well as purchase 32-ounce crowlers and 64-ounce growlers of beers on tap. I likewise reimagined what I need a bottle store to look like. I realized I don't need hundreds of options. Rather, I'm good with a smaller selection of available beers, knowing that those I can purchase are "curated" by fellow beer lovers. With thirty taps and easily another thirty or so beers in cans or bottles, I have plenty of choices. And CaskCades is within walking distance of my home.

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The first beer that attracted my attention, and helped to get me into CaskCades this afternoon, was Second Hand Smoke. I like smoked beers, as long as they are done well. This one is done well!

The pour is a black body with a thin tan head.

The nose is chocolate and smoke and a bit of grass.

The tongue is campfire, dark chocolate, vanilla cream, dark fruits (dates/plum), and maltiness. The mouthfeel is a bit thinner than I expected, but I was fine with it. The finish isn't too long, but the campfire smokiness mellows out into more complex flavors.

This is an enjoyable beer. It is well-balanced, with a punch of smoke at the beginning of each drink that allows for the other flavors to shine as it ebbs. Highly recommended.

OBIT

I was introduced to the poetry of Victoria Chang in her third book The Boss. McSweeney's started publishing a "Poetry Series" and I had a subscription. The Boss was the fifth book in the series and published in 2013. So the book "fell into my lap."

What I found inside was wonderful and intriguing. Each poem was structured with stanzas of four lines, and they appeared to be somewhat formal until one started to read. Poems were filled with echoes, internal rhymes, slant rhymes, allusions, alliteration, puns, and the like. There was no punctuation. Sentences and phrases sometimes ended in the middle of a line. Other times they ran across line breaks. I was forced to slow down and really pay attention to what I was reading. The reward was that once I figured out how to read these poems they really opened up. The challenge was absolutely worth the time and effort.

As the title of the book suggests, as well as many of the titles of individual poems, many of the poems revolve around a boss. A few poems are about family members. A handful are about Edward Hopper paintings. They are all, in one way or another, about power and relationships and power within relationships.

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Barbie Chang, Victoria Chang's fourth book of poetry, published in 2017, carried forward her "project" of poems about interpersonal relationships. The poems in this book are broken into four sections. Sections one and three are filled with poems with coupled lines that function similar to the four-line stanzas in The Boss. Images and phrases run across line breaks and through the borders of the couplets, without sacrificing any of the wit and wordplay I loved. Sections two and four are "Dear P." sonnets.

There is a slight shift in content, too, as these poems are less about power and, in some sense, more personal. They are definitely focused upon relationships of one to those around us. The narrator is also dealing with parents who are in ill health and having to navigate how to take care of them amidst all of the other aspects of her life.

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Which brings us to Obit. This is Victoria Chang's most personal book of poems. It is infused with loss and grief, brokenness and death.

The majority of the poems are presented in a form that mimics obituary notices in a newspaper. The subject of a death (for example, "memory"), followed by the date of its death, leads into the main body of the prose poem laid out on the page in a column of text. They are punctuated, making the poems themselves a bit easier to read, but the wordplay and imagery is intact.

Every so often there is a set of paired tanka. I'm not quite sure how they function with the rest of the poems quite yet, but will soon figure it out. There is also one section of "fractured" sonnets, similar to the final "Dear P." section in Barbie Chang.

Most of the poems are about the stroke her father suffered or the illness and death of her mother. In the midst of her sorrow and grief, she writes beautiful lines about the loss. She infuses them with a bit of absurdity and a healthy helping of dark humor and a willingness to examine the reality of the suffering we all engage in life.

I need a couple of more readings of these poems to get a good grasp on them. I am absolutely ready to do just that!