CREATIVE COLLOQUY

Today was a Creative Colloquy day. Today was a Troy's Work Table day.

My erasure poem "Funeral" was published on the Creative Colloquy website. You can read it HERE. The boxes prior to the words are intentional, although they are rendering differently depending upon the web browser and/or device. (Which I really like. It injects a bit of play into the poem.) They are placeholders for Melville's missing words, phrases, and sentences.

I read five poems at tonight's monthly Creative Colloquy ZOOM Literary Gathering. Three recently written interrelated body poems: "The Saint of Second Street," "White Noise," and the aforementioned "Funeral." Two August Poetry Postcard Festival poems: "Molt" and "Tree."

And the work of the other four readers was stellar.

It was a great day filled with the beauty of language and laughter and story and conversation.

CREATION IS PERFECT

Creation Is Perfect by Minimal Compact is indeed a piece of perfected creation.

There is a largeness to each of these tracks that opens them up beyond their original recordings. Perhaps it is the maturity of band members, the accumulation of life experience, staring toward the ever-approaching limits of mortality, or all of the above. But this definitely feels like their most realized album. And it is not simply a “greatest hits” album. It truly stands on its own, even though all but one of the eight tracks are revisitations and reimaginings of prior songs.

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SIDE A

Track 1 > “Statik Dancin’”
Minimal Compact, 1981
What a great version of this song. (Probably my favorite.) From the wood block beats to the bass pulse to the guitar noodling over the top of it all. Then additional guitar noodling. Then Samy’s deadpan voice. Gah! “Dancing! Statik dancing!” If this is Minimal Compact’s “jam” song, then this version of it deserves to be lengthened, remixed, expanded upon.

Track 2 > “Take Me Away”
One by One, 1983
This track just gets right to work. Pulling no punches. The interplay of Malka’s and Samy’s voices, in the midst of music that is a bit irritating and grating, reminds me a bit of early music from the Sugarcubes. Except with a distinctly Middle Eastern bent.

Track 3 > “Nada”
Deadly Weapons, 1984
For me, this track has the same tone, atmosphere, feeling of “New Clear Twist” from —. There is a somber sadness that plays against the electric guitar and it is beautiful in its melancholic juxtaposition. And the guitar plucking between the anchor beats of drum and bass at the end? Haunting.

Track 4 > “Raging Souls”
Raging Souls, 1985
There is an echo of a Wire track here, but I cannot quite think of which one. (Something on The Ideal Copy?)  But that doesn't mean that this track isn't wholly a Minimal Compact song because it absolutely is.

SIDE B

Track 5 > “Not Knowing”
Deadly Weapons, 1984
This track give me “film noir” vibes when it opens. I can’t exactly name why. But it’s there. And it continues.

Track 6 > “My Will”
Raging Souls, 1985
If there were a track on this album that could bring me to tears, this is it. The interplay between Samy’s and Malka’s voices is absolutely beautiful, especially when Malka sings, “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, my will is stronger than me.”

Track 7 > “The Well”
Deadly Weapons, 1984
The Mediterranean flavors on this are spot on. Voice, guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums are hypnotic sync and I could imagine this just going on forever.

Track 8 > “Holy Roller”
Creation Is Perfect, 2019
Calliope-like opening leads into pulsing thrum. Then more layers, more instruments, then the vocals. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to this particular track in the short amount of time I’ve owned the album. It is stunning. The unison of voices. The harmony of voices. The countering of voices. The mixture of English and Hebrew. The song never sits still, but rather keeps shifting “beneath my feet.” “The voices in your head won’t stop.”

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This is one of those albums that I will either wear out the vinyl or a needle. I've already played it over and over. I have several Minimal Compact albums on CD but I am absolutely glad to have this one on vinyl. It helps me to slow down and really focus on the music, which this album absolutely rewards!

POETRY POSTCARDS

Troy's Work Table is participating in the August Poetry Postcard Festival. TWT's first postcards with new poems and art heading out in to the mail and toward the the mailboxes of other participants.



Meanwhile, the first August Poetry Postcard Festival poem/card sent to me arrived in the mailbox this afternoon!

HAYSTACK ROCK

Campfire in the sand on the beach near Haystack Rock.

BEAK BREAKER

Beak Breaker, a Double IPA by Pelican Brewing.

19.2 ounce tall can served in a pint glass.

 9.0% abv.

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Dinner consisted of food and beer from Pelican Brewing. Beer Sausage Flatbread. House Salad with huckleberry peppercorn vinaigrette. And then the Beak Breaker.

I had ordered the India Pelican Ale, but the last tall can went out the door as I was ordering. Beak Breaker was the substitute for it and I'm glad it was. The flavors were grapefruit, orange, pine, malts, and a bite of alcohol. It was a nice balance of biscuit-ness, bitterness, and booziness. Perfection.

Plus the beer and food were great together.

BREAKFAST BEER

Mel's Magic IPA, an India Pale Ale, by Iron Horse Brewery.

12 ounce can served in a pint glass.

6.8% abv.

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Breakfast of champions. This IPA is a perfect breakfast beer to accompany a Chicken Fried Skillet (chicken fried steak, scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, and hash browns all smothered in gravy).

Please wake me up after my heart attack!

HAYSTACK ROCK

The ocean recharges me.

A gift of time and a gift of space allowed me and the family to stay at Cannon Beach just a couple of blocks away from the beach.

Haystack Rock is one of those natural wonders that I can constantly observe. Each moment is it's own. A slightly different angle. Changes in light and weather. Fog. Sea birds. The scent of seaweed and brine. High tide and low tide. Ebb and flow. Wind and waves. Throngs of people and an empty beach.

SWIM FREE

Preparations.


Carving block number one. Octopus body.


Carving block number two. Suckers and wave motions.


Carving block number three. Eye.


Inking.


Printing the first layer.


Print and block.


Octopuses in many colors of water.

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.