Soul Meets Blog

That ol' devil ride me, he ride me,
ride me high
Take me to our cliff, cover up my eyes
He say, "Son, now fly..."

Devil, doncha ride me
Doncha ride me, Devil, no more
Devil, doncha ride me, doncha ride me
Hear, my mind done tired an' sore
Hear, my life done broke an' poor.

Burned
my middle finger
on the Prince of Peace
this morning. After breaking
a promise to its owner, I'd left
His candle burning late until its
glass was scorched and sooty, and I—
chagrined, half-asleep, careless—gripped
the rim to blow it out. Damnit, I use that finger.
Personal hygiene, for one thing, balancing cigarettes
for another, balancing coffee cups while driving for a
third.

Museum of Fine Arts Screens 2006 British Television Advertising Awards

The 19th annual British Television Advertising Awards (BTAA) premiered Sunday, October 22nd at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The 2006 Awards feature chillingly graphic road safety spots, a computer-generated Gene Kelly performing a hip-hop freestyle version of Singin’ in the Rain, a city populated entirely by stunt-people (wearing strong anti-perspirant, of course), opposing AOL ads which use Big Brother imagery from George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984, and a grim parody of the American/British occupation of Iraq, a la Cirque-du-Soleil.

Photo courtesy of shortbusthemovie.com.

I’ve never seen anything quite like Shortbus, the new movie from John Cameron Mitchell, the writer/director of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The movie follows a group of amorous New York City bohemians and a couples therapist as they all collide in an underground salon run by the genderqueer Justin Bond (of Kiki and Herb fame.) Events take place in the days leading up to the North American Black-out of 2003. The brown-outs are used to echo the sexual tension between the characters.

On his 1996 debut album Endtroducing, DJ Shadow established a name for himself in the world of experimental hip-hop with stand-out tracks like “Midnight in a Perfect World” and “What Does Your Soul Feel Like, Parts 1-4.” Shadow’s work on this first disc for London-based Mo' Wax records was key in the development of experimental, electronic hip-hop. His third solo CD, The Outsider, has been a long time coming.

So, a few days ago I wrote this Blues song, "Bipolar Blues”, as an assignment for my Working Class Literature course at UMass Boston. I highly recommend this class.

Part of the assignment is to write a paragraph about how the poem addresses class. "Bipolar Blues" addresses class issues in the following ways.

The sky’s water has not yet broken at 7:55 p.m. the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but passengers on the Orange Line know a storm isn’t far off when their inbound train stops at Massachusetts Avenue, and the doors of the first two cars refuse to open. It’s the first time many of them make eye contact on the T since moving to Boston or Jamaica Plain or Roxbury or Charlestown. DJ NiteTrain lays his briefcase on the floor.

1.

The walking machine stood next to the barn, its four equal arms jutting in a cross from a central obelisk, as though someone had succeeded in tipping a windmill. Rust had marched steadily over its orange frame in the years since my grandfather, Raymond, bought it used from a fellow horse-man. The oxidation gave the walking machine a mottled skin similar to fiery coloration of salamanders that lived in dampness beneath its base. I had permission to dig for worms on Ray’s farm, but was never allowed to disturb any salamander on his premises more than was necessary.

Review: Music: Ani DiFranco: Reprieve, 2006

From the start of “Hypnotized”, the opening track on Ani DiFranco’s latest album, Reprieve (Righteous Babe, 2006) you sense an artist slightly out of step and at odds with the world around her, even with those who love her: “I was no picnic / I was no prize / but I had just enough sweetness / to keep you hypnotized.” That quote says it all…love Ani or hate her, she’s a DIY phenomenon. You have to give her props for doing it the hard way—her own way. She’s toured constantly for 16 years, turned out 20 albums (live and studio), 2 DVDs, and 3 EPs, and repeatedly turned down major label deals to run her own label, Righteous Babe.

Minnesotan Singer/Songwriter Comes to Rindge, NH

On the recommendation of my friend Marilyn, last Saturday night I drove west on Route 2 out to Rindge, NH, to see singer-songwriter Peter Mayer. The show took place in a Lutheran Church in the dark New Hampshire woods near Mt. Monadnock. (Let’s just say that I never realized how much I’ve come to take street-lights for granted.)

As a literary genre still fighting for ironic legitimacy, prose poetry received a Hail Mary the length of Doug Flutie’s 1986 game-winning touchdown pass when Claudia Rankine published Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric with Graywolf Press.
Irony stems from the fact that L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E / prose poetry authors who now seek legitimacy for their work, once railed against the rigidity and creative bankruptcy of a standardized academia which by its nature stultifies creativity and the free expression of poetry. A system which employs many of said poets now, and through which many publish their work. Not since I first discovered Carolyn Forché’s “The Colonel” have a felt that I understood exactly what “real” or “good” prose poetry is, or could become, until reading Don’t Let Me Be Lonely.

Who says you can't do anything with a college degree in English? This ad is why copy-editors will always be able to get a job. Oops.

I'm so glad they're free scrennsavers. I'm glad the Friendster.com is free, too.

Come the holidays, I always start feeling sorrowful. As a child, the holidays meant so much to my grandmother. She only ever had one of the two holidays, Thanksgiving or Christmas, off. Which meant that mom and I had to help her with dinner. We always had turkey and ham, with sweet potatoes, roasted Yukon potatoes, green beans, squash, and corn. And brown and serve rolls, which I would pilfer raw of the cooking sheet when her back was turned. This would inevitably lead to a furious shouting of "Shea!!!" She knew exactly who'd done it. And peas. Grandma always made extra peas for me because I loved them.
She's not living anymore, and the traditional American Christian holidays have taken on more sorrow than joy for me. I have substituted the pagan natural cycle as my holiday celebrations. It's probably no wonder that Day of the Dead/Samhain/Halloween and WInter Solstice are my favorites.

This year, I've written a sonnet for my grandmother to say thank you.