*****

01. Maxine Brown – Oh No Not My Baby – One Kiss Can Lead To Another (Disc 1) (2005)

What is it about girl groups? The hair? The high, high hair? It must be the hair

02. Bloc Party – Plans – Silent Alarm (2005)

Shh. The alarm is silent, see? Remember The Alarm?? Eighties College DJ alert. Or alarm. But silent. Shh.

03. East River Pipe – Crystal Queen – What Are You On (2006)

This guy blows my mind. He went from being homeless to pumping out oddpop gems on home-recorded cassettes. Of course the Brits discovered him first. I could eat some fish & chips.

04. The Go-Betweens – Draining The Pool For You – That Striped Sunlight Sound (2006)

Some of the best should-have-been-top-40 pop that we never ever heard. Australians seem nice.

05. The Kaiser Chiefs – I Predict A Riot – Employment (2005)

Hey, they held their own at Live 8. I predict an AWESOME second album.

06. Nortec Collective – Tengo La Voz – Tijuana Sessions Vol. 3 (2005)

No, *I* have the voice. Voice tag! You’re it!

07. MIA – Sunshowers – Arular (2005)

Why is this so catchy? Why? llc says it’s because she’s the Sri Lanka reincarnation of  Tom Tom Club.

08. The Kills – The Good Ones – No Wow (2005)

Catchy-ass punk blues, cf. Good v. Evil.

09. Big Star – Best Chance We’ve Ever Had – In Space (2006)

Don’t listen to the people who were disappointed by this record. Just enjoy it for what it is.

10. The Minus 5 – Leftover Life To Kill – The Gun Album (2006)

Some of the best music REM never made.

*****

BEST SONG TO DANCE NAKED TO:

Sunshowers.  *Blushes*.

BEST LYRICS:

Tie, Crystal Queen & Leftover Life.

BEST ALBUM TITLE TO TATOO ON YOUR KNUCKLES:

“OKCLTA”. For the six-fingered among us. For the normally phalangeed, “No Wow”. USE that thumb knuckle. Excellent.

jm

Anyway.

A few years ago, Daisy Fried, an accomplished poet and teacher, was serving time at the college where I work, and sent out a campus wide challenge — write a poem a day each day of April, National Poetry Mumf. I was, as I remember, as psyched as I get about stuff that makes me do stuff. I resolved to get up early, take a half-hour-earlier train to work, and use the quiet time before the bedlam to write my poems.

That lasted for three days.

I did get three good poems out of it. Unfortunately, they were the last three poems I’ve finished. Ms. Fried supplied her challengees with daily prompts to fork one’s muse in the ass and get things going. So what I propose to do is work down the prompt list — not one a day mind you, but one whenever Gilmore GIrls is a rerun. After a while, there will be thirty poems. But without the subtle feather-quill fascism of a deadline. Phbbt.

To start things off, here’s . . .

Cruel Month Prompt #1:
Write a ten-line poem in which each line is a lie.

*****

KNIGHTS AND KNAVES

On this island, in this puzzle, everybody lies.
Except for this month, when everybody tells the truth.
Poetry brings that out in people.
For thirty days you can tell who's who with just one question.
Ask, "How's the writing coming?" and you'll get a smile.
Ask, "How's the poem going?" and you'll get a song.
Ask, "Does it even matter?" and the world will be laid out for you in ten true lines.
Everything will ring like beaten bronze.
Thirty fewer lies in thirty days will change your life.
There will be crueler months.

*****

Thanks to Daisy Fried for her talents and prompts. I wish I would have met her.

jm

Sorry I haven’t written in so long. I hope you know it’s not that I don’t think of you.

And it’s not that I have nothing to say. Or that I don’t know how to say it. Call it fear, call it inertia, call it a malfunction of chemical receptors in my brain. All of these could be reasons, but all are definitely excuses. I’m going to try to say things this way. It might work. Stranger things have happened.

Something has been bothering me, something that is uncomfortable to bring up, but might be another (hidden) reason for my silence.

I am intimidated by you and The Physicist. I envy you both. You are grownups, doing grownup things, having babies, doing physics, living productive lives. I know it’s ultimately my own gig to get over it. I’m not exactly proud of my work. I want to change that. But there are obstacles.

And part of the problem, I’m ashamed to admit, (here’s the big confession) is that I don’t remember The Physicist at all. I remember watching bastketball with him, I remember sitting in the apartment on Richmond. I remember when you got married. But I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup to save my life. This hurts, because I do remember how important he is to you. And perhaps if I remembered him, I might not have built him up into such an intimidating force.

About now, you’re probably laughing out loud. “The Physicist? MY Physicist? Intimidating?? Har-har-de-har! He cleans the cat boxes for crying out loud! I still have to help him pick out his clothes so he doesn’t look like he did in 1989! Har!”

And the wife has seen you both in the past few years, and promises me The Physicist doesn’t wear pants made of blinding light nor shoot shrink rays from his fingertips. So obviously this is my gig to get over.

A person should be more that what they do, yeah? But The Physicist actually DOES something. And I’m not sure I want to. Do. ANYthing. So, you’re saying maybe embrace that? Good point. You always were smart.

More later.

Yours ever,

jm