Sunday, November 07, 2010
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Friday, November 05, 2010
True World Series MVP Dave Righetti
A couple of thoughts about winning & recognition, occasioned by some of my less literary passions. First, Gretchen Jones won Project Runway with a show of what could politely be called Sedona-Wear, highly commercial but yawningly predictable southwestern casual clothes. Mondo Guerra, the pint-sized Pinocchio of Denver, came in second with a show that demonstrated infinitely greater range, sophistication and creativity. Even third-place finisher Andy South’s collection, a little too safe to be as avant-garde as some of his warrior women costumes had been in the past, put on a better show than Jones, who might not have made in it to Fashion Week at all had the judges not applied an unwritten “one finalist must be a woman” rule, thereby dropping the effortless chic of Michael Costello. A poll in the LA Times showed viewers preferring Guerra’s collection with about 80% of the vote, Jones in second with just under 12% and South at 7%.
Read more »Labels: Baseball, Project Runway
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Thursday, November 04, 2010
Rick Prelinger:
Destruction of the Panopticon:
William E. Worden’s
The Observatory in Ruins, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco (1906)
Having once been
Sweeney Observatory on Strawberry Hill
in the middle of Stow Lake
Prelinger talks today on appropriation –
freeganism vs. the archive –
at Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia
Labels: photography, social history
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Wednesday, November 03, 2010
“Abstraction Revisited”
Chelsea Art Museum
Now – Nov 27
Now – December 17 in Philadelphia
Charles Burwell
Now – January 9 in NYC
The Perpetual Peace Project
Now – April 13, in Philly,
Penn Humanities Forum
on Virtuality
Now – December 1 in Brockton, MA
Emily Dickinson
is the focus of The Big Read
November 3 in NYC
(Jeni Olin) Truck Darling & John Olson
Now – November 7 in London
Poetry International 2010
November 3 in Philadelphia,
Arkadii Dragomoshchenko
November 3 in London
Terry Riley with Talvin Singh & George Brooks
November 4 in Boston,
Louder than a Bomb
November 4 in Philadelphia,
Edwidge Danticat & Linh Dinh
Labels: Coming Events
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Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Edgar Renteria gets the pitch he wanted
In 1954, the last time the Giants won a World Series, I was eight years old. I remember the series as one of the first that I watched on TV with my grandfather, gradually becoming a baseball fan but not yet with an allegiance to any team. In ’54, the teams local to the Bay Area were the Oakland Oaks & San Francisco Seals, both minor league franchises in the Pacific Coast League. The Oaks folded after 1955, and I never saw a Seals game in person. But what I remember most about that 1954 series is that TV showed Willie Mays’ catch of a long drive off the bat of Vic Wertz over and over. I may not even have known what a replay was before that series. Although Cleveland had won 111 games that year and was seemingly invincible, the rather motley crew of the Giants, whose heroes included a pinch-hitter by the name of Dusty Rhodes, swept them in 4 games.
Four years later, when I was 12, the Giants moved to San Francisco, led that season by Mays & Johnny Antonelli, one of the pitching heroes of the ’54 series. That first west coast team had a number of young players, most notably rookie first baseman Orlando Cepeda, who would go on to the Hall of Fame, rookie third-baseman Jim Davenport & a slew of good young outfielders that included Willie Kirkland, Felipe Alou, Bill White, Leon Wagner and Jackie Brandt, and I was instantly a die-hard Giants fan. I can tell pretty much everything about the first game I ever attended at Seals Stadium on 16th Street. Ruben Gomez started for the Giants but walked the first four batters & was pulled instantly by manager Bill Rigney, who sent in Paul Giel (a one-time Jack Spicer student!) who shut down the Reds the rest of the way, allowing the home team to beat Bob Purkey. Before they moved to Candlestick Park in 1960, I saw Leon Wagner hit a ball that cleared the stadium walls & crossed 16th Street to land in a park – that is still the longest home run I’ve ever seen, even if it gets a little longer every year.
Once the Giants added Willie McCovey (another Hall of Famer) in 1959 & Juan Marichal (ditto) in ’60, the team became a regular contender in the pre-playoffs era of baseball. In 1962, the Giants came within a hit of besting the New York Yankees in a seven-game series. Game 4 of that series proved to be the only World Series game Juan Marichal would ever play in. Although the Giants won that particular contest, the victory in relief went to Don Larsen, whom everyone remembers for his perfect game with the Yankees in 1956.
Read more »Labels: Baseball
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Monday, November 01, 2010
“This is your brain on poetry.”
– Huffington Post
“The Grand Piano continues to amaze...” – David Meltzer
“...language, history, textuality, and temporality”
– Robin Tremblay-McGaw
“Obsessively readable” – Mark Scroggins
Labels: The Grand Piano
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