Summaries of Cunningham's life & work connect his companionship with John Cage & @le@toricismo. Not needing any music 2dance2 separates his rapt silence from previous dance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/arts/dance/28cunningham.html?_r=1&em
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
CA: bottled-vs-tap water
To: "BBC World Business Programme"
Date: 26 JULY 09
Thank you for reading my previous letter to you about "butterfly...bee" business-practice. Here's another:
CA bottled-water
Here in CA, as the state economy sinks, local water districts (cf. mine, here in Santa Clara County,) are advertizing on local-TV trying to persuade habitual bottled-water drinkers to return to tap-water, using environmental arguments: bottled-water’s not better, but worse; tap-water costs less, reduces plastic landfill waste. Tap-water's as much a consumer-product as anything else, so they need to sell more of it at whatever price(s) they can, within deliverable limits (e.g., they're also simultaneously encouraging more efficient lawn-watering, suggesting it be done automatically at 5am.) Grand Object: reduce & eliminate bottled-water (like eliminating cigarettes.) (Poem follows:)
"Calivaporating…"
Californians are easily spotted
by bottled-water they carry,
but are being encouraged
to drink tap-water by local
water districts’ finally proving
bottled-water’s not better, but
worse; tap-water also costs less,
reduces plastic landfill waste.
Adios, chica bottled-agua;
you're Calivaporating…
(13 JULY 09, Santa Clara CA) v5
~ Bill Costley, former high-tech marketing writer; lifelong published poet
Date: 26 JULY 09
Thank you for reading my previous letter to you about "butterfly...bee" business-practice. Here's another:
CA bottled-water
Here in CA, as the state economy sinks, local water districts (cf. mine, here in Santa Clara County,) are advertizing on local-TV trying to persuade habitual bottled-water drinkers to return to tap-water, using environmental arguments: bottled-water’s not better, but worse; tap-water costs less, reduces plastic landfill waste. Tap-water's as much a consumer-product as anything else, so they need to sell more of it at whatever price(s) they can, within deliverable limits (e.g., they're also simultaneously encouraging more efficient lawn-watering, suggesting it be done automatically at 5am.) Grand Object: reduce & eliminate bottled-water (like eliminating cigarettes.) (Poem follows:)
"Calivaporating…"
Californians are easily spotted
by bottled-water they carry,
but are being encouraged
to drink tap-water by local
water districts’ finally proving
bottled-water’s not better, but
worse; tap-water also costs less,
reduces plastic landfill waste.
Adios, chica bottled-agua;
you're Calivaporating…
(13 JULY 09, Santa Clara CA) v5
~ Bill Costley, former high-tech marketing writer; lifelong published poet
"Don't float like a butterfly, don't sting like a bee."
Last week, I heard an op-ed on BBC radio (via KQED, S.F.) that proposed a reversion to a less vicious business environment, ending in a negative restatement of the (in)famous Muhammad Ali quote: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." So I popped up, walked to my keyboard in the next room, wrote the following, & e-mailed it to the BBC World Business programme. Tho the BBC didn't reply, Ann Wainwright in Billingham, Teeside, northern England heard from her friend Brian who'd heard it read over that programme @ 3am GMT the next day.
Bottom-line: I'm glad I can still easily do what I used to do (for a tiny PR-shop in Wellesley MA): plink a distant, passing media window of biz.PR-op., but this time, on behalf of myself & social sanity.
RE: the last words: "butterfly...bee."
Monday, July 20, 2009 10:13 PM
From: "Bill Costley"
To: world.business@bbc.co.uk
Here in Silicon Valley CA, I've just been listening to the BBC overnite business programme that ended with the anti-quote: "Don't float like a butterfly, don't sting like a bee" (Muhammad Ali, reversed) That is, act & talk no jive. If that had been the Golden Rule for the past 25+ years, the USA economy might possibly be solvent, or something almost like it. But it sounds nice to hear as I lay me down to sleep in Silicon Valley.
~ Bill Costley, ex high-tech marketing writer
Santa Clara CA 95050 usa
Bottom-line: I'm glad I can still easily do what I used to do (for a tiny PR-shop in Wellesley MA): plink a distant, passing media window of biz.PR-op., but this time, on behalf of myself & social sanity.
RE: the last words: "butterfly...bee."
Monday, July 20, 2009 10:13 PM
From: "Bill Costley"
To: world.business@bbc.co.uk
Here in Silicon Valley CA, I've just been listening to the BBC overnite business programme that ended with the anti-quote: "Don't float like a butterfly, don't sting like a bee" (Muhammad Ali, reversed) That is, act & talk no jive. If that had been the Golden Rule for the past 25+ years, the USA economy might possibly be solvent, or something almost like it. But it sounds nice to hear as I lay me down to sleep in Silicon Valley.
~ Bill Costley, ex high-tech marketing writer
Santa Clara CA 95050 usa
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Remembering Harvard Sq. (Camb MA)
I 1st-visited Harvard Sq. in '58 to buy both a hard-&paper-back copy of William Empson's THE 7 TYPES OF AMBIGUITY for my sr. yr. RC prep-school English teacher, Bro. Kyrin Powers, who'd suggested we read it.
I had my 1st English (Mackeson's London) stout there (at the Wursthaus) with Jeff Gutcheon, Maria Muldaur's pianist, during the Summer of '62 while I was at Harvard Summer School, taking Chaucer's minor poems, still being given by the legendary B.J. Whiting.
Joan & Maya & Alex & I lived in Cambridge (in Central Sq.,) from '64-72, & were, of course, often in Harvard Sq. during what I call The Years of Flame (=the High-'60s)
I was last in Harvard Sq. in '03; while Carolin & I reduced the contents of the Wellesley Sq. apt. to move to CA, I kept bringing all my extraneous poetry books to donate them to the Houghton Library's Woodbury Poetry Room because it was now too poor to buy more (its early-20th c. bequest had become pitifully inadequate by the early-21st c.) Things had changed, even inside Harvard, between 1958-2003.
Once charming Harvard Sq. is now dense with traffic & the MBTA subway goes all the way to Porter Sq. Do people still busk at night in the former COOP (now Barnes & Noble's) 's portico? Sure; I'm told they now even sit begging 24/7.
I had my 1st English (Mackeson's London) stout there (at the Wursthaus) with Jeff Gutcheon, Maria Muldaur's pianist, during the Summer of '62 while I was at Harvard Summer School, taking Chaucer's minor poems, still being given by the legendary B.J. Whiting.
Joan & Maya & Alex & I lived in Cambridge (in Central Sq.,) from '64-72, & were, of course, often in Harvard Sq. during what I call The Years of Flame (=the High-'60s)
I was last in Harvard Sq. in '03; while Carolin & I reduced the contents of the Wellesley Sq. apt. to move to CA, I kept bringing all my extraneous poetry books to donate them to the Houghton Library's Woodbury Poetry Room because it was now too poor to buy more (its early-20th c. bequest had become pitifully inadequate by the early-21st c.) Things had changed, even inside Harvard, between 1958-2003.
Once charming Harvard Sq. is now dense with traffic & the MBTA subway goes all the way to Porter Sq. Do people still busk at night in the former COOP (now Barnes & Noble's) 's portico? Sure; I'm told they now even sit begging 24/7.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Around & about word-order & rhyme
Sample of current exchange on word-order & rhyme with Bob Graham & the Roses (Norman & Sierra) in Santa Rosa:
--- On Sun, 7/19/09, Norman Rose
wrote:
From: Norman Rose
Subject: language sequence
To:"Sierra Rose"
grabob@sonic.net
Date: Sunday, July 19, 2009, 7:42 PM
Rhyme's not artificial,
And any spoon or even dish'll
Tell you so before they jump the big bright moon.
But Subjects, Verbs, and Objects
Can't always follow who's next
Because the moon won't jump a dish
or
a
spoon.
(With apologies to the cow, who really knew how....)
Or maybe this poem is enough reason that rhyme is considered obsolete
--Norman
From: Bill Costley billcostley@yahoo.com
To: grabob@sonic.net
Sun 07/19/09 00:12AM
Subject: language sequence
Bob, Rhyme's hardly used at all anymore in English poetry; since rhyme's really no longer necessary, poetic word order has reverted to normal spoken order. I wouldn't have it any other way, as my poems plainly show. Grammatical artificiality is simply obsolete. - Bill
From: sierrakrose@sbcglobal.net
Subject: language sequence
To: "Norman Rose", grabob@sonic.net, billcostley@yahoo.com
Date: Monday, July 20, 2009, 7:15 AM
One of my favorite features of English is that word order is an actual dimension unlike other languages. For instance, in French, you can say the boy throws the ball or the ball throws the boy because the spelling tells you who is the subject and object of the sentence and the word order isn't what tells you who is doing the action. In English you get very different meanings by changing the word order. The boy throws the ball means something very different from the ball throws the boy.
This doesn't mean you can't ever rearrange the word order, but you have to be careful. When I write rhyme (yes I still write a lot of rhyme), I often must resort to prepositions to show relationships like: the ball is thrown by the boy to bring a rhyming word to the position I want.
An aside: my other favorite feature of English is that you can change any noun into a verb or adjective or anything you want... we house people for example. He was a house boy. This is because English grew out of a vernacular... which (like pigeon/pidgin English) adopt many sounds and nuances without regard to strict grammar. When I was a kid I spoke pidgin in Hawaii and loved it. Oh let's keep discussing language forever OK? (My favorite subject).
Bob & Norman & Sierra, For me, rhyme sometimes just happens, & then has to be acknowledged as intentional/not: it fascinates me to see words that rhyme (vs rhyme that words) just happening in just a few lines of a poem. When it does, I just leave it there, postmodernly telling myself: Why not? I meant those words, didn't I? So what if they appear to rhyme? They still mean what I meant. Rhyme-schemes aren't framing my thoughts, but rather the reverse, to whatever degree can be seen; but so are alliterative patterns, the dominant mode in Anglo-Saxon verse. Poetic memnonics vary in degree of stringency & complexity, perhaps peaking during the European Renaissance. (We appear to have forgotten the Persian/Arabic ones, but that may yet change due to present political circumstances. I gather Chinese verse is like playing 3D+ chess.) Sierra: I may be loose, but I do find I judge grammatical skill (in English) by use of the correct pronoun & even moreso, correct preposition. Studying Latin, French & Russian taught me to watch out for & attend to them. ~ Bill Costley
--- On Sun, 7/19/09, Norman Rose
From: Norman Rose
Subject: language sequence
To:
grabob@sonic.net
Date: Sunday, July 19, 2009, 7:42 PM
Rhyme's not artificial,
And any spoon or even dish'll
Tell you so before they jump the big bright moon.
But Subjects, Verbs, and Objects
Can't always follow who's next
Because the moon won't jump a dish
or
a
spoon.
(With apologies to the cow, who really knew how....)
Or maybe this poem is enough reason that rhyme is considered obsolete
--Norman
From: Bill Costley billcostley@yahoo.com
To: grabob@sonic.net
Sun 07/19/09 00:12AM
Subject: language sequence
Bob, Rhyme's hardly used at all anymore in English poetry; since rhyme's really no longer necessary, poetic word order has reverted to normal spoken order. I wouldn't have it any other way, as my poems plainly show. Grammatical artificiality is simply obsolete. - Bill
From: sierrakrose@sbcglobal.net
Subject: language sequence
To: "Norman Rose"
Date: Monday, July 20, 2009, 7:15 AM
One of my favorite features of English is that word order is an actual dimension unlike other languages. For instance, in French, you can say the boy throws the ball or the ball throws the boy because the spelling tells you who is the subject and object of the sentence and the word order isn't what tells you who is doing the action. In English you get very different meanings by changing the word order. The boy throws the ball means something very different from the ball throws the boy.
This doesn't mean you can't ever rearrange the word order, but you have to be careful. When I write rhyme (yes I still write a lot of rhyme), I often must resort to prepositions to show relationships like: the ball is thrown by the boy to bring a rhyming word to the position I want.
An aside: my other favorite feature of English is that you can change any noun into a verb or adjective or anything you want... we house people for example. He was a house boy. This is because English grew out of a vernacular... which (like pigeon/pidgin English) adopt many sounds and nuances without regard to strict grammar. When I was a kid I spoke pidgin in Hawaii and loved it. Oh let's keep discussing language forever OK? (My favorite subject).
Bob & Norman & Sierra, For me, rhyme sometimes just happens, & then has to be acknowledged as intentional/not: it fascinates me to see words that rhyme (vs rhyme that words) just happening in just a few lines of a poem. When it does, I just leave it there, postmodernly telling myself: Why not? I meant those words, didn't I? So what if they appear to rhyme? They still mean what I meant. Rhyme-schemes aren't framing my thoughts, but rather the reverse, to whatever degree can be seen; but so are alliterative patterns, the dominant mode in Anglo-Saxon verse. Poetic memnonics vary in degree of stringency & complexity, perhaps peaking during the European Renaissance. (We appear to have forgotten the Persian/Arabic ones, but that may yet change due to present political circumstances. I gather Chinese verse is like playing 3D+ chess.) Sierra: I may be loose, but I do find I judge grammatical skill (in English) by use of the correct pronoun & even moreso, correct preposition. Studying Latin, French & Russian taught me to watch out for & attend to them. ~ Bill Costley
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Wildcat Canyon Trail
Wildcat Trail follows
a winding brook
lined with tall trees
down a steep canyon
that ends at the farm.
Many birds are seen
& their songs
are heard;
few animals are seen
during the day.
(July 18, 09)v2
- Ginny Beecher Zeitman
Santa Clara CA
vzeitman@earthlink.net
a winding brook
lined with tall trees
down a steep canyon
that ends at the farm.
Many birds are seen
& their songs
are heard;
few animals are seen
during the day.
(July 18, 09)v2
- Ginny Beecher Zeitman
Santa Clara CA
vzeitman@earthlink.net
Congressional coin-flipping
Flip a perfectly symbolic coin
in a Congressional hearing:
One side’s a wheedling,
grey-haired cracker lawyer;
One’s a careful black-haired
Puertoriqena NYC-judge.
Watch it spin & fall;
watch it fall & spin.
What you’re hearing speaks
volumes, legal & political;
what you’re seeing thins
the GOP down to the ghost
of a Confederate qu@rter.
(18 JUL 09, Santa Clara CA)v2
in a Congressional hearing:
One side’s a wheedling,
grey-haired cracker lawyer;
One’s a careful black-haired
Puertoriqena NYC-judge.
Watch it spin & fall;
watch it fall & spin.
What you’re hearing speaks
volumes, legal & political;
what you’re seeing thins
the GOP down to the ghost
of a Confederate qu@rter.
(18 JUL 09, Santa Clara CA)v2
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