No Direction Home

by Charles Wright

After a certain age, there’s no one left to turn to.
You’ve got to find Eurydice on your own,

you’ve got

To find the small crack

between here and everywhere else all by yourself.

How could it be otherwise?
Everyone’s gone away, the houses are all empty,
And overcast starts to fill the sky like soiled insulation.

swallows are flying grief-circles over their featherless young,
night-dropped and dead on the wooden steps.
the aspen leaves have turned grey,
slapped by the hard, west wind.

someone who knows how little he knows
is like the man who comes to a clearing in the forest,
and sees the light spikes,
and suddenly senses how happy his life has been.

- charles wright, “morning occurrence at xanadu,” scar tissue (farrar, straus and giroux, 2006), 25.

If you are a regular to this website then you will be familiar with Mamas Gun.  If that name means little to you… catch up.  There are not many superlatives left to describe them; they have reinvigorated my love for UK soul music, providing a cocktail of Funk and Soul, chased with a tight band and immaculate vocals.

Routes to Riches, their debut album, was released last week and this gig was a bit of a celebration, a chance to say thank you to the family, friends and fans for their support.  That sentiment really came across as they rolled through many of the albums tracks in an accomplished manner.  They even managed to change my opinion of some of the album tracks; a Stevie Wonder-esque performance of Big Betty (when I closed my eyes I could swear I was listening to Superstition) and a fiery performance of Rico, reinvented the songs for me (previously I had not been a fan of them and now I cannot seem to get enough of Big Betty).  Pots of Gold sounds great on tape yet becomes sumptuous live.  Those three would have been worth the entrance fee alone (kinda feel like I owe them money to be honest) and finishing up with a cover of Charles Wright’s Express Yourself was a nice treat.

The guys are about to go on tour with Beverley Knight, and going by her performance at The Roundhouse and Mamas Gun’s performances throughout 2009 it should be one hell of a show.

Consistency is a very difficult thing to achieve.  Over the course of 2009 Mamas Gun have proved unquestionably they have it.

Soulside Funk

Tell Me a Story – Robert Penn Warren

Words and the Diminution of All Things – Charles Wright

A Blessing – James Wright

The Truth the Dead Know – Anne Sexton

Charles Wright said it best, but thee following companies really provide the means to express yourself! In an age of mass production, we often look for ways to make things more distinct, making our mark by showing sprinklings of our personality.

First to free us from the mundane is Schtickers. Schtickers is a design company that specializes in providing decorative decals for your laptop and iPod. They are community oriented supporting the arts and social services with a portion of each purchase donated to charity. There are a wide variety of designs to choose from which include textures, fine art, modern, solids, retro, and of course there is an option for even more customization. I was thrilled to see a decal by Banksy, a graffiti artist whose work is wrought with humor and satire. He recently had an exhibition in the Bristol Museum with more than 100 hundred of his pieces mixed in with the museum’s collection. Watch the preview Banksy vs Bristol Museum.

Next up is Coolors, an Italian based company that spruces up your refrigerator (and cabinets, and stove, and walls, and…). With silk screened panels, Coolors’s products make all the other kitchens in the neighborhood jealous . Their current catalog has designs in bright colors with flowers, shapes, and swirls and special patterns in black and white. Why stop there? You can now add glitter or Swarovski crystals to the motif. There is also the option to use an image of your own. God bless Italy!

Finally, is a company I applaud. I remember looking at their website a while ago and even then being impressed with their idea and what they had to offer. Since then their business and their collection has expanded tremendously and they just revamped their website. Blik is a graphics company (not to be confused with Blick) that makes creative wall decals. It’s a great alternative to wallpaper or painting, after all not everyone is Michelangelo.

Blik decals can be used indoor and outdoor with a life span ranging from 1 – 3 years. They are made from a thin adhesive matte vinyl film and seamlessly blend on your wall. Removal is easy, just peel and slowly lift. There is also Blik Re-Stick decals that can be repositioned and reused. Their unique collection is booming and offers everything from plants, to classic game scenes, to headboards. The possibilities and combinations are endless. They also have a gallery that shows off custom projects for which they’ve been commissioned. If you get some blik, don’t hold back. This guy didn’t.

“So I got these awesome wall decals from www.whatisblik.com and after they were put up, we really wanted to “Play” Super Mario. So we made it so the wall is interactive! So now, if you walk in my office and jump up to touch a coin or mushroom, they make the actual sound from the game! The speaker is in the ceiling tile right by the door. And yes, I am aware how high the nerd factor is on this one! “

HEAVEN’S EEL

A slight wrinkle on the pond.

Small wind.

A small wind and the rumpled clouds’ reflection.

Ho hum . . . What’s needed is something under the pond’s skin,

Something we can’t see that controls all the things that we do see.

Something long and slithery,

something we can’t begin to comprehend,

A future we’re all engendered for, sharp teeth, Lord, such sharp teeth.

Heaven’s eel.

Heaven’s eel, long and slick,

Full moon gone, with nothing in its place.

A doe is nibbling away at the long stalks of the natural world

Across the creek.

It’s good to be here.

It’s good to be where the world’s quiescent, and reminiscent.

No wind blows from the far sky.

Beware of prosperity, friend, and seek affection.

The eel’s world is not your world,

but will be soon enough.

–Charles Wright

————-

SOURCES:

Text– New Yorker (10 October 2009)

Image–based on Ripples by polaroid667 (licensed Creative Commons 2.0)

Chart Position: 11

• Keyboards: Charles Wright
• Written by Charles Wright
• The band is from Los Angeles CA
• Produced by Charles Wright and Fred Smith
• Guitarist Al McKay later joined Earth Wind and Fire
• Later included in the film Boogie Nights

Jackie has it all, brains, beauty, talent and a wonderful family. It was a joy to spend the afternoon with her and get to know her a little better. She surprised me, since she is very shy and I thought it might be hard to get her natural in front of the camera, but she was a superstar! So beautiful in every way!

Peacefulness…

Wind always shows up! Thank you wind! I love you… most of the time!

There is just something about this one that captures me and draws me in.

Swimmer’s body… that shawl is covering in just the right spot for those tan lines! I love this shot of Jackie!

The location was magical.

So natural, simple and breathtaking…

Happiness…

You can see how genuine she is. I love how that shines through without effort. That is real!

Of all the locations I have used, I think this is one of my favorites! Thanks for making it even more beautiful Jackie!

Perhaps T. S. Eliot was right. April can be one of the cruelest months, especially if you are trying to keep up with the deluge of new poems and poetry books.

You see, several years ago, I signed up to allow press releases, newsletters, news alerts, and suchlike other electronic detritus to rain down on me, at will, from the heights of the Academy of American Poets. I was especially interested in their offer to deliver one new poem each day (culled from new books scheduled to be published in that year), emailed to my inbox, during the month of April, which has been designated “National Poetry Month” (for better or worse) for more than a decade.

If I recall, the inaugural “Poem-A-Day” program didn’t quite live up to its promise; it started somewhat in the middle of the month, and poems arrived higgledy-piggledy for a few weeks, then it abruptly ceased. No big deal, I thought. On the whole, I managed to read (and like) what I received. In the ensuing years, however, the Web site has been more successful, with poems beginning to emerge on time, as advertised, and continuing to blossom in my inbox on a daily basis throughout the month and — as was the case last year — well into May. I have to admit that it has gotten increasingly harder to keep track of, let alone read and appreciate, all the new arrivals. (I know, beggars/choosers…)

And this year’s April showers have produced an especially bountiful (and overwhelming) crop of poems, because the Academy, in honoring both the national “holiday” and its 75th anniversary, enthusiastically extended the delivery period even further. So far, since the first, I’ve received 60-plus daily poems, pulled from books published or scheduled to be in 2009, and they are still arriving. Most (at least in terms of the ones I’ve read) have been good, some are of no interest, but a few grabbed me right away — and were compelling enough to make me want to reread and, better (in the eyes of the publishers and retailers, no doubt), go out and buy the whole book.

So I thought I’d share the wealth with you by mentioning a few of the standouts, in the hope of promoting the cause, bandying ideas about why I think poetry matters (in these dubious days, especially), and introducing you to some poems and poets you may not have heard of in the hope of sparking your interest. I want to point out that I’m partial to short, lyric poetry, so you won’t find much in the way of long-form or otherwise complex poems here (except as an excerpt). To me, the purpose of a poem is to capture a brief moment in time, or an emotion, and express that experience in both personal and universal terms, in as succinct a way as possible. Therefore, by nature, a poem should be fleeting, free of too much decoration or distraction, and fairly easily understood in one or two readings. Anything else is, well, something else and not a poem, at least to me.

Also, I understand that, just as one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, one should not assume that the following poems are representative of the quality of each overall collection. However, you gotta start somewhere — and I can pull a number of volumes off my shelf that I picked solely on looks, reputation, smell, etc., and that have proved to be my favorites. My hope is that you’ll find something you like here, want to read it again, and even track down the whole book, on a store or library shelf.

So, here are my selections. Be sure you click on each link below, which will take you to the poem’s individual page at Poets.org, where you can read it in full, as well as find links to additional poems by the author, along with biographical and other information. There is also an archive of the full roster of this year’s Poem-A-Day selections, available here. Enjoy!

Ann Lauterbach, “Elegy for Sol LeWitt,” Or to Begin Again. There’s a lot going on in this compact, painterly poem. Most obvious are all the “lines” that weave throughout: lines on the weather map that look like “casts of fishing lines,” lines “drawn on walls” and “drawn across the canvases” that make geometric shapes, the colorful horizon line depicted at the end, and even the lines of the poem itself, which loop back and forth across the page. There are also the intriguing, differing shades of “pale” — the weather map is pale, so we are told, and so is the evening sky, along with “two pale squares / on a blackened field,” the pale “blue northern cold,” the “pale green / at Hartford,” and (most cleverly) “the blank newsprint of the sea.” There are other, more subtle similarities, as well. But after reading this poem a few times, I’m still not entirely clear about who is being elegized or why. (I could Google it, I suppose.) It doesn’t really matter, though. There is in this poem, as it itself claims, “a kind of logic / charged with motion” that’s compelling, drawing me in, encouraging me to wonder in delight.

Stacie Cassarino, “Goldfish Are Ordinary,” Zero at the Bone. This poem has one of the least poetic opening couplets I’ve encountered:

At the pet store on Court Street,
I search for the perfect fish.

And yet it captivated me right away and held my attention long enough for the pay-off, from the colorfully descriptive fish names — “black moor, the blue damsel, / cichlids and neons,” etc. — to an explanation for the search: to buy “Something / to distract your sadness, something / you don’t need to love you back.” (Isn’t that why everyone ultimately buys a pet?) As it turns out the title for the poem is a statement made by “the boy selling fish,” but there is nothing ordinary about it, from the vivid descriptions of the tank and its contents (“all of this grace and brilliance, / such simplicity the self could fail / to see”) to the way the poem moves from the concrete to the enigmatic at the end. Perfect.

Gregory Orr, “Untitled [This is what was bequeathed us],” How Beautiful the Beloved. As a writer I’m easily smitten by the sight of a beautiful turn of phrase, and the opening of this short excerpt from a book-length poem caught my eye right away and caused me to stare up and down at it several times:

This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.

Believe me when I tell you that much effort went in to making those four lines seem so effortless.  And this little taste, along with some other beauties, like the matter-of-fact elegance of “No meaning but what we find here. / No purpose but what we make,” leave me wanting more — to discover who “the beloved” is, for instance, and the meaning of the musically instructive last line, “Turn me into song; sing me awake.” How beautiful, indeed.

Pamela Spiro Wagner, “How to Read a Poem: Beginner’s Manual,” We Mad Climb Shaky Ladders. I have to admit I was a little caught off guard by this clever bit of poetic didacticism. I chuckled at first at some of the silliness –

To read poetry requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.

You mean, like cliff-diving? But eventually I was won over by the seriousness of Wagner’s Whitmanesque appeal to poetry’s most important audience — the folks who are afraid to read it. If you or someone you love is not a regular reader of poetry, you should follow the steps outlined in this “manual.” The advice herein is sage (“First, forget everything you have learned”), the observations are keen (poetry is “language … doing holy things to the ordinary”), and the instruction is simple (“Read just one poem a day”). If the component parts of the poem live up to its credo (“the best poems mean what they say and say it”), you will soon find you don’t need its assistance.

Mei-Yao Ch’en, “An Excuse for Not Returning the Visit of a Friend,” Songs of Love, Moon, and Wind. This tiny, 12-line poem, translated from the ancient Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth,  is one of my favorites and I was delighted by its unexpected arrival. What gets me every time I read this poem, written nearly 1,000 years ago, in a land that couldn’t be more foreign to me, is how easily I can connect with the speaker’s dilemma. He blames his inability to be sociable on the behavior of his two children, For instance,

One has just begun to talk.
The other chatters without
stopping. They hang on my clothes
And follow my every step.

The palpable regret he feels for not being able to “get any farther / Than the door,” and presumably go out with the guys, is balanced by the barely understated joy he feels from the trappings of fatherhood. What parent of young children can’t relate to this situation? My three are more teen than toddler these days, and I still feel their tugging and, like the speaker, I am often “slow to go out” and leave them behind.

Charles Wright, “Little Ending,” Sestets. This is a strange, yet strangely appealing poem. Only six lines long (which, given its title, must be the case for the whole book), it nonetheless packs a wallop, freighted with mystery and meaning. There’s an odd, Eliot-like foreboding in some of the phrases: for instance, “Bowls will receive us, / and sprinkle black scratch in our eyes,” while “on the untouchable road, / It won’t matter where we have become.” No matter how “little,” though, the poem seems to be over-reaching for a dead-end. And yet, the last few lines appear full of hope — with the admonition that “Someone will take our hand, / someone will give us refuge” — even if we’re feeling hopeful for something unknown.

C. P. Cavafy, “Since Nine –,” Collected Poems. Sometimes the simplest poetic tricks can be the most effective. For instance, the repetition (and slight modification) of the same few words and phrases in this poem  (“the time has quickly passed,” “since nine o’clock when I first turned up the lamp,” “the apparition of my youthful body,” etc.) produces both a feeling of tempus-fugit tension and a soothing, lullaby-like release, as the speaker looks back on a life’s worth of pleasures and losses. It’s an incredibly moving (and deceptively tricky) conceit, typical of Cavafy, a remarkable yet little-known Greek poet from the last century whose work deserves to be rediscovered. Especially these days, as we cling to our nostalgia like a life-ring. And if this translation by Daniel Mendelsohn is any indication of the quality of the new collection, then this book should go a long way toward reviving his (and our) spirit.

There you have it, just a nosegay from this year’s sprawling garden of verse. I hope you found something you liked or were inspired to seek out more. I’ve already picked up the Rexroth translations and plan to acquire more titles, when I’m able. Though don’t ask me when I’m going to have time to read them.

As always, leave a comment about this week’s selections. What didn’t you like? Did I overlook a poem or author you think should have been included? And be sure to visit (and join) the Scribbleskiff page on Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/oozg5l), where you can partake in wall-to-wall conversations, find additional information and suggestions from readers, and more.

Must only permit the most ragged taxonomies.

And the most baroque hierarchies, untraceable
lineages, etc.

“The image is how we say it when we’re too embarrassed to say it.” — Charles Wright

Arriving in my mail this month is the latest issue of the Northwest Review, freshly re-designed and under the direction of new editors who serve on the faculty of the University of Oregon, where the magazine has been published for more than 50 years.

With newspapers and magazines in economic freefall, it’s as good a time as any to ask, what’s the future of America’s thousands of brick-and-mortar literary journals?

From mimeographed, off-the-radar staple jobs like Samizdat to granddaddies such as The Paris Review, little magazines in the United States have served not just an incubatory role for essayists, short story writers, novelists, poets, playwrights and critics but have existed as America’s creative and intellectual publishing foundation for literary endeavors, movements, polemics and selected works — whether the writing has been seminal or atrocious, the writer famous, emerging or unknown. 

Ever since America’s first literary journals were founded in the early 19th century, including The North American Review, which is still in existence, every American writer of any note has had his or her work published in the seedbed periodicals of that era’s contemporary literature.

In the Northwest, one of the oldest and most venerable literary periodicals devoted exclusively to poetry in the United States is Poetry Northwest, founded in 1959. In the spirit of disclosure, I should say I’m the current editor of this storied publication.

Poetry Northwest holds a special place in my literary career. Twenty years ago it was one of the first important little magazines to publish a poem of mine. My payment was two copies — same as today, though until recently we added two bottles of wine as well.

Here’s the thing about this story: At the time I first published in Poetry Northwest, I was living in Washington, D.C., so you could well ask what did publication in a magazine a continent away do for my writing? Probably nothing. But it was wind in the sails. It was confirmation that my writing existed in the world outside of my private notebook, existed as literary art and a singular poetic piece in a long line of poetic pieces that stretched back, in this country at least, to Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.

At the time, Poetry Northwest probably had 400 subscribers, if that. More people go into my neighborhood coffee shop each day, I know, but these were 400 readers who knew something about — and more important, cared deeply about — contemporary American literature. Over the years, in fact, I have even met some of them, and they have reminded me that they first encountered my poems in Poetry Northwest.

With postage and paper cheap for most of the 20th century, the number of literary journals multiplied, especially during the ’60s and ’70s. Today literary magazines are financially pressed, even those with institutional support from a college or university. Long-standing literary journals and newly created ones are finding a rebirth in the publishing zeitgeist of the Internet. Today, in fact, there is no cultural difference for a writer between publishing a story, poem or essay in print or online.

What’s to be found in a literary magazine? Every kind of writing you can imagine — from the most traditional to the most experimental. Either way, only a literary magazine would equate a six-line poem like the one this month by Charles Wright, a sestet of a poem, as holding equal weight with an enormous essay, a story or a philosophical inquiry.

As always, literary experience in America both begins and fits in the hand. 

Autumn Thoughts on the East Fork 

Daytime is boredom after awhile, I’ve come to find, and nighttime, too. 
But in between,

but we’ve never seen it up here. 

– Charles Wright
“Autumn Thoughts on the East Fork” from The Northwest Review, Volume 47, Number 2

Beautiful Beach House by Charles Wright

The (w)right House is four bedroom contemporary home designed by Charles Wright just moments from the beach in cosmopolitan Port Douglas. It has environmentally sustainable design with vaulted ceilings and the presence of water from every angle of the house. To cool the tropical air, the house has one store and enveloped by water.

The structure is an innovative combination of concrete, steel and un-conventional core-filled clay brick masonry. A flowing metal structure shades the lap pool with salt water, and a wooden deck wraps around the house conjuring up the sense of being at sea. The roof cavity is double insulated and separately vented utilising venturi effect – eleiminating heat gain from roof penetration. The house has indoor and outdoor dining places with open plan kitchen and gas BBQ relatively. The living room has an LCD widescreen TV/DVD/CD, Cable TV, WiFi and surround sound entertainment system. The house is a great retreat near the beach to spent holidays.

via

This 3rd chapter of the Desert(ed) Island Poems series has us leaving the east coast and heading for the west, to see which poems Fremantle-based poet Amanda Joy will take with her as she casts off in search of solitude.

Take The I Out – Sharon Olds

When I found Sharon Olds’ poetry I immersed myself in everything I could find by her. It seemed so brave, to use the narrative ‘I’. Which is all her poetry. This poem I return to again and again for it’s juxtapositions of hard to soft, intimate to public. It reminds me that the personal is always political, that the way to the heart is through the heart. I love the way I read it feeling as if I’m being dragged through homes and over steel girders and pine cones. As a poet my heart skips a little at “Take The I Out” I imagine  “I” might predominate a little on a desert island.

Read the poem here:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/take-the-i-out/ 

There is also a great article I read while searching for the link which is a bit nifty for poets to read http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5892

Digging it In – Dorothy Hewitt
 
This poem is a narrative that feels like home, to me. I love that I can hear the spade turning the soil. I love the way she traces the emotional ties we feel to our roots no matter how far we are/try to be, from them. There is no comfort or solace in this poem. It might remind me to plant some cress seeds I stashed in my pocket before the stranding.

Read the poem here:
http://jacketmagazine.com/12/hewett-3.html

“A” – Louis Zukofsky

I was introduced to this by my grandmother, but it was wordy and daunting as a teenager. When I returned to it a year or so ago I found myself carrying it everywhere reading and rereading it for the sheer pleasure and stimulus of it’s exquisitely crafted sounds and thoughtings. It pulses with rhythm and intellect you feel seeping into your being by some form of literary osmosis.

Found a link to a neat article by Charles Bernstein in Jacket:
http://jacketmagazine.com/30/z-bernstein.html

My Life By Water – Lorine Niedecker

I would bring this one for the sake of my sanity. I find so much more in this poem every time I read it. No word is wasted, the rhythm and syntax tight. Quietly, deliberately so much space is left between the words. I have always felt reading it her deep sense of responsibility to language and words. I like to turn each stanza over and over and admire it’s crafting from every angle.

Read the poem here:
http://www.lorineniedecker.org/poems.html

Rhythm Method – Yusef Komunyakaa

For the sublime thrill of it, over and over and over and over again. Whew! ( I’m assuming I’m alone on this island. )

Read the poem here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/rhythm_method.php

The Motive For Metaphor – Wallace Stevens 

I read him quoted once as saying “The poem must resist the intelligence Almost successfully.” Tough call. There is always such a clear sense of the ungraspable in this poem. Through a strategic indirection, in the Romantic sense, the sublime. The resonance and blur of idea and obscurity, of mood and season.

Read the poem here:
http://www.cityintherain.com/poems/vitalx.html

Possibilities – Wislawa Szymborska

There is enormous generosity in this poem, within the exclusivity there is such open-armed inclusion. Deliciously simple, there is so much space for the reader to drag their own meanings in. It feels ‘wobbly’.I have always found in it a sombre absurdity. It makes me think harder about what comprises a poem.

Read the poem here:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1996/poems-4-e.html

Jagardoo – Jack Davis

I need to cheat here and say that I couldn’t pull a poem out of this book and hold it up on its own. I have a first edition hardcover which I would HAVE to take with me as a package. For all that wisdom contained. This book has stayed with me for years, I can’t imagine it ever ceasing to resonate loudly for me. It makes me listen more acutely to the world around me, hones my senses. Might even inspire me to get of my bum and start fashioning my raft from driftwood just to get home.

Words and the Diminution of All Things  – Charles Wright

“The brief secrets are still here,
                            and the light has come back.
The word remember touches my hand,”

There are whole worlds I’ve never seen all wrapped up in ones I have, in this poem. I can unfurl it now and then for an entire panorama. Always good to pack a picnic of “small slices of silence” I’m sure all that sea sound and palm trees in the breeze gets raucous after a whiles.

Read the poem here:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16661

Poem Holding Its Heart in One Fist – Jane Hirschfield

Things that make the mouth water involuntarily, everyday, domestic things, nothing exotic. Simple things we touch and step on and around seemingly inconsequentially.

“The concealment plainly delights”

All the senses engaged in the reading, these quiet moments.. these poolings where the mind is stilled enough to listen. A wonderful meditation/mediation.

Read the poem here:
http://www.poetseers.org/contemporary_poets/jane_hirshfield/janep/poem_holding_its_heart_in_one_fist

About Amanda:

Amanda Joy is a poet, writer, installation artist and sculptor living and gardening in Fremantle Western Australia. She is the keeper of a dog called Love and has a great fascination for portals and conduits. She blogs her poetry semi regularly at her website www.littleglasspen.com and www.myspace.com/amanda_joy1970 Her work is included in numerous journals online and every now and then she pops out a little limited edition illustrated chapbook for those who ask nicely. A more sizeable binding of her wordage is gestating.

Emily Dickinson, in a letter to Louise and Frances Norcross, mid-September 1860:

This world is just a little place, just the red in the sky, before the sun rises, so let us keep fast hold of hands, that when the birds begin, none of us be missing.

And found in Charles Wright’s “Self-Portrait,” (3) from The Southern Cross, 1982:

This world is a little place,
Just red in the sky before the sun rises.
Hold hands, hold hands
That when the birds start, none of us is missing.
Hold hands, hold hands.

This mix is not a representative overview of ’60s soul. Some essential artists are not represented here: Sam Cooke, James Brown, Temptations, Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield (well, he is very much present on Major Lance’s deceptively titled track. And the Five Stairsteps, with a song released four years before their famous Ooh Ooh Child, evidently have heard a Curtis song or two before). There are some well-known tracks on here – hopefully not too obvious, though – complementing some less famous tracks. Perhaps some songs will provide surprises. Dionne Warwick takes time out from bacharaching to provide a nearly camp girl-band type song. Johnny Adams gives Release Me, most famous in its Engelbert Humperdinck rancid cheese version, the soul treatment, showing that this is in fact a great song.

Philly soul exponent Bunny Sigler found some fame in the 1970s; the closer on this set was his isolated hit (reaching #22 in the Billboard charts) of the 1960s. DeeDee Sharp, another successful Philly singer, represented here (with a b-side track), even married the co-doyen of the city’s famous sound, Kenny Gamble. Some songs set the scene for the sound of ’70s soul, perhaps none more so than the Delfonics La La Means I Love You, which created a lush sound which would be widely copied by the likes of the Chi-Lites, Stylistics et al. And going back to the essential sound of ’60s soul, check out Peggy Scott on the cover with Jojo Benson: you’d not think that she could belt out a song as she does here. The wonderful Carla Thomas and Otis follow them: by comparison with Peggy & Jojo, those two are pictures of restraint.

There are some fascinating stories behind many of the artists represented here. The most tragic is that of the Bar-Kays, Stax session musicians, who were decimated in the plane crash that also killed Otis Redding, with whom they were touring. And who’d think that the Soul Survivors, another Philly band with a Kenny Gamble connection, were all white?

And, since you ask, my favourites of this mix? Today, it’s Tighten Up and Loveland.

TRACKLISTING
1. Archie Bell & the Drells - Tighten Up (1968)
2. Major Lance – Monkey Time (1963)
3. Soul Survivors - Expressway To Your Heart (1967)
4. Aretha Franklin - Since You’ve Been Gone (1968)
5. Peggy Scott & Jojo Benson - Lovers’ Holiday (1969)
6. Otis Redding & Carla Thomas - Bring It On Home To Me (1967)
7. James Carr – Dark End Of The Street (1967)
8. Jerry Butler - I Stand Accused (1964)
9. Johnny Adams – Release Me (1969)
10. Irma Thomas – I Wish Someone Would Care (1964)
11. Brenda Holloway – Operator (1965)
12. Dionne Warwick – Get Rid Of Him (1964)
13. The Tams - Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me (1964)
14. Stevie Wonder - Until You Come Back To Me (1964)
15. Dee Dee Sharp – There Ain’t Nothing That I Wouldn’t Do (1965)
16. Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Jimmy Mack (1967)
17. Jr Walker & The All Stars – What Does It Take (To Win Your Love) (1969)
18. Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - Love Land (1969)
19. David Ruffin – My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me) (1969)
20. Robert Knight - Love On A Mountain Top (1968)
21. The Delfonics - La La Means I Love You (1968)
22. The Five Stairsteps – Don’t Waste Your Time (1966)
23. O.C. Smith – Son of Hickory Holler’s Tramp (1968)
24. Sonny Charles & the Checkmates - Black Pearl (1969)
25. The Marvelettes – Don’t Mess With Bill (1966)
26. Robert Parker – Barefootin’ (1966)
27. The Bar-Kays – Soul Finger (1967)
28. Bunny Sigler – Let The Good Times Roll (1967)

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We’re starting to see more and more traction from our social media efforts in relation to the promotion of the Livescribe Smartpen. We’ve been advised that the Livescribe product is going to be featured in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper. We’ll post a more specific link tomorrow.

Great news but with a slight dark cloud hanging over it…

The story came about after Age journo Charles Wright contacted us about the Livescribe Smartpen product that he’d heard about. I always appreciate it when people (be they users, prospects, or customers) can see beyond the shallow dazzle portrayed by the big box retailers and seek out suppliers like ourselves who focus on customer service and customer experience management.

So we took the time last week to catch up with Charles for a coffee in St Kilda and to supply him with an evaluation pen. I won’t seek to quote Charles but he’s clearly impressed with the product; so much so that he’s referred a number of friends to us so they can purchase a Livescribe pen for themselves.

It’s really good to see respected journo’s of Charles’s calibre picking up the Livescribe pen and ‘getting’ the potential so quickly. The story is likely to generate some nice demand for us (and the evil empire) though given we’re in the twilight zone of current stock vs. fresh supply at the higher purchase price we’ve got a tough job to manage tomorrow.  Bear with us if you find us out of stock…

We’re starting to see more and more traction from our social media efforts in relation to the promotion of the Livescribe Smartpen. We’ve been advised that the Livescribe product is going to be featured in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper. We’ll post a more specific link tomorrow.

Great news but with a slight dark cloud hanging over it…

The story came about after Age journo Charles Wright contacted us about the Livescribe Smartpen product that he’d heard about. I always appreciate it when people (be they users, prospects, or customers) can see beyond the shallow dazzle portrayed by the big box retailers and seek out suppliers like ourselves who focus on customer service and customer experience management.

So we took the time last week to catch up with Charles for a coffee in St Kilda and to supply him with an evaluation pen. I won’t seek to quote Charles but he’s clearly impressed with the product; so much so that he’s referred a number of friends to us so they can purchase a Livescribe pen for themselves.

It’s really good to see respected journo’s of Charles’s calibre picking up the Livescribe pen and ‘getting’ the potential so quickly. The story is likely to generate some nice demand for us (and the evil empire) though given we’re in the twilight zone of current stock vs. fresh supply at the higher purchase price we’ve got a tough job to manage tomorrow.  Bear with us if you find us out of stock…

Jälle on aeg Maailm elektromuusikaga täita ja ennast tühjaks tantsida. Suvel olid meie “laseripeod” üllatavalt populaarsed ja tuleb välja, et Tartus siiski elektro ja fidgiti austajaid leidub ning üritame järjekordselt teha meeldejääva peo. Pilet on ainult 35, mille eest saab siis siseneda Tartu parima õhkonnaga peoruumi ja maailma parima tantsumuusika järgi tantsida. 

Mõned kiusamis, kiusatusse viimis, õrritamis, kraasimis (eki vasted sõnale tease) lood enne pidu:

Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band- Express Yourself

Streetlife DJs- Gunn Crime

Destroy Disco- Fly Or Bounce

Pirate Robot Midget- It’s My Beat Now (Riva Starr Remix)

Chemical Brothers- Hey Girl, Hey Boy (Soulwax remix)