The world is a wedding, but the world is a funeral too. The John Cage of visual art has left us at age 82. He will be missed. I’d like to offer Mark Spitzer’s cover as a tacit memorial to the great American Artist. Jess

Best wishes and congratulatiosn to Dan and Katie! It couldn’t have happened to a better couple! Though we’re sitting on the other side of the world, our hearts are right there with you. The Glass Family.

Just saw it on the TLS web site. The very fine poet Archie Markham died on Easter. I was waiting to hear back from him about a third person to make up a volume of Caribbean poets for a future Ahadada Reader. Rest in peace, Archie.

We’re in the midst of the famed Golden Week here in Japan–a holiday during which many people make a final flying trip to their home towns or to the hot spring of their choice, before buckling in for more gray days at work. The big question always is: what are your plans for Golden Week? My answer this year: “Apato de goro goro shtai!”–”I’m just going to stick around the apartment.” This answer always bring a smile to my J-work mates and students. Yes, they know that feeling well. Today’s weather is a bit overcast, but not too bad. The ever-present projects call from my office: I have books to finish, translations to polish, work-related writing to do, tomes to read and think about. Today’s also “Children’s Day,” and the kids are excited. They’re on the phone right now with their grandmother. Goro goro indeed! And one more Golden Day left before it’s back to the grind.

Just a small note about an important event from the Glass clan here in Japan to the Sendecki clan of Canada. Best wishes for a happy married life together Dan and Katie! We’ll be around in spirit when the wedding happens. Love to you both.

More startling stuff from YouTube this morning! I caught a glimpse of what promises to be the future of at least one form of musical expression: the ReacTable! The instrument is deceptively easy to use: simply by placing objects suggestive of the Platonic solids (!) in conjunction on a flat computer, one generates complex electronic sounds. The interesting thing is that the pulsations and Tesla-like flares of “influence” are all visible as lines and circles on the flat blue background. The pulsating sounds, the conjunctions of geometric forms, the auras and flares of connection, are worthy of Jules Verne, but are even more suggestive of Huysman, Rimbaud, Levi and before. Bjork has already incorporated the instrument into her concerts–but as witnessed by the YouTube clips–not very convincingly. The question remains, will the ReacTable go the way of the Glass Armonica and the Theramin, also rather mystical instruments, now seen, unfortunately, as novelty instruments, or will it become the work horse–the piano, if you will–of the future? The manufacturer of ReacTable says that it will begin mass production later this year. I imagine that the price will be astronomically high for the average musician. Let’s hope that cheaper models will become available within the next several years.

More Youtube fooling around brought me to the Sacred Harp videos. I love this kind of singing because it takes me back to the roots of American poetry–and especially to one source: Charles Wesley’s hymns. If you want to understand the default mode for much of Emily Dickinson (certainly her prosody!) and for the melancholy in American poetry of even the most “hopeful” sort, as well as the use of the plain, but apt word in American prosody, look no further than the Methodist hymnal–and to Charles Wesley–one of the greatest English lyric poets. Type the title of this posting into the search function of YouTube and it will take you to several incredible performances of this lyric. I love the line “unpierced by human thought.”

And am I born to die?
To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown -
A land of deepest shade,
Unpierced by human thought,
The dreary regions of the dead,
Where all things are forgot?

Soon as from earth I go,
What will become of me?
Eternal happiness or woe
Must then my portion be;
Waked by the trumpet’s sound,
I from my grave shall rise,
And see the Judge with glory crowned,
And see the flaming skies,
And see the Judge with glory crowned,
And see the flaming skies.

Here is certainly one of the souces of ED’s comment that real poetry “takes the top of [your] head off.” There’s also, of course, that terrible apocalyptic burden that the West has been saddled with since the Book of Revelations was included as part of the official gospels. While this vision has given us a shoehorn into the sublime, it’s also helped to unleash the black and white vision of the world that has tainted so much of recent American culture and politics.

Leave it to the Japanese to give the world one of the hippest, cutest, most with it girl bands in the universe: “Puffy”–a two girl combo (Ami and Yumi) that’s cool, smart, and empowered. What first started as an 8-island phenom has now taken N.Y.C. by storm (I saw “Puffy” posters glowing in little pleasant islands of light the last time I wandered aimlessly in the wee hour Apple, hopelessly jet lagged, terminally male, angst-ridden, alone and lost) and has spawned its own cartoon on Cartoon Network that my daughter adores. Reading That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness by Elisa Gabbert & Kathleen Rooney reminds me of attending a “Puffy” concert–indeed, reading these poems, I can’t help but think that if they were set to music, they’d rocket these two to cult status on the thinking woman’s circuit. Here’s just one example (which I picked in honor of the month that has just left us here in Japan):

Cruelest Month Quatorzain

I’ve drawn up a list of best practices
for those whose MO’s are smart-not-careful,
according to these complicated matrices
where x=sharp & y=killful,

carved into my desktop w/a single scissor.
Ordering ornamental trees online
is another way to kill time, if your job is miser-
y incarnate. Rain clouds in the east incline

as though to crush me. That means spring
represents the sublime, sprung from a trap
like the ghost of a rabbit, the meadowy king
of things that multiply. Small birds flap

around in the sky, ultimately meaningless.
There’s nothing left to address/confess.

There’s 104 total pages and most of them are filled with brain-blitzing like this (or better!) chock a block with references to literature and pop culture! Plus there’s a great shot of Elisa and Kathleen chowing down at a party. If they can find a drummer and borrow the keyboardist from the B-52s,–Puffy move over!

Otoliths publishes That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness in a paper back, perfect bound, POD Lulu edition. For more info go to: http://the-otolith.blogpot.com. To read more great stuff from Elisa Gabbert & Kathleen Rooney, check out their Ahadada e-chapbook on this site.