1959: Issa's Sunday Service, #161

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I really can't go very long without revisiting the Patti Smith: she is known as the high Poetess of Rock for good reason. Today's song, 1959, is a bit of a history lesson from a counterculture point of view. Certainly the year was pivotal in so many ways. Here are some random facts from that year, courtesy of Wikipedia and HistoryOrb.com (a bit of an indulgence, yes, but an informative one):

• In Cuba, rebel troops led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city of Havana.
• Motown Records founded by Berry Gordy, Jr.
• Pope John XXIII announces that the Second Vatican Council will be convened in Rome.
• Swiss males vote against voting rights for women.
• A chartered plane transporting musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper and pilot Roger Peterson goes down in foggy conditions near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all 4 occupants on board.
• Recording sessions for the album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis take place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City.
• Recording sessions for the influential jazz album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis take place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City.
• Two monkeys, Able and Miss Baker are the first living beings to successfully return to Earth from space aboard the flight Jupiter AM-18.
• Groups of Kurdish and communist militias rebelled in Kirkuk, Iraq against the central government.  
• At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, United States Vice President Richard Nixon and USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev engage ine the "Kitchen Debate".
• The Xerox 914, the first plain paper copier, is introduced to the public.
• Typhoon Vera hits central Honshū, Japan, killing an estimated 5,098, injuring another 38,921, and leaving 1,533,000 homeless. Most of the victims and damage are centered in the Nagoya area.
• The first official large unit action of the Vietnam War took place when two companies of the ARVN 23d Division were ambushed by a well-organized Vietcong force of several hundred identified as the "2d Liberation Battalion".
• Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev meets Mao Zedong in Beijing.
• The 10th anniversary of the People's Republic of China is celebrated with pomp across the country.
• Rod Serling's classic anthology series The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS.
• The U.S.S.R. probe Luna 3 sends back the first ever photos of the far side of the Moon.
• Riots break out in the Belgian Congo.
• The Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas is brutally murdered, inspiring Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.
• MGM's widescreen, multimillion dollar, Technicolor version of Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston, is released and becomes the studio's greatest hit up to that time
• The first known human with HIV dies in the Congo.
• Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Theodore Roethke
• Texas Instruments requests patent of IC (Integrated Circuit)
• Vince Lombardi signs a 5 year contract to coach Green Bay Packers
• Boston Celtic Bob Cousy sets NBA record with 28 assists Boston Celtics score 173 points against Minneapolis Lakers
• Iran & US sign economic & military treaty
• Iraq & USSR sign economic/technical treaty
• Uprising against Chinese occupation force in Lhasa Tibet
• Dalai Lama flees Tibet for India
• "Raisin in the Sun," 1st Broadway play by a black woman, opens
• Oklahoma ends prohibition, after 51 years.
• Vatican edict forbids Roman Catholics for voting for communists
• Pulitzer prize awarded to Archibald Macleish
• "Kookie, Kookie Lend Me Your Comb" by Byrnes & Connie Stevens hits #4
• Japanese-Americans regain their citizenship
• Presbyterian church accepts women preachers
• 1st house with built-in bomb shelter exhibited
• Harvey Haddix pitches 12 perfect innings, loses in 13th
• Allen Ginsberg writes his poem "Lysergic Acid."
• Bob Dylan graduates Hibbing HS in Minn.
• Postmaster General bans D H Lawrence's book, Lady Chatterley's Lover
• 1st telecast transmitted from England to US
• "West Side Story" closes at Winter Garden Theater NYC after 734 perfs.
• Dr Leakey discovers oldest human skull (600,000 years old).
• William Shea announces he plans to have a baseball team in NYC in 1961.
• "Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis," debuts on CBS-TV
• Lee Harvey Oswald announces in Moscow he will never return to US.
• 12 nations sign treaty for scientific peaceful use of Antarctica
• 1st color photograph of Earth from outer space
• Citizens of Deerfield Ill block building of interracial housing
• Richard Starkey receives his 1st drum set

Here's Patti's take, desolation angels and all, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times:

1959 

Listen to my story. Got two tales to tell.
One of fallen glory. One of vanity.
The world's roof was raging, but we were looking fine;
'Cause we built that thing and it grew wings,
in Nineteen-Fifty-Nine.

Wisdom was a teapot; Pouring from above.
Desolation angels
Served it up with Love.
Ignitin' strife like every form of light,
then moved by bold design,
slid in that thing and it grew wings,
in Nineteen-Fifty-Nine.

It was Blood, shining in the Sun;
First: Freedom!
Speeding the american claim:
Freedom; Freedom; Freedom; Freedom!

China was the tempest; And Madness overflowed.
The Lama was a young man,
and he watched his world in flames.
Taking Glory down by the edge of clouds;
It was a cryin' shame.
Another lost horizon. Tibet the fallen star.
Wisdom and compassion Crushed, in the land of Shangri-La.
But in the land of the Impala, honey, well,
we were lookin' Fine,
'cause we built that thing and it grew wings;
In Nineteen-Fifty-Nine.
'Cause we built that thing and it grew wings;
In Nineteen-Fifty-Nine.

It was the best of times, it's was the worst of times;
In 1959; 1959; 1959; 1959; 1959; 1959; 1959.
It was the best of times; It was the worst of times.
In Nineteen-Fifty-Nine. 

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And here's a near perfect live take:

 

       

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Artwork by Ion Theodorescu-Sion

 

spring's first dawn--
the priest pretending
to sweep

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don 

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Gloria: In Excelsis Deo - Issa's Sunday Service, #150

Photo by Edward Mapplethorpe

 
 
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Who'd have thunk it - 150 songs with literary references. 150 and counting that is. Patti Smith gets the honor of this landmark number because, well, she is a people's rock artist, a people's poet. You might think the 'honor' would go to the likes of the Beatles or Van Morrison (whose song Patti is covering, and then some, here) but nope. 

All of which has a little something to do with how an artist approaches the distribution of their music, how much common sense they use in said approach, and how willing they are to see it 'out there' in the hands of the great unwashed. And at what cost. To the artist, to the great unwashed. 

To the art.

But, don't get me started.  Here's what the fab site, Songfacts, has to say about this week's song: 

Hang on, this will get confusing. Van Morrison originally wrote a song called "Gloria," released in 1964 by Morrison's band Them, on their album The Angry Young Them. The Catholic church also has a hymn called "Gloria in Excelsis Deo," also known as the Greater Doxology - it's part of both Byzantine and Roman rites and has been since the 2nd and 3rd century. So we come to this song, where Patti Smith is covering Van Morrison's "Gloria" but giving it the Catholic hymn name. Because that's the way they do it in New York!

Patti Smith was clearly aiming for deliberate sacrilege and shock-value with the title - the opening lines "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" are one of the seminal protopunk lyrics.

As to what Patti is referring to in the title, the Greater Doxology as noted above, well, that might just add to the confusion. I'm betting it's the modern translation of the present day Latin text:

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace to people of good will.

We praise you,

we bless you,

we adore you,

we glorify you,

we give you thanks for your great glory,

Lord God, heavenly King,

O God, almighty Father.

Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son,

Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,

you take away the sins of the world, 

have mercy on us;

you take away the sins of the world, 

receive our prayer.

you are seated at the right hand of the Father, 

have mercy on us.

For you alone are the Holy One, 

you alone are the Lord, 

you alone are the Most High,

Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, 

in the glory of God the Father. Amen

The reason I'm thinking this is that Smith's opening line is referencing "you take away the sins of the world": "Jesus died for somebody else's sins, but not mine." In any case, old or new, this seems to be what she is referring to. Surely, it isn't the modern carol, here diva-fied by Mariah Carey?

Of course not.

So, Patti has number 100 and now 150 (as well as 36 & 58)on the Litrock list - here is a relatively recent live version of Gloria; not to put too fine a point on it but she has not lost a single step:



 
Oh, and so here is what's his name, with the Brit invasion band Them, putting it out there:




Finally, the 60s version from this side of the pond that US kids, who aren't already dead, remember by the Shadows of Knight: 




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Photograph by Alice Kandell

less high
than the sins of men...
peak of a cloud

 Issa

 translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don 

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Neil & Patti, Jack & Me ...

Check out this fine post by Ben Greenman on Patti Smith and Neil Young, writing books and albums, and living life, may be found at the New Yorker site.  Finer grained than average coverage of an average book expo event than you'd expect.

(If you have trouble with the above link, cut and paste this:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/06/neil-young-and-patti-smith.html)

Speaking of writing, I will be doing a lot more of it in the foreseeable future, just not nearly as much here at Issa's Untidy Hut.  I've been solicited to produce a piece of writing that I'm at once honored and humbled to be doing.  It will take me more than a few months to do, so the lights will dim down here for awhile, though they won't go out entirely.

I'm going to try to live up to my Wednesday Haiku commitment to post once a week and, if I miss a week now and again, at least you may trust it's with good reason and not by neglect or intent.

What the writing project is I need to keep under wraps for the moment. You folks will be among the first to know once there is clearance.

There is a nice article in a local publication, The Strip (Summer 2012), about Lawrenceville (a Pittsburgh neighborhood) authors, which contains a brief mention of Lilliput Review and Past All Traps.  A tip of the hat to Jude Wudarczyk:

Finally, I've been reading very, very slowly Jack Kerouac's Book of Haikus again.  Here's two from last night's reading:

Flowers
  aim crookedly
At the straight death

I don't care
  what
thusness is

flitting butterfly--
thus is Buddha's law
in this world

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 129 songs

Tomorrow: Issa's Sunday Service, #100 (100 LitRock Songs)

From the musical Annie, the song "Tomorrow" is given rock star treatment by Patti Smith, the rock poetess chosen for #100 on the Sunday Service because of her class, style, and respect for the fans that love her.

This has been a great year plus for Patti Smith and I can think of no one who deserves it more.  Though I wasn't as knocked out as the rest of the world by her autobiographical volume, Just Kids, I liked it fine and it certainly brought her much deserved attention.

Now, her rendition of "Tomorrow" I'm knocked out by; for me, a song from a musical qualifies as Litrock, though this is the first one on the list.  It is probably the least likely song I could have chosen for #100, or even from Smith's catalog, but there you go.  It gives me a chill every time I listen to it, chokes me up, grabbing me and not letting go.

When she urges on the late great Richard Sohl to a mildly bombastic crescendo, which she matches note for note, I am washed out on a tide of love, ennui, and beauty.

I dare you to listen twice.  You'll never stop.

As a bonus for the followers of this blog feature, here is an incendiary rendition of her song "Privilege (Set Me Free)" from the legendary boot "Exodus."







If that's not enough, a video performance of the same tune, that hits similar ecstatic heights.  There are many groups that have merged rock and literature, rock and poetry; this song may, however, be the consummate example.



One final note.  There are have been many interviews with  her over the past 18 months, both print and television.  At the commencement address she gave at Pratt University last year, her advice for artists was as basic as it gets (and, as such, as good as it gets):

“My generation had a rough go, dentally….You have a better chance at dental health, and I say this because you want at night to be pacing the floor because your muse is burning inside of you, because you want to do your work, because you want to finish that canvas, because you want to make that design, because you want to help your fellow man. You don’t want to be pacing because you need a damn root canal. Floss, you know, use salt, baking soda, get them professionally cleaned, you know, for a bit, take care of your damn teeth.”

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Going into deep catalog territory for this poem from Lilliput Review #97, from July 1997, I think you'll find it  pushes more than one edge for sure.  For four other sample poems, plus a lovely Wayne Hogan cover (& some Jean Cocteau, Harlan Ellison, and Cid Corman, to boot), click the numeral way back there in the sentence before last.  Enjoy.





Before A Beginning (A Prototype)

The shape of each letter shapes the shape
      of the word.  The letters are thin

(think "I").  The word could be wide,
   fat enough to stretch from side

      to side of this page.  This page
is boundary, setting an edge at the shape

   of the poem (think "quadrilateral")
And quick upon this earth that is itself

both page and poem passes the word the source
   of our madness, the shape of our madness.

                            C. D. Chase

by tomorrow
one mountain left...
cherry blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Hear 'em all at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

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My Blakean Year: Issa's Sunday Service, #58

This week's selection for Issa's Sunday Service is by the inimitable Patti Smith, her second go round here in the land of litrock. These are the lyrics, from the artist's website, plus a gander, in pdf, at her original ms. page for the song.

Right here is where poetry and rock come together:







And so, as Mr. Blake himself is invoked, I can hardly pass on the opportunity to share one of his many devastating short poems:

A Divine Image

Cruelty has a Human heart
And Jealousy a Human Face,
Terror, the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy, the Human Dress.

The Human Dress is forgéd Iron,
The Human Form, a fiery Forge,
The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.

William Blake

Death mask of William Blake



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Since it's the 4th of July, here's a little something for folks who maybe never really listened to the lyrics to this song. When we think about war and we think about freedom, let's think on this a bit. Seems to me the tone of this rendition captures the spirit of the words a tad better than the better known version:






For those without the pleasure of a Jersey history, the penitentiary he is talking about is Rahway State Penitentiary (aka East Jersey State Prison), where Rubin Carter did hard time:




And this is the refinery, the Bayway Oil Refinery, formerly owned by Standard Oil and Exxon, now owned by ConocoPhillips:





And, this 4th of July, the war drags on.


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From the archive this week: a poem by Greg Kosmicki, from Lilliput Review, #89, July 1997.

untitled, undated #2

How long can a writer go on intuition alone.
How long can a sparrow go on intuition alone.

Greg Kosmicki

baby sparrow--
even when people come
opening its mouth

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Sweet Jane: Issa's Sunday Service, #44

Patti Smith & Lou Reed

It's time for a shout-out to all the poets (who "studied rules of verse") out there and, for the Sunday Service, I can't think of better way than Lou Reed and Sweet Jane.

This live acoustic version from Spanish TV is worth a look-see, especially for the chord thieves amongst us:





Lou is a god in NY, but, aside from this little number and "Walk on the Wild Side," a future LitRock selection, I'm not sure this is the case everywhere else (well, of course, there is always France and, it would seem, Spain). I'm a huge Lou and Velvet Underground fan, so there is no objectivity here. This Sunday Service is all about the worship.


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This week's feature poem is from issue #68 of Lilliput Review, April 1995. In a previous post, 6 poems were highlighted from this issue. scarecrow's poem is about the ultimate transcendence, which all attain, no matter religion, race, or sex.

¶dreamed that my face was large
-composed of sifted red clay dirt,
-yucca,
-snakeweed,
-mesquite,

-hoofprints abounding.

scarecrow

in cuffs dragging
through the dirt...
plum blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don


PS To listen to all 44 selections so far (or to pick and choose individually), see the Issa's LitRock Jukebox on the sidebar. Or visit the spin off page here. Background info on all the songs and links back to the original posts can be found here.

As always, I'm offering the two current issues of Lilliput Review free (or have 2 copies added to your current subscription) for any litrock selections that I use in a future post. Just email me at: lilliput review at gmail dot com.

Spell (Footnote to Howl): Issa's Sunday Service, #36

This week was the birthday of one of the premiere rock poets of all time, Patti Smith. In celebration (and to shelve all those Lawrence Welk and doo-wop shows for at least a week), public TV has been airing the documentary film Patti Smith: Dream of Life on POV. Appropriately, this week's litrock selection at Issa's Sunday Service is her rendition of the final part (or addendum, for purists) of Allen Ginsberg's masterpiece, Howl: that section, entitled "Footnote to Howl," Smith recorded as "Spell: (Footnote to Howl)."

Happy birthday, Patti. The two shows I had the privilege to attend here in Pittsburgh that she gave were two of the best rock shows I've ever seen and I've been going to concerts since 1968. The outdoor show with just a couple of hundred people in a light, cold rain was every bit as intense as the one she gave for a couple of thousand. Her connection to the audience is remarkable.

As a footnote to Howl and Footnote to Howl, here is a 2 part video made by Karen Lillis as part of her internship at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. In it, she highlights all the resources on the poem Howl and Allen Ginsberg at the library. In addition, she interviewed three folks at the library intimately engaged in poetry as to what the poem means to them: Barry Chad, Renée Alberts, and myself. The video is static, the information dynamic. If you have interest in the poem and/or Ginsberg, I think you'll enjoy it.









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Public television is also going to be airing, at least in Minnesota, a show entitled The Poetry and Life of Cold Mountain, about the master Chinese poet, Han Shan. You can read more about it here.

There is small animated segment in the show. Perhaps these wonderful poems, whimsically rendered, will entice you to watch:






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Finally, a poem from Lilliput #56, April 1994, six poems of which were featured in a previous post. This little gem, by Charlie Mehrhoff, gives "flash fiction" a run for its money:

¶ nothing heals.

the doctor bends low
to kiss a whisper into the corpse's ear:
it was i who needed you
it was i who needed you

Charlie Mehrhoff

playing doctor
for the silkworms...
little girl

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Jim Carroll 2

People Who Died - Jim Carroll

Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on east two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper manhattan
Sly in vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby od'd on drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died / I miss 'em--they died

Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And eddie, I miss you more than all the others,
And I salute you brother/ this song is for you my brother

Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Herbie pushed tony from the boys' club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But herbie sure gave tony some bitchen proof
"hey," herbie said, "tony, can you fly? "
But tony couldn't fly . . . tony died

Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
He said, hey, I know it's dangerous,
But it sure beats riker's
But the next day he got offed
By the very same bikers

Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

RIP, Jim.


Don

Patti Smith: An Interview, A Reading, and Some Heroine

Patti Smith Reading Virginia Woolf


Here's is a long interview with Patti Smith on one of her recent poetry books, Auguries of Innocence. She covers a wide range of topics, discussing the inspiration for many of the poems and her influences, interspersed with writings and her remembrances over the years. Along the way she touches on Diane Arbus, Virginia Woolf, Nat King Cole, Modigliani, Jim Morrison, William Blake, Janis Joplin, H. P. Lovecraft, R. L. Stevenson, Jimi Hendrix and many more.

For an objective look, here's Slate's take on Auguries, in which Patti name checks, among others, James Wright, a little more surprising then Blake, Rimbaud, Ginsberg and Whitman, whom she regularly invokes.

And here is exactly where the thin line between poetry and music meet ...





Dancing Barefoot - Patti Smith



best,
Don

Trailer: Corso - The Last Beat

For Beat fans, the latest news is a film about Gregory Corso, entitled "Corso - The Last Beat." If you thought you knew everything there was to know about the enigmatic, mercurial, conflicted Corso, think again. Here's the trailer:





"Corso - The Last Beat" Preview from Damien LeVeck on Vimeo
.


Contributor copies for issues #165 and 166 of Lillie will go out this week.

best,
Don