sonnet

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The barber at his chair
Clips me. He does as he goes.
He clips the hairs outside the nose.
Too many preparations, nose!
I see the raincoat this Saturday.
A building is against the sky—
The result is more sky.
Something gathers in painfully.

To be the razor—how would you like to be
The razor, blue with ire,
That presses me? This is the wrong way.
The canoe speeds toward a waterfall.
Something, prince, in our backward manners—
You guessed the reason for the storm.

(John Ashbery, from Some Trees.)

meditations of a parrot

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Oh the rocks and the thimble
The oasis and the bed
Oh the jacket and the roses.

All sweetly stood up the sea to me
Like blue cornflakes in a white bowl.
The girl said, “Watch this.”

I come from Spain, I said.
I was purchased at a fair.
She said, “None of us know.

“There was a house once
Of dazzling canopies
And halls like a keyboard.

“These the waves tore in pieces.”
(His old wound—
And all day: Robin Hood! Robin Hood!)

(John Ashbery, from Some Trees.)

the hero

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Whose face is this
So stiff against the blue trees,

Lifted to the future
Because there is no end?

But that has faded
Like flowers, like the first days

Of good conduct. Visit
The strong man. Pinch him—

There is no end to his
Dislike, the accurate one.

(John Ashbery, from Some Trees.)

march 30–april 3

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Books

  • Genevieve Manceron, The Deadlier Sex (trans. Jonas Berry & Lawrence G. Blochman)
  • Harry Mathews, Out of Bounds

Films

  • Hapax Legomenon I: (nostalgia), directed by Hollis Frampton
  • Hapax Legomenon II: Poetic Justice, directed by Hollis Frampton
  • Hapax Legomenon III: Critical Mass, directed by Hollis Frampton
  • Hapax Legomenon IV: Traveling Matte, directed by Hollis Frampton
  • Hapax Legomenon V: Ordinary Matter, directed by Hollis Frampton
  • Hapax Legomenon VI: Remote Control, directed by Hollis Frampton
  • Hapax Legomenon VII: Special Effects, directed by Hollis Frampton
  • Taking Off, dir Miloš Forman
  • Love Story 2050, dir. Harry Baweja

Exhibits

  • “John Waters: Rear Projection”, Marianne Boesky Gallery
  • “Richard Tuttle: Walking On Air”, PaceWildenstein
  • “Tangled Alphabets: León Ferrari and Mira Schendel”, MoMA

sonnet iv: in this city you didn’t love

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Here in this city you don’t love
In which you’ve passed so many days
That counting makes you want to puke
Afraid of things unrecognized!

Afraid of everything you’ve seen!
Crossing the streets and then recrossing
The muddy ways, the ways of snow
Ways of the tongue-tied, sullen masks

Here in this city you don’t love
City you’ll never get out of
Because of all you still don’t know

Summerfuls of syllabic tasks
Dazed by your dead who died right here
Here in this city you don’t love

(Jacques Roubaud, p. 90 in The Form of the City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart, trans. Keith & Rosmarie Waldrop.)

march 26–march 29

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Books

  • Jacques Roubaud, Some Thing Black (trans. Rosmarie Waldrop)
  • Grégoire Bouillier, Report on Myself (trans. Bruce Benderson)
  • André Malraux, Museum Without Walls (trans. Stuart Gilbert & Francis Price)

Films

  • Donald Judd’s Marfa, Texas, directed by Christopher Felver
  • Dracula, dir. Tod Browning
  • Cerný Petr (Black Peter), dir Miloš Forman

Exhibits

  • “James Castle Drawings: Vision and Touch”, Knoedler & Company
  • “James Castle”, Ameringer & Yohe Fine Art
  • “Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Thousand”, David Zwirner
  • “Lisa Yuskavage”, David Zwirner
  • “Julianne Swartz: Terrain”, Josée Bienvenu Gallery
  • “Robert Mangold: Drawings and Works on Paper, 1965–2008”, PaceWildenstein
  • “Playing This Litho Instrument: The Prints of Barnett Newman, Part II”, Craig F. Starr Gallery
  • “Donald Judd Colored Plexiglas”, L & M Arts
  • “Pablo Picasso: Mosqueteros”, Gagosian Gallery
  • “Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West”, MoMA
  • “Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded”, MoMA
  • “Words in Freedom: Futurism at 100”, MoMA