I dedicate this to Andrew Chan and Sandra--Vivir lo Nuestro

Andrew Chan and Sandra (aka Sandylovesjetli) are one of the most beautiful couples on Alive Not Dead.  They are living a great love story, and sharing it through their blogs with all of us here on AnD.  I wanted to share one of my favorite love songs with them--La India and Marc Antony--live, singing one of the great duets of modern salsa.  The song is titled "Vivir lo Nuestro" and could be loosely translated and "Living our love".  The song is long, but hang on until the 3:35 ma...Read more

Chinese take-out never sexier--La Tortura

This is Shakira's wonderful and very sexy video for the song, "La Tortura".  Alejandro Sanz, who co-stars, is another one of Latin America's huge music stars.  He is from Spain and has a deep and abiding love and knowledge of flamenco.  His rap is inspired in many ways by traditional flamenco lyrics.

The refrain--no solo de pan vive el hombre y de excusas no vivo yo--translates roughly as:  man does not live by bread alone, and I don't buy your excuses (sorry, had to lose the lovely para...Read more

Sometimes you can't go home again

Thomas Wolfe, a famous Southern American writer who lived in the first half of the twentieth century (and matriculated at the University of North Carolina here in Chapel Hill), was the one who famously said, "You can't go home again".  While this may not be true for everyone, for many of us this is, indeed, the case.

Nowhere

I spent 18 summers in a town

on the Mississippi:

and as many winters,

springs and falls.

I have been away

longer than I ever live...Read more

Time, Fate and Silence

After reading Lydia Kuan's blog on silence, it brought to mind one of my favorite songs in which the pauses between notes and words are what gives the song its special power.

Ricardo Arjona is a Latin American singer-songwriter superstar.  Several years ago he composed a song by the name of "Tarde" (Late).  The singer tells the story of having just met his soul mate, but it is too late, they are both with somebody else.  The song features just Arjona singing and the  accompaniment of Fernando Otero, who wrote the ...Read more

What I'm reading now

Michael Berry, editor, Speaking in images: interviews with contemporary Chinese filmmakers, Columbia University Press, 2005.

I stumbled across this marvelous book a while back and have gained a lot of interesting insight into Chinese-language cinema, so I thought I would share it with all you folks on AnD.  Berry is an assistant professor of contemporary Chinese cultural studies at the ...Read more

Taking Stock

This poem is dedicated to my friends, Sam and Lois.  Sam died after a brief illness June 15th, 2008.  He and Lois had been together for over 30 years.

Too soon—the idea of death

    too new to wrap your mind around it

Your body—

    confronted with the lonely bed

already understands the reality that

makes no sense to the brain

The closet—too soon

    don’t look

not to suppress knowledge, pain

    or acceptance

but to halt the flow of memory,

to hold o...Read more

New York, New York

I made a quick trip to New York last week to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary and 50th birthday.  The plan was to take things at a leisurely pace:  enjoying the city, its museums, parks and food.  I am happy to report success on every front.

From our hotel on 25th and Broadway, we had easy access on foot and by public transportation to every part of the city we planned to visit.  A highlight of this location is its proximity to one of Manhattan’s most charming parks—Madison Square Park.  Every evening, after a scrumptious dinn...Read more

Days of Heaven

I was listening to the radio this morning and they were playing Camille Saint-Saens "Carnival of the Animals".  When they got to the movement, "Aquarium", I was transported to Terrance Malick's "Days of Heaven", that marvelous 1978 visual tone poem of a film.

Here are the opening credits with the Saint-Saens  music.

Video: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JPEYBTudrxc&feature=related This next is a fan vid ...Read more

Inspiration flowing like a river

This poem was written for my friend, Mariano Castro, an Argentine musician and composer.  I met Mariano in the fall of 2004, when he performed in North Carolina as part of a tango duo.  I had several long conversations with Mariano, attended a number of the tango dances with live music where he performed and had him to my house for dinner.  It was an intense 2 weeks, to be sure.  We got to know one another quite well and I was so inspired by Mariano's playing that I wrote this poem for him, Corazón de Rosa.  But the inspi...Read more

Alive and Dead

What does it mean to be an artist?  In the best sense, being an artist means you create something that transcends your personal biography and, if it touches enough people profoundly, it lives on after your death.  The best art takes on a life of its own after it has been given form through the skill and will of an artist.  We have all been touched by art that was the work of artists who lived hundreds (even thousands) of years ago.  For some, it is the music of composers who lived generations ago.  For others it is some of civilizations oldest...Read more