Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
My Muse Whispers
She whispers to me
Not angry not insistent.
Persistant lips brush my right ear
Waiting for thoughts to reach flood
When the levee breaks
Water surges from dark corners of mind
In a language I could understand
In a metaphor I own
After a day in the sun in the press
Thrilling to the din of achievement
Where are you when lights go down
Friends asleep bottles dry?
Does she mock your solitude
Or give her breast for your restless head?
Mike Hill
Not angry not insistent.
Persistant lips brush my right ear
Waiting for thoughts to reach flood
When the levee breaks
Water surges from dark corners of mind
In a language I could understand
In a metaphor I own
After a day in the sun in the press
Thrilling to the din of achievement
Where are you when lights go down
Friends asleep bottles dry?
Does she mock your solitude
Or give her breast for your restless head?
Mike Hill
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Friday, December 14, 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Your Household Bookcase
"Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac"
Gerald Nicosia
Original publication by Grove Press 1983
Reprinted by University Of California Press 1994
The image and legacy of Jean-Louis Kerouac are writ large upon American history, and not merely in the obvious areas of literature and popular culture. As another Beat biographer has noted, Jack Kerouac, along with his friends Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs tapped into the very essence of some important historical truths in the post World War II period, "verities far beyond the ken of the middle class."
Gerald Nicosia's Memory Babe stands as the most complete and exhaustive biography of the man and his times. Further, each of Kerouac's major works are highlighted and analyzed by the author with both perception and detail.
As Jack's friend John Montgomery (the real-life Morley of The Dharma Bums) put it in the dedication of a book of essays about Kerouac addressed to Nicosia, the author of Memory Babe "took flak for the truth." Nicosia still is as witnessed by some truly unfortunate battles -- legal and otherwise -- with the family of Jack's last wife Stella. By all accounts, it would seem that the Sampas family (executors of the Kerouac estate, a fact that in itself has been questioned and challenged) is going about selling off anything and everything Kerouac came in contact with to the highest bidder while simultaneously giving Nicosia the bum's rush.
Johnny Depp may be in possession of Jack's old overcoat, but those who take the time to read Memory Babe will have something infinitely more valuable.
-Bob Schaeffer
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Elegy For Butch Quinn, 1939-2006
Butch I’m writing this for you,
Who were an altar boy,
You, whose hero was Bo Diddly,
You, who as a young hot-rodder ran a Pennsylvania State Trooper off the road on
Allegheny Avenue,
Who possessed an excessive fondness for alcohol and liked to fight
And got thrown out of bars,
You, whose visions cascaded before your eyes,
Whom someone called The Great Quinn,
Who dyed your white hair green for St. Patrick’s Day,
Who traded food stamps for beer,
Who called me an artist,
You were always glad to see me,
You, with whom I drank,
You, with whom I dreamed,
Whom I drove to the hospital one afternoon because your liver was doing flip-flops,
Who got sick in my car after an opening at the Meadville Market House,
Whose painting of an Indian I saw for sale on the sidewalk outside McArdle's gallery in Regent
Square,
Who never stopped working even in the nursing home,
Who told me to keep the beads from Medjugorge for good luck even though I’m
not Catholic;
None of these things were in your obituary.
Michael R. Hill
Who were an altar boy,
You, whose hero was Bo Diddly,
You, who as a young hot-rodder ran a Pennsylvania State Trooper off the road on
Allegheny Avenue,
Who possessed an excessive fondness for alcohol and liked to fight
And got thrown out of bars,
You, whose visions cascaded before your eyes,
Whom someone called The Great Quinn,
Who dyed your white hair green for St. Patrick’s Day,
Who traded food stamps for beer,
Who called me an artist,
You were always glad to see me,
You, with whom I drank,
You, with whom I dreamed,
Whom I drove to the hospital one afternoon because your liver was doing flip-flops,
Who got sick in my car after an opening at the Meadville Market House,
Whose painting of an Indian I saw for sale on the sidewalk outside McArdle's gallery in Regent
Square,
Who never stopped working even in the nursing home,
Who told me to keep the beads from Medjugorge for good luck even though I’m
not Catholic;
None of these things were in your obituary.
Michael R. Hill
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
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