tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-800183462183999322.post8834134835637456402..comments2024-01-25T13:40:59.343-05:00Comments on Ecstatic Doggerel: Everyone in New York is Having More Interesting Conversations Than You Are, Unless You Too Live in New YorkM. C. Allan (Carrie, to most)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12073563632969877406noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-800183462183999322.post-14898667700789990512008-07-25T16:41:00.000-04:002008-07-25T16:41:00.000-04:00RT, are you being tongue-in-cheek about geography ...RT, are you being tongue-in-cheek about geography being irrelevant? Surely we haven't gone THAT far yet; when I look up from my screen, I still see an actual skyline rather than 1s and 0s -- thought it may be only a matter of time! -- and I think the skyline we see infuses everything, in ways we don't entirely comprehend :) Lots of good online convos, fer sure, but we can't share baba ghanoush and falafel while having them ...<BR/><BR/>I love the O'Hara version of NY conversation, though. (More like a grocery list of cool, in which hipsters agree to purchase the same brands, than an actual in-depth discussion.)M. C. Allan (Carrie, to most)https://www.blogger.com/profile/12073563632969877406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-800183462183999322.post-75151848430971877002008-07-24T20:45:00.000-04:002008-07-24T20:45:00.000-04:00hi, carrieeveryone is new york is having LOUD conv...hi, carrie<BR/>everyone is new york is having LOUD conversations. frank o'hara said they went like this:<BR/>"we go eat some fish and some ale it's cool but crowded<BR/>we don't like lionel trilling<BR/>we decide, we like don allen<BR/>we don't like henry james so much<BR/>we like herman melville."<BR/>... i imagine the more nuanced conversations cannot be overheard.<BR/>... besides, isn't geography irrelevant now? i mean aren't the best conversations online?<BR/>thanks for andrew's wonderful poem and the bagels. this place on houston reminds me of a shop called (in crude hand lettering) 'new jersey eggs' which was open thurs-sun. was in a lithuanian section on lower east side and they sold eggs, the best challah bread and maybe that was it. would love to know if it's still there.<BR/>cheersAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08882457287708734536noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-800183462183999322.post-56562439192413668262008-07-24T19:33:00.000-04:002008-07-24T19:33:00.000-04:00thanks, MM! I'm still figuring out this blogging t...thanks, MM! I'm still figuring out this blogging thing. hoping to build community and support the craft of poethy (say that with an artsy lithp :) <BR/><BR/>You gotta get to NYC. it's overwhelming, in the best way. you know those experiences you don't fully process till years later? every trip to NY is sort of like that -- I suspect I'll process this latest sometime in 2011 and my brain will just suddenly melt out my earholes.M. C. Allan (Carrie, to most)https://www.blogger.com/profile/12073563632969877406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-800183462183999322.post-83519561783077272002008-07-24T14:50:00.000-04:002008-07-24T14:50:00.000-04:00read your comment on my page and came here to be s...read your comment on my page and came here to be so happily surprised with your writing. great voice. you are a poet but you write prose engagingly, i could hear you doing a column. glad to find you!<BR/><BR/>i really enjoyed your friend's poem.<BR/><BR/>i've never been to NYC. can't wait.Maggie Mayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-800183462183999322.post-2122752038610197802008-07-24T14:02:00.000-04:002008-07-24T14:02:00.000-04:00hey G: I saw on your FB status line that you'd be ...hey G: I saw on your FB status line that you'd be in the city and was wondering if we could touch base ... but as I suspected, our trip ended up as the usual whirlwind, made even whirlier by the fact that we were hanging with family. Re: NYC, every time I go up there I find it such a relief to be distracted from my own neuroses. Then, of course, I have to leave and resume quiet, normal life; I think that reality usually hits me right around the Whitman rest stop on the turnpike. <BR/><BR/>Auden is hard to beat, on any subject, but that's one of my favorites of his. I remember during the FIRST Iraq war, actually, reading it and thinking that Bush senior's speechwriters had been stealing from it -- though of course, when poetry gets pilfered for politics, you end up with "a thousand points of light" rather than Auden's layered, heartsick ironies.<BR/><BR/>I'd love to hear about your workshop up there. Check in and treat this space as yours. I'm still fumbling in the dark!M. C. Allan (Carrie, to most)https://www.blogger.com/profile/12073563632969877406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-800183462183999322.post-2077786067571076592008-07-24T10:45:00.000-04:002008-07-24T10:45:00.000-04:00There are so many ironies here, I scarcely know wh...There are so many ironies here, I scarcely know where to begin. I was in NY while you were, though I didn't know it, attending a literature workshop in Maxine Greene's apartment next to the Guggenheim. One day were were all asked to bring in a poem. As the only one there that didn't live in the city, I brought what was already on my desktop - Auden's "September 1, 1939". Given the manner in which my week ended, being told of the news literally as I was boarding the train, realizing, when I got home, that you'd been there, too, and why, having felt the hum and buzz and breath of the city in my bones all week and now faced with a long drive to pick up Liam from Tenn, dreading the quiet self-examination of the pastoral landscape and the echoing, lonely silence of the apartment again...I am comforted by how familiar your sentiments are to me. May the fish here can feel the subway's rumble, too; sound does travel extraordinary distances underwater. I don't know what's next - being stuck in Auden land somewhere between "Stop all the clocks" and "The more loving one" , but I'll keep reading Carrie, if that''s o.k. . . .peace.Ginahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00620812321822211147noreply@blogger.com