Stein-o-vision

Everyone seems to be thinking about Gertrude Stein right now. I also love her. I read Picasso for a class as an undergrad, and then, in my Harold Bloom phase earlier this year, I was reading The History of Americans, which is really big and (oddly enough) repetitive. But lovely. But I had to return the book to UCI's library and didn't finish it. The reason she's still good and important is because it is so thoroughly avant in a very particular direction that no one can do anything else really with it. There are L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets who were also repetitive and weird, but Gertrude Stein still has a foot, at least a toe, thoroughly implanted in narrative, or at least traditional "meaning." She wasn't so advanced she lost us. But nobody else can do what she did because it went as far as it could without losing us (maybe sometimes it went farther) which is why when we read her stuff now it still seems new and wonderful and inimitable and important. And you know if Harold Bloom says something's good, it is.

A poet I've been thinking about today is Allen Ginsberg. I've always liked him in a way. Not a ton, except for "Supermarket in Southern California." I always thought Howl and his big political things were too big and political. It's always seemed hopelessly quixotic to try to take on The System in a poem, even a book length poem. I'm cynical that way. But I was watching Martin Scorsese's documentary about Bob Dylan (No Direction Home) and it has, as historical background, a little bit of Ginsberg reading "America" which I've hardly read at all because of that old declamatory tone. It has moments though when it gets suddenly intimate and personal in a sort of schizophrenic way. Something like "America when are you going to stop etc. etc. I'm not going to write my poem until my head's straight." That's a very bad approximation. But I'm going to read it now and admire Allen Ginsberg a little more. I've always thought he was sweet and cute. He was in a terrible poetry video I watched, Poetry in Motion I think it was called, which was from the early 80's when he was in a punk band. He was pogoing like a motherfucker and it was adorable to see this nerdy old man doing that. The Dylan documentary, by the way, is really great, and anyone who sees Hainesy should make sure he's seen it.

In other news, I worked an evening shift and got asked out to a show by a heavyset, bearded geeky guy (the only kind of guy that ever asks me out) because I knew that Luaka Bop is David Byrne's record label. Does anyone know Jim White? (That's the show, not the guy) I did a little research, but can't tell from 30-second clips if I like it enough to hang out with the guy for the show. I think I'm a bad person.