Edited and arranged by Robert Friedman
“Gusty emotions on wet roads on autumn nights.” Gala apples, Bartlett pears, Bing cherries. Scent of moist lilac. “I wandered lonely as a cloud.” In a Lonely Place, Out of the Past. Dream Boxes of Gloria Vanderbilt. Portraits by Gloria Vanderbilt. That old black magic. “What is done out of love takes place beyond good and evil.” Black Mirror/White Album. Magritte/ Banksy. Hopper/ Rothko. Norma Jeane Baker/ Marilyn Monroe. Niagara, Some Like It Hot. “Hey—that’s no way to say goodbye.” Peggy Lee/ Nina Simone. Jeanne Moreau/ Catherine Deneuve. Julianna Marguiles/ George Clooney. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Larry Wilmore, Trevor Noah. Imogene Coco & Sid Caesar. Key & Peele. Steve Martin/ Tony Trischka. Bill Monroe/ Earl Scruggs/ Doc Boggs. Saul Steinberg/ Roz Chast. Marlon Brando/ James Dean/ Paul Newman. “The Golden Vanity.” “Barbara Allen.” “On the Banks of the Ohio.” Woody Guthrie/ Pete Seeger. Joan Baez/ Bob Dylan. Hoagy Carmichael/ Leonard Cohen. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Martin Luther King, Jr./ Malcolm X. Robert Mitchum/ Humphrey Bogart. Montgomery Clift/ Burt Lancaster. From Here to Eternity/ On the Waterfront/ East of Eden. Jack Johnson/ Muhammad Ali. Willie “The Wisp” Pep/ Sugar Ray Robinson. The Old, Weird America, ed. Harry Smith. “Let It Be”/ “Halleluah.” Bertolucci/ Scorsese. “Homicide: Life on the Street”/ “The Wire.” “The Americans”/ “Fauda.” “Oz”/ “The Sopranos”/”Breaking Bad”/”Peaky Blinders.” Jerry/Elaine/George/Kramer. Charles Darwin’s attentiveness to his cat’s “six or seven” distinctive voices, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Neurons: Ramon y Cajal/ Charles Gross. Arthur Dove, “Red Sun.” “A poet can survive everything but a misprint.” (Wilde). Hope—“the thing with feathers.” Animal Liberation, The Lives of Animals. No-Kill Animal Shelters. Weegee/ Diane Arbus/ Vivian Maier. Calico cats, black & “tuxedo” cats, Bengals, tabbies, short-hairs & long-hairs; Maine Coons & “smoke calicos.” Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton NJ. “Sure was glad to get out of there alive.” Winslow Homer, John Marin, Charles Burchfield. Charles Dodgson/ Lewis Carroll. “Curiouser and curiouser!” Awe. Compassion. Patience. Kindness. Sympathy. New Jersey Transit Quiet Car. Chopin’s Preludes, Nocturnes, Etudes, Ballades. Piano music of Bela Bartok/ Eric Satie. Lang Lang, Claudio Arrau, Murray Perahia. Jane Eyre/ Wide Sargasso Sea. Zion Park/ Yosemite/Death Valley. Ansel Adams/ Andrew Wyeth. Gregory Crewdson/ Gerard Slota. Edinburgh/London/Paris/Rome. Haunted Venice. Giant tortoises of Galapagos. Bird song at dawn. Spring peepers. Virginia Woolf: “The thing in itself beautiful.”
First Appeared in Port.
I like you.
I saw Sugar Ray Robinson fight an exhibition bout in Worcester MA, oh so many years ago.