Loopholes

So here's Suarez playing goalie when he's not allowed to, which led to a last-second penalty for Ghana against Uruguay last night. But since Gyan missed the penalty, the match went to a penalty shootout, which Uruguay won.

Arguably, then, Uruguay was rewarded for Suarez's cheating. That's one way to look at it, but really it's a loophole that a player can exploit: stop a certain goal, get sent off, and hope the opponent misses the penalty. (They later showed Suarez's reaction from the tunnel when Gyan missed the penalty.)

And loopholes are inevitable: every system of rules has loopholes that people can exploit, and all attempts to close the loopholes lead to the creation of further loopholes.

Violent Femmes in Berlin, 1992

Tom Phillips has just published a really nice short essay on the Violent Femmes over at Eyewear, and it made me remember my one VF concert. It was at the Waldbühne in Berlin in the summer of 1992, and the show opened with Lyle Lovett knocking me out with his wonderful "Church":

I went to church last Sunday, so I could sing and pray,
and something quite unusual happened on that day.

Then came Bonnie Raitt, and then the Femmes. I don't remember their set very well, but I remember being very impressed by their energy and power; as when I saw REM a few years earlier, I was surprised by how much "harder" their sound was live than in the studio.

The highlight was in Lou Reed's set, when he brought out Bonnie Raitt and the Femmes' Gordon Gano to be the "colored girls" on "Walk on the Wild Side," and then he let Gordon sing the second verse. But before he began singing, Gordon said, in pretty good German, "Erst möchte ich sagen: Lou Reed, er ist geil, ja?" ("First just let me say: Lou Reed, he's cool, isn't he?") And then Gordon sang that second verse, and it was a shock to hear Lou's half-talking, half-singing replaced by the beautiful voice of a former choir boy.

Wallace Stevens on Language Log

I like the effect here: in a discussion of the word "operandum" and its use by B. F. Skinner, Mark Liberman brings up a Wallace Stevens poem that contains the word and imagines Skinner and Stevens "getting together of an evening to swap neologisms." (I like that use of "of an evening," too.)

(Perhaps this little note will get one of my Stevensians to comment on Liberman's post.)

The Swifts

Here's another one I first read on the Poetry Daily app on the iPhone: a dizzying poem about a huge flock of swifts, "The Swifts," by Linda Bierds. Yet another great poem from the New England Review!

One August night, ten thousand.
Four thousand now, in this long, September dusk.
Some repeaters, staying over.

Movie

Using haikus as stanzas often leads to exceptionally tight writing, as here in Norman Schwenk's "Movie," on Poetry Daily today:

the twin towers shown
as an establishing shot
saddens many films

There's something to be said for capturing something in words that others might already have noticed but never quite fully registered.

I first read the poem on PD's new iPhone app, which is excellent.

Poetry-wise on the iPhone, I've also been enjoying Poem Flow and the Poetry Foundation's new app.

World Cup note, Group G

Everybody thinks that the only issue in Group G is whether Brazil or Portugal will be in first place after the games this afternoon. But here are the standings:

Team	MP	W	D	L	GF	GA	Pts
Brazil	2	2	0	0	5	2	6
Portugal	2	1	1	0	7	0	4
Côte d'Ivoire	2	0	1	1	1	3	1
Korea DPR	2	0	0	2	1	9	0

Yes, it's unlikely that the standings will change much, but given how helpless North Korea was against Portugal, and given how explosive the Ivory Coast can be, and given that the last time Brazil and Portugal played, Brazil won 6-2, it would not be completely and utterly miraculous (it would not be like a fifth set in tennis that goes to 70-68!) for the Ivory Coast to still qualify.

Let's say Brazil beats Portugal 3-0 (which is not an extreme result). Then the Ivory Coast has to win 6-0 (which is extreme, but as I said, not utterly unlikely, given NK's weakness and IC's offensive potential). That would put IC and P in a tie, and they would have to draw lots. So any nine-goal swing, with B and IC winning, makes it possible for IC to advance (7-1 for IC and 3-0 for Brazil would have IC advancing on goals scored, for example).

I do not, repeat DO NOT, think this is what's going to happen, but I thought I'd go on the record with it, just in case it does happen, so that I can pat myself on the back about it. :-)

Vertical Realities

Here's a line that quickly characterizes someone:

... he always chooses his luck and clothes one size too small for him.

The whole poem, "Vertical Realities," by Luljeta Lleshanaku (translated by Henry Israeli and Shpresa Qatipi), has this sense of how the barest of brushstrokes can imply a world. The collection Child of Nature is available from New Directions.

Claudia Roth Pierpont's "Black, Brown, and Beige" is a review of several recent books about Duke Ellington, but it concludes with an image of Charles Mingus that brought tears to my eyes:

Two years before Ellington died, in 1972, Yale University held a gathering of leading black jazz musicians in order to raise money for a department of African-American music. Aside from Ellington, the musicians who came for three days of concerts, jam sessions, and workshops included Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Mary Lou Williams, and Willie (the Lion) Smith. During a performance by a Gillespie-led sextet, someone evidently unhappy with this presence on campus called in a bomb threat. The police attempted to clear the building, but Mingus refused to leave, urging the officers to get all the others out but adamantly remaining onstage with his bass. “Racism planted that bomb, but racism ain’t strong enough to kill this music,” he was heard telling the police captain. (And very few people successfully argued with Mingus.) “If I’m going to die, I’m ready. But I’m going out playing ‘Sophisticated Lady.’ ” Once outside, Gillespie and his group set up again. But coming from inside was the sound of Mingus intently playing Ellington’s dreamy thirties hit, which, that day, became a protest song, as the performance just kept going on and on and getting hotter. In the street, Ellington stood in the waiting crowd just beyond the theatre’s open doors, smiling.

Who else but Mingus would have come up with an act like that? Well, maybe Charlie Haden, who dedicated "Song for Che" to freedom fighters in Angola and Mozambique while performing in Lisbon in 1971. See here for his version of the story.

Astonishing Confidence in the Self

In Mark Lilla's recent article on the Tea Partiers in the New York Review of Books, he comes up with one of his wonderful summations of a situation:

The new Jacobins have two classic American traits that have grown much more pronounced in recent decades: blanket distrust of institutions and an astonishing—and unwarranted—confidence in the self. They are apocalyptic pessimists about public life and childlike optimists swaddled in self-esteem when it comes to their own powers.

But I would add that these "new Jacobins" are not just American, as I have seen the same combination of public pessimism and private optimism in Switzerland as well. Many Swiss are just as skeptical of public institutions as Americans are (especially of what they call "Schulmedizin," that is, mainstream medicine) and just as optimistic about their own perceptions of the world ("the homeopathic treatment worked for me"). So while Lilla has perhaps correctly diagnosed the Tea Partiers here, he has limited the scope of his observation too much: what he identifies as "classic American traits" may once have been uniquely or at least especially American, but they have gone global as well—or at least Swiss. (Or does this have something to do with democracy?)

Perhaps someone will say, "Well, Andrew, what about your own 'astonishing confidence' in yourself?" But I am not skeptical about public institutions, and I try to understand my own experience as anecdotal (no matter how fun or funny the anecdotes are) and not representative of how people are and how the world is.

I See the Sea

It looks like a metaphor, but it's not:

I see
the sea
shrink,
then shrink again,
and I
float farther
from the invisible shore.

(Shams Langroodi, "I See the Sea ...", tr. Sholeh Wolpé)

The shrinking of the Caspian Sea ... although the page I found the satellite photo on says the following:

Along with increasing pollution, the Caspian Sea has also seen its water level fluctuate in past decades, at least partly due to human activity. As dams were constructed on rivers feeding the Sea its water level fell during the 1960s and 1970s, leading to construction on newly exposed shorelines. But since the late 1970s the water level began to rise again and has now risen by around 2.5 metres. Today it has stabilised and may even be falling again.

The Sixth Daily Poem Project, Final Round Results

THE SIXTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, FINAL ROUND RESULTS

The winner of the final round of my sixth Daily Poem Project is Winter's Tale, by Maxine Kumin, which received 9 votes out of 44 cast.

Adjectives of Order, by Alexandra Teague, came in second with 8 votes, while Trick, by Sam Willetts, and Ecclesiastes, by Khaled Mattawa, tied for third with 6 votes each. All 12 poems received at least one vote.

I would like to thank everyone who participated, especially those of you who took the time to vote almost every week!

The winners of the first five Daily Poem Projects:

1DPP: "The Shout," by Simon Armitage
2DPP: "Fragment," by A. E. Stallings.
3DPP: "Inside the Maze (II, III, and IV)", by Hadara Bar-Nadav (blog vote)
3DPP: "Friends", by Laure-Anne Bosselaar (class vote)
4DPP: "Come to Me, His Blood," by Martha Rhodes
5DPP: "Cataract op," by Edward Field

The Sixth Daily Poem Project, Final Round call for votes

THE SIXTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, FINAL ROUND

Here are the poems to vote for in the final round of the sixth Daily Poem Project. They are the winners of the twelve rounds from Monday, March 1, to Sunday, May 23 (each week's poems being those that appeared on Poetry Daily that week).

1. Trick, by Sam Willetts.
2. Ecclesiastes, by Khaled Mattawa.
3. To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor’s Garage, by Eduardo C. Corral.
4. In the Men's Room at the Café Provence, by F. D. Reeve.
5. The Bus Driver, by Hédi Kaddour, tr. Marilyn Hacker.
6. Winter's Tale, by Maxine Kumin.
7. H1N1, by Robyn Schiff.
8. Montana Sky, by Don Welch.
9. Arcadian, by Dan Beachy-Quick.
10. War Stories, by Charles Bernstein.
11. With God in the Morning, by Aliki Barnstone.
12. Adjectives of Order, by Alexandra Teague

HOW TO VOTE: You can send your vote to me by email or as a comment on the blog (or as a comment to my Facebook link to this call for votes). If you want to vote by commenting but do not want your vote to appear on the blog, you just have to say so in your comment (I moderate all comments on my blog). If you want to vote anonymously, that's okay, but please choose some sort of pseudonym so I can keep track of different votes by anonymous voters. I will post comments as they come in.

Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem (although it is always interesting to see people's lists).

Please VOTE BY SATURDAY, JUNE 5! But I will still accept votes as long as I have not posted the final results.

Feel free to pass on this call for votes to anyone who might be interested!

The Sixth Daily Poem Project, Week 12 results

THE SIXTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK TWELVE RESULTS

The winner of the twelve week of my sixth Daily Poem Project is Adjectives of Order, by Alexandra Teague, which received 7 votes out of 15 cast.

Starlings, by James Schuyler, finished second with six votes. In the most lopsided vote in DPP history, those two poems received 13 of the 15 votes; two other poems received one vote each.

My thanks to everyone who voted. I'll be posting the call for votes for the final round shortly.

The winner of the first week was Trick, by Sam Willetts.
The winner of the second week was Ecclesiastes, by Khaled Mattawa.
The winner of the third week was To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor’s Garage, by Eduardo C. Corral.
The winner of the fourth week was In the Men's Room at the Café Provence, by F. D. Reeve.
The winner of the fifth week was The Bus Driver, by Hédi Kaddour, tr. Marilyn Hacker.
The winner of the sixth week was Winter's Tale, by Maxine Kumin.
The winner of the seventh week was H1N1, by Robyn Schiff.
The winner of the eighth week was Montana Sky, by Don Welch.
The winner of the ninth week was Arcadian, by Dan Beachy-Quick.
The winner of the tenth week was War Stories, by Charles Bernstein.
The winner of the eleventh week was With God in the Morning, by Aliki Barnstone.

The Sixth Daily Poem Project, Week 12 call for votes

THE SIXTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK TWELVE

Here are the poems to vote for in the twelfth and final week of the sixth Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, May 17, to Sunday, May 23):

May 23: After Taxes, by Graham Foust (vote only on the first poem)
May 22: Haying, by Deborah Digges
May 21: An Iris Murdoch Reader, by John Drexel
May 20: Starlings, by James Schuyler (vote only on the first poem)
May 19: A Holiday in the Same Place, by Patrick Mackie
May 18: Tramp in Flames, by Paul Farley (vote only on the first poem)
May 17: Adjectives of Order, by Alexandra Teague

HOW TO VOTE: You can send your vote to me by email or as a comment on the blog (or as a comment to my Facebook link to this call for votes). If you want to vote by commenting but do not want your vote to appear on the blog, you just have to say so in your comment (I moderate all comments on my blog). If you want to vote anonymously, that's okay, but please choose some sort of pseudonym so I can keep track of different votes by anonymous voters. I will post comments as they come in.

Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem (although it is always interesting to see people's lists).

Please VOTE BY SATURDAY, MAY 29! But I will still accept votes as long as I have not posted the final results.

Next week: the final run-off among the 12 weekly winners to determine who wins the overall Sixth Daily Poem Project. (Call for votes to be posted on Sunday, May 30.)

Feel free to pass on this call for votes to anyone who might be interested!

The winner of week one was Trick, by Sam Willetts.
The winner of week two was Ecclesiastes, by Khaled Mattawa.
The winner of week three was To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor’s Garage, by Eduardo C. Corral.
The winner of week four was In the Men's Room at the Café Provence, by F. D. Reeve.
The winner of week five was The Bus Driver, by Hédi Kaddour, tr. Marilyn Hacker.
The winner of week six was Winter's Tale, by Maxine Kumin.
The winner of week seven was H1N1, by Robyn Schiff.
The winner of week eight was Montana Sky, by Don Welch.
The winner of week nine was Arcadian, by Dan Beachy-Quick.
The winner of week ten was War Stories, by Charles Bernstein.
The winner of week eleven was With God in the Morning, by Aliki Barnstone.

The Sixth Daily Poem Project, Week 11 results

THE SIXTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK ELEVEN RESULTS

The winner of the eleventh week of my sixth Daily Poem Project is With God in the Morning, by Aliki Barnstone, which received 4 votes out of 13 cast.

Seasonal Anxiety, by A. E. Stallings (winner of DPP2 for her poem "Fragment"), finished second with three votes.

My thanks to everyone who voted. I'll be posting the call for votes for week ten shortly.

The winner of the first week was Trick, by Sam Willetts.
The winner of the second week was Ecclesiastes, by Khaled Mattawa.
The winner of the third week was To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor’s Garage, by Eduardo C. Corral.
The winner of the fourth week was In the Men's Room at the Café Provence, by F. D. Reeve.
The winner of the fifth week was The Bus Driver, by Hédi Kaddour, tr. Marilyn Hacker.
The winner of the sixth week was Winter's Tale, by Maxine Kumin.
The winner of the seventh week was H1N1, by Robyn Schiff.
The winner of the eighth week was Montana Sky, by Don Welch.
The winner of the ninth week was Arcadian, by Dan Beachy-Quick.
The winner of the tenth week was War Stories, by Charles Bernstein.

Mehldau Redman Basel May 16 2010

Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman played as a duo at the Stadtcasino in Basel tonight. They opened with a Mehldau original called "The Falcon Will Fly Again," during which I was struck by how much Redman's playing has developed since I last since him early in the millennium. He was already very good, but his phrases and phrasing tonight were so much more fluid and individual then they had been back then. In contrast, I wondered if Mehldau had any more room to develop at all: I've seen him four or five times since I first saw him in a solo show at the Basel Art Museum in 1999 or 2000, and he's always been fantastic, so good that there's little room to develop. His playing on this first piece was fabulous, but for this diehard Mehldau fan, not very surprising.

But then they played "Monk's Dream," and Mehldau proved me oh so wrong! I've always loved the way he plays that tune, but he and Redman arranged it in such a way that its usual driving rhythm only slowly developed out of an almost rubato approach. In Mehldau's long solo, one stunning passage went into the stride piano that was where Monk originally came from, but a version of stride refracted through the combination of the 80 years of jazz history since its heyday and the classical chops that have always been Mehldau's forte. Absolutely stunning—yes, he has developed since I first saw him!

The other highlight of the show for me was their arrangement of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." They made it sound so wonderfully melancholy, only to have it explode into something like the power of rock and roll near the end of Redman's tenor solo (Mehldau had taken the first solo). I love how Mehldau turns "pop" into jazz just as wonderfully as his predecessors did.

The Sixth Daily Poem Project, Week Eleven Call for Votes

THE SIXTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK ELEVEN

Here are the poems to vote for in the eleventh week of the sixth Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, May 10, to Sunday, May 16):

May 16: Woodpile, by Beth Bachmann (vote only on the first poem)
May 15: Voices from the Corners of the Sky, by Barbara Ras
May 14: Seasonal Anxiety, by A. E. Stallings
May 13: La Bouderie, by Allison Benis White
May 12: With God in the Morning, by Aliki Barnstone
May 11: Interpretation, by Martha Ronk
May 10: The Winds, by Albert Goldbarth

HOW TO VOTE: You can send your vote to me by email or as a comment on the blog (or as a comment to my Facebook link to this call for votes). If you want to vote by commenting but do not want your vote to appear on the blog, you just have to say so in your comment (I moderate all comments on my blog). If you want to vote anonymously, that's okay, but please choose some sort of pseudonym so I can keep track of different votes by anonymous voters. I will post comments as they come in.

Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem (although it is always interesting to see people's lists).

Please VOTE BY SATURDAY, MAY 22! But I will still accept votes as long as I have not posted the final results.

Feel free to pass on this call for votes to anyone who might be interested!

The winner of week one was Trick, by Sam Willetts.
The winner of week two was Ecclesiastes, by Khaled Mattawa.
The winner of week three was To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor’s Garage, by Eduardo C. Corral.
The winner of week four was In the Men's Room at the Café Provence, by F. D. Reeve.
The winner of week five was The Bus Driver, by Hédi Kaddour, tr. Marilyn Hacker.
The winner of week six was Winter's Tale, by Maxine Kumin.
The winner of week seven was H1N1, by Robyn Schiff.
The winner of week eight was Montana Sky, by Don Welch.
The winner of week nine was Arcadian, by Dan Beachy-Quick.
The winner of week ten was War Stories, by Charles Bernstein.

The Sixth Daily Poem Project, Week Ten Results

THE SIXTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK TEN RESULTS

The winner of the tenth week of my sixth Daily Poem Project is War Stories, by Charles Bernstein, which received 3 votes out of 12 cast.

In a very close week with low voter turnout, four poems tied for second with two votes.

My thanks to everyone who voted. I'll be posting the call for votes for week ten shortly.

The winner of the first week was Trick, by Sam Willetts.
The winner of the second week was Ecclesiastes, by Khaled Mattawa.
The winner of the third week was To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor’s Garage, by Eduardo C. Corral.
The winner of the fourth week was In the Men's Room at the Café Provence, by F. D. Reeve.
The winner of the fifth week was The Bus Driver, by Hédi Kaddour, tr. Marilyn Hacker.
The winner of the sixth week was Winter's Tale, by Maxine Kumin.
The winner of the seventh week was H1N1, by Robyn Schiff.
The winner of the eighth week was Montana Sky, by Don Welch.
The winner of the ninth week was Arcadian, by Dan Beachy-Quick.

The Sixth Daily Poem Project, Week Ten Call for Votes

THE SIXTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK TEN

Here are the poems to vote for in the tenth week of the sixth Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, May 3, to Sunday, May 9):

May 9: A Walk on Long Beach Island, by Eamon Grennan
May 8: War Stories, by Charles Bernstein
May 7: Of What Is Good Enough and Finished First, by Dick Allen
May 6: A Childhood Memory of Wordsworth's, Yves Bonnefoy, tr. Hoyt Rogers
May 5: The Dew-Tasters, by Lola Haskins (vote only on the first poem)
May 4: Survivor, by Tadeusz Różewicz, tr. Joanna Trzeciak (vote only on the first poem)
May 3: Winter Grasses, by Mary Leader

HOW TO VOTE: You can send your vote to me by email or as a comment on the blog (or as a comment to my Facebook link to this call for votes). If you want to vote by commenting but do not want your vote to appear on the blog, you just have to say so in your comment (I moderate all comments on my blog). If you want to vote anonymously, that's okay, but please choose some sort of pseudonym so I can keep track of different votes by anonymous voters. I will post comments as they come in.

Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem (although it is always interesting to see people's lists).

Please VOTE BY SATURDAY, MAY 15! But I will still accept votes as long as I have not posted the final results (which I might not be able to do until Monday, May 17).

Feel free to pass on this call for votes to anyone who might be interested!

The winner of week one was Trick, by Sam Willetts.
The winner of week two was Ecclesiastes, by Khaled Mattawa.
The winner of week three was To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor’s Garage, by Eduardo C. Corral.
The winner of week four was In the Men's Room at the Café Provence, by F. D. Reeve.
The winner of week five was The Bus Driver, by Hédi Kaddour, tr. Marilyn Hacker.
The winner of week six was Winter's Tale, by Maxine Kumin.
The winner of week seven was H1N1, by Robyn Schiff.
The winner of week eight was Montana Sky, by Don Welch.
The winner of week nine was Arcadian, by Dan Beachy-Quick.

The Sixth Daily Poem Project, Week Nine Results

THE SIXTH DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK NINE RESULTS

The winner of the ninth week of my sixth Daily Poem Project is Arcadian, by Dan Beachy-Quick, which received 4 votes out of 15 cast.

Two poems tied for second place with three votes: Fin, by Wyn Cooper, and What Was Missing, by Susan Tichy. All the poems received at least one vote.

My thanks to everyone who voted. I'll be posting the call for votes for week ten shortly.

The winner of the first week was Trick, by Sam Willetts.
The winner of the second week was Ecclesiastes, by Khaled Mattawa.
The winner of the third week was To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor’s Garage, by Eduardo C. Corral.
The winner of the fourth week was In the Men's Room at the Café Provence, by F. D. Reeve.
The winner of the fifth week was The Bus Driver, by Hédi Kaddour, tr. Marilyn Hacker.
The winner of the sixth week was Winter's Tale, by Maxine Kumin.
The winner of the seventh week was H1N1, by Robyn Schiff.
The winner of the eighth week was Montana Sky, by Don Welch.