Reggie Watts

Jonathan Lethem on Writing

"I began writing in order to arrive into the company of those whose company meant more to me than any other: the world of the books I'd found on shelves and begun to assemble on my own, and the people who'd written them, and the readers who cared as much as I did, if those existed."

-J.L. from The Ecstasy of Influence

New Math: Five Equals Twleve

Done in collaboration with David Lantow a very long time ago (thanks for sending this, David). Click on the image to enlarge it.

MASS MoCA Dance

Bear Attack

Document

You can lick the sky
until it sparkles, I don't mind.
Hold your hands so they cast a shadow
that looks like a bear. Fun! Morning comes
without warning: it's just here. You are
free to move about the cabin
exhibiting a distinct message
of forgetfulness and all the bliss
that it implies. I'm saving my mind
for what's really important
when I get home: you. The smell of the sea
blowing in over the Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway makes me feel like
something good might happen today.
I'll tell you this:
We're going to have a real good
time together in our tight pants.

Coat of Arms

A finger sliced on cream-colored formica
while grape fruit leather is chewed in mournful bites.
Glass magazines. The paper bones of billionaires
fold over as grief becomes panic becomes
friends eating roast beef from each other's
mouths in a tent. Like it matters what you think
at dinner, at all. You lift a cup, you tip
a cup, you grow old, you whither. Watch what
you say. I mean it: watch your mouth move
in the mirror when you say what you say.

Sunday Morning Photos

Top 10 Friday

1) The Clash, London Calling. Soundtrack to NYC 2011.

2) Pierre Reverdy: Selected Poems, translation by Kenneth Rexroth.

3) The Early Music Show on Fridays, 9-12. WKCR.org.

4) The Iliad. New translation by Stephen Mitchell.

5) Pre-threaded sewing kit.

6) "Combustivism" by Todd Colby

7) The Three Classifications of Humans: Nervous, Very Nervous, Very Very Nervous.

8) "What is characteristic of the two of them, Freud and Marx, is that they don't bullshit." Jacques Lacan, The Other Side of Psychoanalysis - Seminar XVII, p. 71.

9) "I think it's so groovy now that people are getting together" Christopher Knowles, Typings

10) "I think it's good you don't know how you're going to end." Rudy Burckhardt in an interview with Simon Pettet in Conversations with Rudy Burckhardt About Everything.

Ruth Stone

Ruth Stone from Neil Astley on Vimeo.

James Brown Dancing Lesson

Caileen Kehayas

Below are a sampling of photographs by my friend, the photographer Caileen Kehayas. Caileen's ability to get at the the ticklish center of her subjects (in this case mostly her nephews Ollie and Henry) give her photographs a special warmth that feels intimate, poignant and delightfully captured from the slippery glimpses of life as it rumbles along. Caileen's photographs give me a sense of joy in the world and remind me not only of the big, heroic and hilarious gestures of early boyhood, but of the quiet clarity and jarring yet joyful isolation of simply being human. Enjoy! For more photos by Caileen Kehayas, please visit her photo blog: Pure Gravy.

William Eggleston with a Video Camera: "Stranded in Canton"

Samuel Beckett

“Don’t lose heart: plug yourself into despair and sing it for us.”
Samuel Beckett in a letter to Robert Pinget in 1956.

The Lumpy Path (for Jennifer Keitzman)

The real thing
the blue of the sky
adheres to the trees
and trickles down
to chartreuse
and off into orange
and red and pale yellow
and lavender of the lumpy path.
Ranunculus is pretty much
better than any other kind of flower
but I am a sucker
for the colors of the hellebore
and the shape
of the passion flower.

Public Access Poetry

I gave.
Will you?
It only takes a few bucks
& about thirty seconds.
It's an incredible project.

Click here.

Brought to you by The Poetry Project.

In the House

He stands up on the table
and gets savage. He yawns: too
many conversations in one bed.
He gets to be excited about things,
builds a fort under the table,
he brings things he loves
into the house.

*

The sound of a bike
bell indoors can startle, but clear
the air. It all looks beautiful until
I put my glasses on, I am not ashamed.

*

The lightest wind blew in Union Square
and a giant oak tree let go of all its yellow leaves.

*

Look, he says, the whole world is sparkling
but I know he means his watch
which has just been shined by
a professional.

*

The vague mathematics
of the day; what we get rid of;
what we bring into the fold of our
lives; leaning into a stranger inadvertently
on the subway as it comes to a sudden stop.

*

When I was a boy I collected
matchbooks in an old blue Adidas shoebox.
When I visited my father two years ago,
I threw them all away because I feared they would
spontaneously combust and burn my
father's house down.

Destroy Flower

You make perfect sense to me because
you'll know where to run along the river from me.
You are me now and then. Version: Mellow.
No one gets and summoning ghosts and soft hands.
Jabbing at the sugar, planting military kisses,
tortured on my team. I win. Fuck.
That can bring about change the scent of frenzy.
I wear a grey cotton twill work shirt
to work. Even as the hand shakes the sky
when people want to hold your hand
open a feeling for blacking out. Trusting
or wanting what smells good.

The Slits: New Town

Art Show: Two Boys, Flower Atlas, Stuck Deer

Two Boys





















Flower Atlas















Stuck Deer

Kodachrome

Picture a mint green bathtub with a bloody washcloth
plopped down next to a rusty drain. Sold! I'm a live wire
under the covers. My methods of relaxation,
while disposable, are largely sources of ambient funk.
It is the sureness of chemistry that insures
the production of sleep without work.
Not that the means of production don't draw
you in, its just that I can't tell if you're here or not.
You might be waiting for me with a new thought pattern
which should set us up for the time being.
Listen to the city out there all pouty and gray.
Please turn your head this way and look at
the yellow chiffon scramble with misty orange pulp
and leaden hamstrings. You've got a lot to live
and New York has got a lot to give.

In the subway on the way to the Dina Seiden and Reggie Watts show last night. Photo by Tara.

Telepathic Morning

The weather isn't cold enough
so I feel uncomfortable in my special clothes.
This morning I read that planet Earth is all
about combustion and that most of us are
remedial readers and that if a well-read ghost
wanted to come around and get tricky
he would have a heyday. I'm just saying.
All these stark zero-hour predictions are
freeing me from panic, which is pleasant, for a change.
I live next to the highway, so I hear a hum
all the time. Just let me know if you'd like to send me
a telepathic message. I have special cells
that allow me to receive your thoughts.
Just let me know when you're really going to do it
so I can pay attention. I'd like to understand
what you're sending me more than anything else.
A baby blue journal with the word ROMA
embossed in gold on the back.

Art Show 2: Scary Thoughts and Best Team Helmet Design Ever For Any Sport

Art Show: We are so proud of you and Apparitions

Interessant!

Tres bien!

well,

ah.

ooooooooooooo-o-o

we-e-eeeeeeeee

x
o
tj
ccccccccccc

Catastrophic Successes

Flame

Because the bright blue light from the gas flame
in the dark kitchen came to the lashes
making everyone look alien and hairless.

Mint Green Pants

Lining the walls with protein
for the foil wrap protection
setting fire to flames with a sulphur leather cuff.

Provoking Animals with Political Buttons

Kick out the pajamas with a full on tang hatchet
and the glorious sweet birds chirping over a concrete
saw. The jet-setters are all on scooters in this, the modern age.

Hibernation System

The earth is a great animal guilty of movement
because Cat Power is a good cop, making measured
having not shaved in a week. Free bird this.

Vanishing Point

If your friend calls from Hollywood
hung with a strut of imagination and thunder
purple flowers deck the halls of medicine, raunchily.

My Brightest Diamond