Chapter 9 Erasure Poem and art by Shloka Shankar (F. Scott Fitzgerald Birthday Bash)

Chapter 9 Erasure Poem
by Shloka Shankar

the shadowy glow
of the moon began
to melt away

I became the whispers
of all human dreams;
neither understood nor desired,

face to face with
the orgastic future.

SOURCE: An erasure culled out from Chapter 9 of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer from India. She loves experimenting with all forms of the written word, and has found her niche in Japanese short-forms and found poetry. Some of her poems have recently appeared in Eunoia Review, Oddball Magazine, Of/with, A Hundred Gourds, The Bamboo Hut, and The Other Bunny. She is also the founding editor of the literary & arts journal, Sonic Boom.

Jack Kerouac on San Francisco

“It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.” JACK KEROUAC, On the Road

Photo: Sunset Magazine, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Defining the Magic, poem by Charles Bukowski

DEFINING THE MAGIC
by Charles Bukowski

a good poem is like a cold beer
when you need it,
a good poem is a hot turkey
sandwich when you’re hungry,
a good poem is a gun when
the mob corners you,
a good poem is something that
allows you to walk through the streets of
death,
a good poem can make death melt like
hot butter,
a good poem can frame agony and
hang it on a wall,
a good poem can let your feet touch
China,
a good poem can make a broken mind
fly,
a good poem can let you shake hands
with Mozart,
a good poem can let you shoot craps
with the devil
and win,
a good poem can do almost anything,
and most important
a good poem knows when to
stop.

SOURCE: “Defining the Magic”  is included in Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories by Charles Bukowski, available at Amazon.com.

ART: “Bukowski” by 21imp, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Kerouac dreams, art by TatiDuarte

“All human beings are also dream beings.”

JACK KEROUAC

ART: “Dreaming ties all mankind together” by TatiDuarte. Prints available at redbubble.com

The fabulous white city of San Francisco, quote by Jack Kerouac

“It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.” JACK KEROUAC, On the Road

Photo: Sunset Magazine, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
*****
May 27, 2012 marked the 75th anniversary of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Renowned the world over as a masterpiece of art and engineering, the Golden Gate ushers 120,000 cars to their destinations each day.

In a 1987 newspaper column, journalist Herb Caen described the Golden Gate this way: “The mystical structure, with its perfect amalgam of delicacy and power, exerts an uncanny effect. Its efficiency cannot conceal the artistry. There is heart there, and soul. It is an object to be contemplated for hours.” 

Style, poem by Charles Bukowski, photo by Hans Silvester

STYLE (excerpt)
by Charles Bukowski

Style is the answer to everything
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous
thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable
to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style is what
I call art…

Photo: Hans Silvester, from his book Natural Fashion (see description from on the book’s Amazon page).

Jack Kerouac and San Francisco

“It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.”

JACK KEROUAC, On the Road

Photo: Sunset Magazine, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

*****

May 27, 2012 marked the 75th anniversary of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Renowned the world over as a masterpiece of art and engineering, the Golden Gate ushers 120,000 cars to their destinations each day.

In a 1987 newspaper column, journalist Herb Caen described the Golden Gate this way: “The mystical structure, with its perfect amalgam of delicacy and power, exerts an uncanny effect. Its efficiency cannot conceal the artistry. There is heart there, and soul. It is an object to be contemplated for hours.” 

Andy Warhol and Cecilia Gimenez, Together Again

As mentioned in our August 31st post, the Campbell’s Tomato Soup cans with Warhol-inspired labels are available starting today at Target (yes, the “discount” store). Of those pictured in the photo above, I like the blue and green one best. Target will offer a limited edition of one million cans at 75 cents each.

Not to spoil the party (so I won’t talk about it here), but  readers may wish to check out livestrong.com for a discussion of the ingredients in Campbell’s Tomato Soup. (Anyway, if I buy a Warhol-inspired can of soup from Target, I don’t intend to open it!)

Since we’re discussing Warhol and soup, this post includes another entry in The Cecilia Prize, the contest that honors the good intentions of Cecilia Gimenez — the parishioner from Borja, Spain, who picked up a paint brush and tried (that’s the operative word) to restore “Ecce Homo,” a flaking fresco of Christ on the wall of her church. This Warhol-inspired entry, Ecce Soup, was created by Twitter @ewajoan.

Campbell’s Soup in Andy Warhol Colors

Most Americans will spend what many consider the last weekend of summer going to the beach or pool, having backyard barbecues, enjoying long bike rides, or getting the kids ready for school. But for art lovers, there is only one place to be this Labor Day weekend — your local Target store.

That’s right, folks, Tar-zhay! And why would an art aficionado spend the last precious days of summer vacation or last long weekend until Thanksgiving walking the endless aisles of a discount retailer? The answer: Warholia! Yes, exclusively at Target, starting September 2, 2012, you can purchase your very own “limited-edition line of Warhol-themed condensed tomato soup cans,” to quote from a recent L.A. Times article by David Ng.

Priced at 75 cents each, the cans commemorate the 50th anniversary of Andy Warhol‘s creation — yes it’s been that long (in 1962, the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles first exhibited Warhol Campbell’s Soup can paintings).

According to an official Campbell’s Soup spokesperson (how would you like that job?), a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

 

Coco Chanel and Simplicity

Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.”

COCO CHANEL

Photo: Hans Silvester from his book Natural Beauty.