Esteemed Reader

One of Woody Allen’s most oft-repeated quotes is, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” Which begs the question: Even if I am showing up bodily, how much of me is truly showing up?

Editor's Note: Sardines/Oranges

This exchange reminded me of a poem long buried in my memory, about a poet visiting a painter’s studio and watching him paint (while drinking, of course).

September: Featured Contributors

September’s featured contributors.

First Impression: The Tree Fort

I was in love with a blond girl named Cynthia. Blond is the best description I can give because I never saw her close up.

Letter to the Editor: The Great Elixir

When grown men dress as nuns and do a dance, the usual forum is the asylum.

Local Luminary: Ariel Shanberg

September’s Local Luminary, Ariel Shanberg.

Living Blues Treasure

Not only is Honeyboy Edwards alive, kicking, and sharp as a fresh toothpick, he’s on the road, making a rare and not-to-be-missed stop at the Rosendale Cafe on September 8.

Witness to History

Ron Haviv’s photo of a Serb militiaman kicking a dying Muslim woman in the head—published a week before the fighting started—became one of the most enduring images of the Balkan conflict.

The Good Word

Spoken-word performance, the artform so identified with Manhattan’s East Village of poverty, drug addiction, and AIDS, has once again inched its way up the Hudson.

Waxing Poetic

The encaustic boom is going strong. “Encaustic Works 2007,” R&F Encaustic’s biannual juried exhibition, was chosen from approximately 3,000 entries, by the artist Joan Snyder.

Public Opinion

What started as an editorial assignment to document public opinion about the US invasion of Iraq turned into a project examining how people are misinformed and confused by news and governmental spin on the war.

Portfolio: Richard Merkin

The great thing about being an artist is this: All the things you’ve done, all the pictures you’ve made, they’ll stay and say what you wanted to say.

One Heck of a Hootenanny

Dan Zanes is not afraid to employ lap steel, trombone, saxophone, tambourine, mandolin, accordion, balalaika, tuba, tin whistle, fiddle, or anything else that helps step up the fun.

Book Reviews: Land of Stone: Breaking Silence Through Poetry

Karen Chase begins her preface by calling Land of Stone “a story of silence and kinship.” It is also a story about love, healing, and the redemptive power of poetry—and it is unlike anything you’ll ever read.

September Short Takes

Six must-reads for September.

Book Reviews: Trashed

Trashed is a delightful romp through the sordid and deliciously sleazy world of the Hollywood tabloid media machine and the seriously neurotic, occasionally psychotic stars who feed it.

Book Reviews: Russian Lover and Other Stories

A well-done short story feels miraculous, the selection of just the right moments and details to create an entire reality in a bite-sized handful of pages. Woodstock author Jana Martin gets it right.

Perennial Voyager

There are few laudatory adjectives that critics haven’t applied to John Ashbery’s 26 books of poetry; “dazzling,” “sublime,” and the like become shopworn.

Spiritual Inventory

When Jeff Cuiule and Audrey Cusson bought Mirabai, a holistic bookstore, there were many naysayers. But their store has doubled its income in the last three years alone.

Omega Rising

A center for wellness and personal growth, Omega is a mecca of spiritual ideas and methodologies and a platform for many of the world’s foremost thinkers.

Sometimes You Want to Go

The Blue Plate Restaurant is one of those rarities that possess a definitive but indescribable essence—what’s known in Latin as genius loci, or “spirit of place.”

The Time is Ripe

While the coming of fall heralds changes in schedules and climates, it also provides a wonderful opportunity to experience locally grown melons.

The Cream of the Crop: A Guide

Make like the black bear (who can feed up to 20 hours per day preparing for winter) and take advantage of the smorgasbord sure to be provided by one of this year’s many food and drink festivals.

Gutter Rock Girl

Weird isn’t the word for this spectacle; the Laura Pepitone Show and her infinite energy are almost too much—dizzying, inspiring, funny, and extremely entertaining, in one surreal serving.

CD Review: The Powder Kegs

The Powder Kegs are ace players on fiddle, guitars, doghouse bass, banjo, and mandolin, and still manage to deliver all of their chosen tunes with a subtext of contagious joy.

CD Review: Ratboy

In Ratboy, their signature lyrical and harmonic twist-up shows such influences as Beck (the urban pop country-esqe “Falling Up”) and Lou Reed (the haunting “El Futuro”).

CD Review: The Christine Spero Group

Whether your thing is jazz, pop, or Brazilian/Latin grooves, Christine Spero’s My Spanish Dream will transport you to a loftier place.

American Portrait Project

“American Portrait Project,” Deborah DeGraffenreid’s examination of the nation’s polyglot face, will be exhibited at the Kingston Museum of Contemporary Art through September 29.

Hold the Bread on that Sandwich, Please

Gluten is the probable main culprit in celiac, an autoimmune disease that can damage the small intestines and makes it difficult for people with the illness to absorb nutrients from other food.

Horoscopes

Eric Francis Coppolino’s astrological outlook for September.

Poem: This Child

This child says:
I knew you a long time ago
when I was old.

Poem: A Retiree's Journal

I look forward to a knock on my door;
be it from a friend passing by,
or a witness for Jehovah.

Poem: Amsterdam

Don’t judge me
For looking in a lustful way
And not feeling the least bit sorry
For the third-world woman in the window
In the sin-red panties
Smoking a cigarette.

Poem: Mike Loves Gail, In a Poem

Mike is marrying Gail
this weekend
writer, and I’d like
to tell you why
no catastrophes
no truths no
what life is about
stories.

Poem: at 24

the five of us
on the edge of
the road
in Utah

graduated
jobless
tired and
undrunk

Poem: STOP!

don’t you know
what its like
to be on the brink?

brink of age
brink of love
brink of magic
brink of the cliff.

Poem: A New Love

Empty. No one quite able to plug the holes
in this protector’s heart left by my own desertion,
AWOL by choice and damned for it.

Poem: The Trees

Trees do not walk. Because
if trees could walk
I would teach them to run.
Put them to work.
Make them do things.

Poem: At Midnight

At midnight we cry
For all the lost loves
Gone by.

Poem: Untitled

Do you hear them now?

Bacon #1

Grady prefers to call these pieces “big heads” rather than portraits, explaining that a portrait often involves defining a psychological aspect of a person and conveying that through the painting.

The Future of an Illusion

Documenta 12 has been subject to some of the most scathing criticism I’ve ever seen for a major art exhibition (aside from a few editions of the Whitney Biennial).

Stories of the Displaced

Approximately 50,000 to 60,000 Iraqis are fleeing their homes per month, according to Rana Sweis, spokesperson for the Jordanian office of the UNHCR.

While You Were Sleeping

The gist of what you may have missed.

Beinhart's Body Politic: Secrets

Common sense, certain events, and most of the great theoreticians make it seem self-evident that secrets are crucial in war.

Creating From Your Center

Jeff Davis is running the first longterm study of yoga’s effects on students’ creative productivity, with students from the Masters of Fine Arts program at Western Connecticut State University.

Classical Homeopathy: Alive and Well

When David Kramer’s chronic allergies were eliminated by homeopathic treatment, he knew there was something remarkable afoot in this approach.