I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)
NEWS NEWS NEWSPoems on the way:
A new collection of poems titled POPTONES coming sometime soon, from Straw Gate Books.Coldplay / Viva La Vida - When I Ruled The World / Posted by Collette PlantzBlack Lodge Singers / Love Song
Lorette Velvette / Eager Boy / from "White Birds"
John Wayne's Teeth: Scene from Sherman Alexie's "Smoke Signals"
Adam Beach & Evan Adams
John Lennon & Yoko Ono / Number 9 Dream / from Lennon's album "Walls and Bridges"
TENDERLY, O TENDERLY FOR RUST
Composer, musician Barry Seroff is setting my poem Tenderly, O Tenderly For Rust to music. There will be a premier at Queens College (TBA) featuring other compositions by Seroff.
FUSIONARTS: Currently editing a book about Shalom Neuman's FusionArts Museum located on Stanton Street. The book will include lots of photos and will feature stories and recollections by Hal Sirowitz, Carl Watson, Jill Rapaport, Ron Kolm, Jim Feast, Tsaurah Litzsky, Deborah Fries, Steven Dalachinsky, Michael Carter and lots of others who have frequented, contributed, and/or participated throughout the years. I have written an article about Shalom and FusionArts that is featured in the 2007 Music Issue of "Beyond Race" magazine.
CLAYTON PATTERSON'S LES: Contributing a piece about Shalom to Clayton Patterson's forthcoming book on influential Jewish cultural figures of the LES to be published sometime in the fall of 07.
TEA TIME / 2004 - directed by DEBRA COHEN / w/ Merry Fortune & Robert Bernstein
This short film was presented at Anthology Film Archives on January 24, 07 as part of their new filmmaker series. The description begins, "It's time for tea... two friends meet on a Sunday afternoon in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan" and it's really that greatly simple. Unfortunatley I was not able to be there on opening night but heard good things. Congratulations to my friend Debra Cohen; I really enjoyed working with her and Robert.
ABOUT
WRITING INFLUENCES:
The writing of poet Bernadette Mayer is one of my greatest inspirations. Other influences (poets and writers) include: Winona LaDuke, Murray Bookchin, Katherine Arnoldi, Carl Watson, Lisa Jarnot, Julie Patton, Sherman Alexie, Jim Carroll, Saul Williams, Gary Snyder, Kenneth Patchen, Brenda Coultas, Diane Spodarek, Yuko Otomo, Garcia Lorca, Ted Berrigan, Jack Spicer, Ed Roberson, Phyllis Wat, Ruth Altmann, Edwin Torres, Lewis Warsh and beyond!! There are so many, so to name a few.
MUSICAL INFLUENCES:
Also too numerous to even begin but love The Beatles, Billie Holiday, Albert Ayler, Cassandra Wilson, Homer Erotic, Rickie Lee Jones, Ulali, Juana Molina, The Books, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Serena Jost, Amy Winehouse, The Bastard Fairies, Al Green, Julian Lennon, Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Marvin Gaye, Manu Chao, The Clash, Bob Marley, The Good-The Bad & The Queen, Matt Valentine & Erika Elder, Patty Griffin, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Nino Rota, Wreckless Eric, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Nora York, Bach, Nick Drake, Sarah Vaughn, Sandy Denny, Marc Ribot, Sandy Bull, Derek Bailey, Jandek, Jack Jones, Mikel Rouse, Modest Mouse, Moondog, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Fred Frith, Radio I-Ching, The Jackson Five, John Cage, Judith Ren-lay, Judy Nylon, Brian Eno, Elliott Sharp, Roxy Music, Joan LaBarbara, Robert Ashley, Robert Johnson, Tom Waits, Johnny Hartman ~ BIG ETC ~ WBAI, WKCR, WNYC (for New Sounds especially), WFMU and lots of kinda downtown music. I like the Stone for its generous vision and combination of eclecticism, tradition and openess - also for its intimate proportions.
Musical Update:
Recent MUSICAL COLLABORATORS include guitarist/Shakuhachi flutist/composer Barry Serroff (Little Ricky's House of Chanklettas); trumpeter Tim Byrnes (Tartar Lamb & Hazel-Rah, Friendly Bears); guitarist/sound genius Mike Muller; British classical guitarist/composer Pete M. Wyer; and composer and creator of Conduction, Butch Morris (in his Chorus of Poets). Recently have had the pleasure of jamming with percussionist Susan Yung and guitarist Bern Nix. Must say that was one crazy session...and the window was open ALL ALONG!!
GHOSTS BY ALBERT AYLER, GHOSTS BY ALBERT AYLER
Available at St. Mark's Bookstore; Barnes & Noble; Small Press Distribution and through Futurepoem books (futurepoem.com).
"This is the sort of stuff that makes you love the sort of pop music you're not sure why they call "pop" music. It is accessible, but you won't be sure why. Funny and common in ways you never thought could be so.
-Robert J. Baumann (Woodland Pattern Book Center)
"...Fortune displays an impressive range of sophisticated technique...Each poem
is uniquely itself and unlike any other in this varied collection...she comes at each of them with a passion that only outsider poets, such as Lorca, OHara, Crane, employ." -Bill Kushner (A Gathering of the Tribes/Online)
"...a microscopic gauntlet of imaginary landscapes where the spiritual and pedestrian share parity in a squirmingly comfortable way at both exhilarating heights and disquieting depths. Created at times are edgy musical messages, just as Aylers strange, simple, melancholic melodies shared space with his weird impassioned howling and plaintive, overflowing cries...Desires internal struggle opens into a sometimes frantic, sometimes sublime, always abstract abyss called life."
-Steve Dalachinsky
