Post Script

What more is there left to say?

KurtColeEidsvig.com

Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead)

So, November 2nd was Dia De Los Muertos, and on the 1st I headed over to the Cambridge Multicultural Center to take in some of the festivities, as pictured above.

And what better way to say thank you, and to celebrate the end of an era at 617 Midway than in celebration?

Since moving to Fort Point and 617 Midway there are many things to be grateful for: My first three person show (Image for Sale at FPAC Gallery), my first review (Boston Globe), my first solo show (Reference Point at Moakley Courthouse). The X-O paintings, the Mirror/Image series. The catalog paintings. Watercolors, drawings. Poems. Collaborations. Collages. Being invited to join the Fort Point Theatre Channel, participating in Exclamation Points, having a poem produced into a play, being invited to serve of the board of Round Table. Major painting sales. The show Stop Traffic with Jonathan Stark. Group Shows, Open Studios. The list goes on and on.

So, on Dia De Los Muertos I was celebrating the passing of 617 Midway. The end of the era.

Thank you to all of you who made it such a special place of comfort and friendship and art and ideas. For all your inspiration and support.

Thank you 617 Midway. Adios my old friend.

XO
Eids

Midway Gifts and Boston Graffiti

So, I decided to start a new tradition to those departing Midway Studios: Leave a gift for the building. Or, leave a gift for anyone who wants to go grab it.

Above, see a few shots of one of my series of Graffiti Meditations: Girl on the Elevator; Girl on the Train. It is posted up outside 617 Midway. If anyone wants to go grab it, it's fair game. But for now, it is my parting gift to Midway Studios, and my thank you to number 617.

Also above, was on Boylston the other nite and grabbed some shots of graffiti under the bridge. Certainly there are drawings everywhere inside of us.

This Can't Be Home Anymore

What better farewell to Midway than, "this can't be home anymore?"...

One Last Elevator Ride from 6

No Change

How is it that a person can pack and load and haul. Pack and load and haul. And the studio looks the same as it did like a week ago? Bananas.

Things are coming along in 617Midway. Is bittersweet saying goodbye to the old girl.

But seriously: Who brought all this stuff in this place?

Sketchbooks

Question:

How many sketchbooks does a lover of the line need?

Draw, draw, draw, draw, draw, draw, draw.

Abandoned Project: The Mondrian Riff that Fell Flat

Remember "Piet and the Egg?" Something from the Gorky bio I read, or Elaine and Bill.... but a riff about Mondrian buying eggs in Manhattan. All was well with this oil until I got so involved and brought in more black.

Trash

How much trash can one studio produce? I am pretty sure I have taken down 18,000 carts worth at this point. And no, to you purists, I am not throwing out "Coast to Coast" and "Early Spring Training." They are in the keep pile, not the trash cart!

Another Studio Find: Shape Poem

Here is one that I found in one of the many, many sketchbooks I found today. It is huge. I am not sure of shape poems are ever 100% successful, but I was probably engaged with some Kenneth Koch or some O'Hara and trying my hand. I did notice the riff off of Martha Collins' "What Words Can Do." I actually folded this one up and saved it, although some was a lot better than the rest.

But it would break / everything inside you / to know / what words can do.

Abandoned Projects: Dollar Hearts

One of the more interesting and fun things about the great studio cleanup and move out of 2009 is coming across these projects that I started and either lost steam or I ran out of time with for one reason or another.

Above, see some shots from a collage project I was working on that was combining catalog imagery, transparencies, and layering. What did this project in was open studios coming along, and also, my missing actually applying paint to canvas. I had been working on a lot of collage stuff, which is great from the product, but the process is less fulfilling to me than drawing or painting is at times.

Anyhow, interesting. Only one of many finds in 617 Midway this week.

Major Midway Progress

Fort Point Channel Yesterday

Hard to Believe it was Snowing here a Few Days Ago

The Ballad of Moving

What better song to use for a sliver of hope at a time like this than this diddy by Yellowcard?

Someday, someday, this may even be an empty apartment. Especially if I stop blogging and keep packing.

Open Studios Elevator

Kind of no fun to not be able to participate in Open Studios this year, as my life is in shambles due to all this packing.

The whole neighborhood is electric with energy, even in the rain. No, that doesn't mean that everyone is getting electrocuted.

Above, a shot of one side of the Midway elevator. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

What Have I Been Up To?

I’ve been reading “William Carlos Williams: Poet from Jeresy.” by Reed Whittemore. I have been hearing from people who say “I saw you at South Station,” and then wondering when I was at South Station. And then remembering that my face is all enlarged and grinning as part of Brian Bresnahan’s “Head’s Up” project. I have been doing some Examiner articles, including a review of Karen Snyder’s show and a piece on Lisa Greenfield’s Coil/Recoil. I have been writing.

I have been packing. Strike that. I have been thinking about packing. My departure from Midway is everything but a done deal. I have been fielding questions like “What will happen to 617Midway?” I have been throwing things away.

I’ve been drinking coffee. I’ve been preparing a review of Michael Davis’s Gravity. I’ve been talking in the phone.

I’ve been
surprised at how the weather
can be as undependable
as the weather. The cold being
colder than any October
since last year, the rain
aspiring to snow and not
making it. I’ve been
dreaming red
wheelbarrow dreams
and looking down Boylston Street
for the back of you
and wondering what
would be
if you were there.

Did I mention WCW?

It is worth noting his poem, “This is Just to Say,” as I clean out my refrigerator:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold





I am cleaning out my refrigerator. Wondering which plates in the cupboard might make the cut. Listening to House of Pain’s “Top of the Morning to You” as I blog, and I’m tripping the light fantastic in Syracuse memories.

Speaking of the light and the fantastic: What more proof do you need of time travel than this:

“How fast it went when I was laughing, and how very slow
when the world had convinced me, martyr. When I had convinced me
martyr. Shouldn’t each person, in these prisons,
be given the gift of joy?
And the regret, then, of time passing so swiftly?”

Anyhow, speaking of plums and refrigerators and WCW: It is also worth noting Kenneth Koch, as it always is, and his “Variations on a theme by William Carlos Williams.”


1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the
next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!


+ + +

Speaking of plums. Or, almost speaking of plums: Pic above is from wikipedia.

While I am open studios-less this weekend, “Blue Cowboys” is posted up on the 5th Floor of 300 Summer if you miss it and want to take a look.

I have been walking into Tantric and looking at “Target/Target” and “Steel Heart” looking back at me. All these layers and collage and all these eyes over plates and eating.

I have been ending blog posts suddenly, and then wondering at adverbs. Like this:

Adverbs?

Heads Up

Went over to South Station last night to check out part of the installation of Brian Bresnahan's public piece "Heads Up," and caught a glimpse of me looking right back at me.

The public art project is funded by a grant from FPAC and coincides with this year's Open Studios. Brian has posted shots of locals from South Station down and around Fort Point.

You can check out more of Brian's work at Breznatron.com.

After all That: O'Hara himself Drops the Poetry Bomb

"Partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better, happier, Saint Sebastion"

Oh, Frank O'Hara.

2 Pics from Yesterday

Out back of 617 Midway and the Public Garden.

Moby Dick Like New Again

I have been sitting on this one for a while. Saw this diorama and did a panorama of the high-end drama that Melville built a career on.

Pics are from inside the Back Eddy in Westport.

Beach Pans

Here are a couple beach pans I have been sitting on.

Frank O'Hara: Selected Poems

I’m thinking of moving. This should be no surprise to anyone who knows me. I’m always thinking of moving. Key West; Missoula, Montana; Bozeman; Salt Lake; Cape Cod. Maybe it was all my time between places, between places on airplanes, before I became a teenager even, but I think of moving.

This time’s more serious though. There are real estate people involved. There are questions in the hallway. There are interest rates and points. There may be closing costs. There is a nagging suspicion that I need some boxes.

Question: When aren't there closing costs? What lacks the cost of closing?

Anyhow, I have even been ripping CD’s into my hard drive so I don’t have to move the scratched surfaces,:all rainbow reflected silver, or plastic boxes with crumpled liner notes. I am thinking seriously. Serious in thinking.

"EPMD’s Greatest Hits?” I’d forgotten half my life. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Too many Counting Crows albums to admit. Black Sheep, Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Buffett, They Might Be Giants, Eddie Money, Kenneth Koch reading poems, David Sedaris reading, Method Man, Sugarcult, Blink 182. Fine Malt Lyrics from House of Pain. I am listening seriously.

I am talking out loud as Microsoft Windows records my history: "Sebadoh? Lucero? The Rat Pack?"

So, I am compacting. This shirt doesn’t fit, I wish that one didn’t fit. Why didn’t I save more of those suit coats now that Draper has reinvented fashion? Did I really buy these shoes? Did I ever like this album? Who made me this mix CD?

Am I really 35?

And of course, when moving, the dread of any literary type is books. What could be worse to move than books? Why do I love books so much? What the fuck is wrong with a library card?

I remember a guy who was thinking of moving to Midway. He was unsure the floor could support his five thousand books. Five thousand books.

Me? I’m getting rid of books. I have sworn off Amazon for the time being. No, I can’t buy Cuban Linx 2 yet. Haven’t reserved the new Lethem. No, no, no. No. There is too much lifting in my possible future. Too many backaches and magic marker (kitchen) (studio) (a scrawl I cannot read) and too many trips up and down the stairs.

And then what happened? I walked into Border’s on Boylston and Frank O’Hara was staring at me.

Selected Poems.

I have every single Frank O’Hara poem ever written. Collected, Retrieved, written beside art. I have a postcard of O’Hara that stares from my refrigerator. My memory doesn’t work / in such a away that I have / every word he ever wrote / memorized, but I see things / in the sand, the tracing of his fingertips as he addresses / the sun, or the breathing at a typewriter, the sound of ice / clinking in the next room.

This data is stored inside my GPS. It tells me how to move and why. These are maps, pictures, a catalog for a show I haven't even submitted to a gallery yet, haven't painted the paintings. I am looking out my window. O'Hara tells me where to watch the buses arrive and then depart. The red lights blink.

In short, there is nothing in the Selected I haven’t read yet. There is nothing here I haven’t re-read yet. Read again, considered.

From Travel: “Sometimes I know I love you better / than all the others I kiss it’s funny”

From The Unfinished: “As happiness takes off the tie it borrowed from me”

From Ode to Willem de Kooning: “Beyond the sunrise / where the black begins / an enormous city / is sending up its shutters”

Is there any doubt that I know these poems? That they are imprinted on my canvases? That they press back from my keyboard? That they call me up at 3am and say “I miss you,” “I love you,” “I hate you,” "where are you?” They say nothing. They breathe. I know these poems. Even when they hit star-whatever and block caller ID.

From one of his titled Poem: “there’s too much lime in the world and not enough gin, / they gasp. The gentle are curious, but the curious / are not gentle. So the breaths come home and sleep.”

What the hell was I doing in Border’s anyway? I was walking and praying. I was being mindful and breathing. I was likely thinking things like “blame it on tequila,” or “I can’t believe she did that.” “She,” standing in for the moon, the sun, the group of bookstore girls, the pictures on the internet, my girlfriend, my ex-girlfriend, my my my. "She" was a stand-in for a poem. I can’t believe she did that. I am turning the page. I turn. I turn the page. I can’t believe. I just can’t.

And there he was on my bookstore walk, the cement squares outside, the squares of CD cases collecting in shopping bags at home (discard), the squares of parking spots that filled on Newbury (one side) and Boylston (the other). The squares of pictures you remember, the squares of pictures you forget. The squares you tap against your leg that become boxes waiting to be filled. You tape and there is that sound, that screeching sound.

The squares of cardboard, discarded after everything is empty and gone.

“Can I help you?”

Is a morning bookstore like 7:50 am outside a joint on the outskirts of Dorchester, the line not exactly collecting? No more calls to make. Who are these people? These serious, quiet, people, on the verge of shaking? Is everyone so thirsty they can’t bear to talk?

“Can I help you,” and I wondered if the book was talking to me. Frank O’Hara, young on the cover of a book of poems I had lived through and gone back to. Again.

Semi-famous words from a drunk I know: "I'm not worried about the yet's / I am terrified of the / again's."

Again.

And even with my life in boxes, mortgaged and promised, prepped for sending somewhere else. I did this on a Saturday morning. I did the worst thing anyone who is thinking of lifting things can do, who is packing boxes and boxes full of books books books:

I paid twenty bucks for a photograph of Frank O’Hara.

I didn't judge a book by, I bought a book for, its cover. OK, I judged.

I mean, it was a picture I’d never seen before. It just so happened to be on the cover of a beautiful book of poems. Larger format, the white space everywhere, the pages reminding my fingers what we came here for.

He is so young. It is like starting over, over and over again. Frank O’Hara, Selected Poems.

What we came here for.

Don't Forget, We've Got Unfinished Business

Closing Out STOP TRAFFIC at Tantric

Took down the show STOP TRAFFIC at Tantric this Thursday. Have to say it was a great success. Target/Target, Steel Heart and Food Processing, (pictured above) all from the Mirror/Image series I worked on in 2008 were sold to private collectors. In fact, it looks like Target/Target and Steel Heart my have set up permanent residence in Tantric, so stop by 123 Stuart Street in Boston to say hello to them.

It also looks like "Summer School" is almost out the door, also from the Mirror/Image series.

Thank you to Jonathan Stark for a great show together, and to Tantric and MataHari for collaborating to create such a great event.

Making Love to the Sky

Some pics I took of the sky in the last few days. No, I am not sure what the title of this post is all about, but it sounds right.

The Southeast Review

The Southeast Review has included my review of Dobby Gibson's Skirmish in their newest issue. You can check out their website here:

http://southeastreview.org/index.html

Bridge Panorama-arama

I think I mentioned recently that I have found the panorama setting on my cam and have become slightly obsessed. There is just so much bananas stuff to experiment with. Bananorama?

Anyhow, above, see some pics of the obsession with bridges and the obsession with panorama setting colliding on the 617Midway blog.

All the while taking these shots I had Cockroft's first line: "Hart Crane stepping from the prow of a boat" ringing in my head. Not because craned leaped from a bridge (he plummeted from a boat- read the poem) but because of Crane's fascination with the bridge as metaphor. This is central to Cockroft's poem.

I was going to say Berryman leaped from a bridge, but I think he jumped from a hotel next to a bridge. Or an apartment building. All of these poets and leaping!

Yes, I did run home and re-write: Hart Crane leaping from the lip of a bridge. But this should not be surprising to those who know I appropriate Cockroft's first rate lines to make third-rate poems as a rule.

In the "12 days of Xmas" it should be "however many poets leaping." Countless poets leaping (and then the background singers break-in and hum "infinity" in a case of musical one-up-man-ship).

I ran home, after the bridge, and recently reading some new Alexie (Face, which is worthwhile and wonderful in parts, and inspiring, and funny and Alexie who is humbling and amazing... check out "Villify" and "Inappropriate."), and thinking of Cockroft's line and I wrote. OK, I didn't run, but I wrote.

And I sorely needed to post on blog, so I posted. I posted these pics. I made a panorama of blogging from posting bananas bridge-oramas.

Happy Friday.

Boston Today