It has been a while since I posted anything beyond holiday greetings; the end of last year was particularly busy and the new one is turning out to be even more so. Nevertheless, here are some photos from the end of 2018, and, I hope, a sign of more new posts to come.
| "Little Favela": Graffiti on a construction barrier surrounding part of NYU's campus, Silver Towers in the background |
| In the downstairs sanctum (I got permission before taking the photos) at James Laughlin's home in Norfolk, CT, with first editions of countless New Directions Books (Daniel Javitch, a longtime NYU professor and Laughlin's son-in-law, is the on the right) |
| "All Those Ships That Never Sailed," one of my favorite Bob Kaufman poems, which I recited many years ago at a remarkable tribute to Kaufman that the Dark Room Collective held for him in Cambridge; this was the first poem he recited after ending his multiyear vow of silence |
| "My heart is in my / pocket pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy, from Frank O'Hara, "A Step Away from Them," Lunch Poem (New Directions, 1954)--probably the edition depicted here |
| The beautiful Norfolk, CT public library's interior |
| The Richardsonian Romanesque exterior of the Norfolk Public Library |
| Construction in Jersey City, or Can They Fit Yet Another Glass Tower into a Tiny Footprint? |
| At Newark Airport (when the metaphor becomes the objective correlative, just saying) |
| On the campus of the University of Virginia, where I read in the fall, and where I spent two eventful years in the early 1990s |
| Workers spiffing up the walkway on the Lawn dorms, University of Virginia |
| Updating the Lawn walkways to make them disability-compliant |
| The walkway into my former workplace building at U.Va., Bryant Hall (the English Department has since moved to a newer, larger building) |
| The rear of Bryant Hall, where, on my first day back in 1993, the professor in the office next to mine learned I was the new employee and loudly proclaimed, "It's Hell!" There are signs and warnings that we should always pay attention to, and that most certainly is one.... |
| A fascinating exhibit on a historical homesite owned by free African Americans in the very area near where part of U.Va.'s campus now sits |
| More images from the exhibit about this free Black family |
| Artifacts from the era |
| More about the history of the area, racial relations, and the University of Virginia in the exhibit, U.Va. |
| Sculpture in front of the New Orleans Museum of Art |
| Mercer Street, West Village |
| Workers, at night Manhattan |
| The fields and treeline near Meadow House, James Laughlin's estate, in Norfolk, CT through a windowscreen |
| At the new World Trade Center stop on the 1 (I think), with its graphic white wall |
| A talk at the New Orleans Museum of Art, during the ASAP/10 Conference, New Orleans |
| One of the striking art works on exhibit, "Eleventh," 2018, by Lina Iris Viktor, 24 carat gold, acrylic, ink, gouache, copolymer resin, print on matte canvas, New Orleans Museum of Art |
| With my formers Northwestern colleagues, Brian Edwards, now a dean at LSU, and Andrew Leong, now at the University of California-Berkeley |
| Some of the books on display at the ASAP Conference |
| Daphne Brooks delivering her keynote at the ASAP Conference in New Orleans |
| In Brooklyn, near Pratt Institiute |
| C, in Manhattan |
| Outside the Leslie-Lohman Gallery, SoHo |
| The Trump balloon sculpture at the Downtown for Democracy Protest Factory event, at Jeffrey Deitch in SoHo |
| Dale Peck, reading at the Downtown for Democracy Protest Factory event he organized, at Jeffrey Deitch in SoHo |
| The deflated Trump balloon |
| Remember the 2018 elections? They turned out pretty well, all things considered. |
| Tisa Bryant, delivering the Leslie Scalapino Lecture in Innovative Poetics, "In Search of a Free State: Black Womanhood in the Archive of Dreams," at Pratt Institute |
| At the University of Iowa, participating in a conversation on translation with Bruna Dantas Lobato and Katrina Dodson (amazing translators!) |
| So bizarre; New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd was on my flight to Newark but it turned out she was headed to Anaheim (or somewhere near there in southern California), yet for some strange reason she was allowed to board our plane, and had to be escorted off when she realized she was headed in the wrong, completely opposition direction |
| Eric M. B. Becker of Words Without Borders in conversation with Brazilian journalist Isabel Lucas on her multi-genre book Journey to the Heart of the American Dream: America By the Book at the Pessoa International Festival, NYC |
| Signing the Swedish contract for Counternarratives (the translation will soon be done!) |
| At the Fire Ball 2018: "Wakanda Forever," in Newark |
| On the 1 Train, with a "Respect" sign honoring Aretha Franklin, at Franklin Street |
| With the fellows in the 2018-19 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council program, where I gave a talk on the Emotional Outreach Project |
| In the studio of the one of the artists n the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's fellowship program |
| The Oculus and atrium, at the World Trade Center, NYC |
| Lower Manhattan, with One World Trade Center, with seagulls in the foreground, in Hoboken |
| Robert DeNiro, introducing Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give |
| People feeding the gulls and other seabirds, at the Hoboken Station |
| A homeless encampment (under that black cloth), downtown Jersey City (luxury towers are just steps away) |
| Late winter Washington Square Park piano performance |
| Scrumptious homemade butternut squash soup (with lots of grated cheese!) for cold December |
| C making pasta at home (it was absolutely delicious) |