I Won't Stop Falling

OK, I've read better poetry, sure. Correctly spelled even.

But I just like so much how someone would stop and take a moment to express their feelings in a creative way to share with all who pass by. It wasn't meant for me (that I know of), but they were obviously thinking of someone special to them, and I like whenever that happens. Wherever. However. So yeah. I do like it when you loose control.

Let someone know how you feel today, whether by a little vandalism, a real, actual phone call, a skywriter ... you'll know what to do.

Spring Fever!

We might not have the cherry blossoms in Venice, but we have these guys ...

You can feel the Spring in the step of everyone around. It's subtle here, and lacks the total relief of colder climes when the blossoms first appear ... but when the evenings get longer and the town bursts into color against skies so blue it makes your eyes hurt ... you feel it. Like in this gem, from e.e. cummings -

“sweet spring is your

time is my time is our

time for springtime is lovetime

and viva sweet love

(all the merry little birds are

flying in the floating in the

very spirits singing in

are winging in the blossoming)

lovers go and lovers come

awandering awondering

but any two are perfectly

alone there's nobody else alive

(such a sky and such a sun

i never knew and neither did you

and everybody never breathed

quite so many kinds of yes)

not a tree can count his leaves

each herself by opening

but shining who by thousands mean

only one amazing thing

(secretly adoring shyly

tiny winging darting floating

merry in the blossoming

always joyful selves are singing)

sweet spring is your

time is my time is our

time for springtime is lovetime

and viva sweet love” 

- e.e. cummings

Viva sweet love! Viva Spring! Wherever you are.

Where My Sidewalk Ends ...

I was walking down my street this morning, and it was so pretty out, I wanted to share it.

Then I started thinking about Shel Silverstein's Where The Sidewalk Ends*, because on this street, that's where I live.

That beautiful, classic book of poems is now 40 years old, yet the wonder and wisdom is simply timeless. And after all these years, the opening poem is still my favorite ...

INVITATION

If you are a dreamer, come in.

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . .

If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire,

For we have some flax golden tales to spin.

Come in!

Come in!

Yes. We really do have some flax golden tales to spin around here. Please come in!

*Always available at Baby Burro!

The Free Venice Beachhead Turns 45!

The Free Venice Beachhead turned 45 years old, and Venice celebrated last night. One of the last remaining free presses in the country, we try to tell the best stories, news and events of our beloved town every month. The entire thing is run on donations, and all the Collective staff are volunteers. It's a lot of hard work, and very behind the scenes, so it was fun to meet readers and neighbors at the party last night at Beyond Baroque, and make our world a little smaller.

People mingled in the lobby, drinking wine, eating snacks (all donated - thank you!) and catching up on the current events around town.

It was a packed house, and many in attendance had contributed to the Beachhead in some way during its existence. Juan was there with probably his best hat ever.

We had a merch table stocked with t-shirts, posters, magnets, and even phone covers! People were encouraged to donate or become sustainers of the paper, as every month it's a wondrous thing to come up with enough to print 10,000 copies for our readers.

After much fellowship and chatting (which continued in the lobby even during the program - that's where the wine was ...), it was time for music and poetry. 

The Venice Street Legends played a few Johhny Cash tunes with Kathy Leonardo and got toes tapping. Then Roger Houston, Hillary Kaye, Tina Catalina Corcoran, Krista Schwimmer and Pegarty Long all read poems about The Beachhead and special times they've had in Venice. It was surprisingly emotional, as I realized how very many people feel the same way I do about this wonderful place we live, and how much we all want to keep it special.

After a brief intermission, we had more fantastic poets share their talent and thoughts on their muse, Venice.  Ronald McKinley spoke of how his daughter contacted him after 15 years after reading a poem of his in our online edition. Karl Abrams and Mary Getlein read their always excellent works. Mary always just kills me with her heartfelt thoughts and gigantic heart. She even spoke-sang one of her poems, which I'd never seen her do. She dedicated one to Suzy Williams, who was about to play. It was beautiful. ALL the poems were beautiful.

Jim Smith brought along the very first copy of the Beachhead from 1968 - only four pages, but full of spirit. He read a poem he wrote in honor of the 45th year and we have to get it published as soon as we can. It was epic.

After all that depth and emotion (and humor!), it was time to cut loose and celebrate. Suzy Williams (backed up by Eric Ahlberg, Sam Clay and Steve Weisberg) tore it up (in her "I'm a Venice Beachhead shirt - get yours!), and even dedicated a song to ME, which gave me a lump in my throat. You write your stories but you never really know if people like them, or even read them, once they're out there, so it's always so gratifying to have someone say they mean something to them. Bless her.

By the last of Suzy's songs, the whole place was up and dancing.

 
We were celebrating freedom, celebrating the paper, but most of all, celebrating our Venice. 

Pegarty Long read a poem by her late twin sister, Philomene Long, the former Poet Laureate of Venice. I think it pretty much says it all ...

Venice, city conceived in imagination for imagination
With body intact -the canals, the welcoming houses
The people came. It happened - the magic -- unexplainable
Venice becoming the city imagined
A city like no other city on earth
Its community of Venetians giving her a soul
Bright. Transcendent. The soul of Venice
A gift, which cannot be bought nor stolen
This is the gift out right, freely given
To those open to receive it; for those who listen

But Venice transcendent still needs a body
It can be, has been, wounded
It can die; live on only in history

So we here today, as with previous Venetians
Welcome all as neighbor, loving freely
At the same time preserve and protect our radiant city
With magic and practicality
And with the hope of a pale green egg-almost iridescent
In a Venice afternoon light
That resolve passed on from those that have gone before us
For them as for ourselves, and for those that will follow
Will walk upon our footsteps into the next century
That the light of Venice not be extinguished
Nor diminished, nor simply be maintained.
But that light burn, burn, burn into a boundless luminosity!

-- Philomene Long

It's like Mary Getlein wrote in our current issue: "That is what's really great about Venice - people read your poems." Please support YOUR local paper in any way you can. Volunteer, donate, support financially, submit articles and poems. It is there for everyone. Happy 45th to our Free Venice Beachhead! Here's to many, many more.

Leonard Cohen in Venice. WHAT?!

There is nothing I will be ever be able to write cooler than this, now, but maybe ever. If you know me, you know I love Leonard Cohen. LOVE Leonard Cohen. So imagine my damn struck dumb surprise when I was physically reading his stunningly gorgeous book of poetry and line drawings, Book Of Longing - super random, but the thing is so beautiful and meaningful to me that I get chills thinking back upon it now - and WHILST reading it, in walks Mr. Leonard Cohen to my physical human space. I felt light-headedly strange (in a good Doors kind of strange), but in an unexpectedly shakily, floored kind of way. I said to the living persona of artistic heights standing in front of me, on little Abbot Kinney Boulevard, "Mr. Cohen, This is crazy but look what I'm reading!" (And I struggled with bothering him even with that - not at ALL my style, but I had to, ala Kris Kristofferson life moments) "I think I conjured you up!". He looked me dead in the eye and said, "You did." And then proceeded to sign my book - without me asking - in the same lettering that features in the treasure of a book.



All I can say, All I can know, is that life is crazy, and deeply meaningful, and beyond what we let ourselves imagine. But than we do. And it happens.

Imagine if we could harness that for the good of the whole. I do. All the time.

In Venice, or wherever you are, let yourself believe in dreams coming true. All the time.




*Photo of my special treasure book by Jennifer Everhart

Eat Flowers

"The thing perhaps is to eat flowers and not be afraid." - e.e. cummings

Venice Is A Poem.

"Poetry is what Venice is all about. It ain't the only thing, but it's the fundamental thing."

That's a quote I heard from Jim Smith of The Free Venice Beachhead, who heard it from Pat Hartman. The Beachhead has an entire poetry section each month, but there's a lot more poems around Venice ... even just breathing in, really.

One of my favorite things about Venice is the poetry of it all. And the APPRECIATION of the Poetry of it all. The Beats hung out here ... The Venice West Cafe (and then Sponto Gallery) celebrated the poets and their muses all day, all night. Jim Morrison wrote poems on the sand, and turned them into Doors songs, before he left to only write poems in Paris.

Some of that poetry can get lost amid the gentrification, crime, and the general busyness of everyone's lives in this Millenium. Beyond Baroque keeps it going, though, with constant poetry readings and cultural events you would grow from just by walking in the door. They are also the Sponsors of the Venice Poetry Wall down - ironically or not? - on the side of the Beach Police Station. I've always loved to take a moment and soak in the words etched there ... now kinda fading and in need of some upkeep, but there to try and capture the reality in front of you in a few perfectly chosen lines.


Punk rock poetry is represented too, as Exene Cervenka pleads, "Head the Future off at the past. Part the freeway, let my people go free."

There are even poems gouged into the walls of the Public Restrooms down at the beach. Not long ago, I was thinking of someone I missed far away, and wondering what they were doing, when I rode my bike up to the restrooms to rinse my feet of sand. I looked up and this Wanda Coleman gem was staring me in the face:

... so sometimes poems in your midst can even make you more aware of yourself. Trip on that.

My favorite one so far, I think, comes from Viggo Mortensen (a longtime supporter of Beyond Baroque) and goes diagonally all across the wall, so I'll tell it to you myself ...

"It was all part of a wonderful secret, an infinite number of welcoming gifts that had lain waiting in the sea."

Leave it to Viggo to perfectly describe our Venice.

Or don't. Write your own poems, celebrate your own gifts ... and the ones waiting in the sea.