marc pietrzykowski

Finished listening to the Astor Piazzolla 10 CD box set, then went back, put the CDs out of order, and listened to the whole thing again. The lyricism he gets out of a bandoneon is simply incredible, of course, but the second time through, I listened more to the other players, some of whom are listed on the back of the CDs, some not. Lots of swooping, sharp violins, strangely reverbed guitars, very sparse percussion that veers, like all the pieces here, from primal to ultra-sophisticated in the space of a few bars. If I didn’t have to get on with the rest of these CDs, I might listen again!

Please order my new book! It’s cheap! And if enough people pre-order, it might get released sooner than late December…

Also, I have started a net label: fubar bundy presents. Please go have some free music, though we’ve only one release up yet.

Tags: cd collection, poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
No Comments »

I have a new book of poetry set for publication in December, from the Main Street Rag Publishing Co. If the release date is in December, why am I writing this now, in August? Because if 100 people pre-order the book, at a discount, it will be released earlier. I will keep a running tally of how many are ordered, so please go to one of the above links and order one! With the discount, the book is only $9, which is less than a pack of cigarettes here in NY….

and now, more CDs, as I continue listening to all the ones I own:

297) The Pixies: Surfer Rosa

There was a period of 9 months or so, in the late 1980’s, when you couldn’t step into a bar, party, or friend’s car without hearing this CD. Classic rock in a blender, noise rock with the rough edges sanded off… and poppy as hell. Still great fun.

298) The Breeders: Last Splash

Odd that this one was right next to Surfer Rosa, bit of synchronicity there… it also seems odd that this came out in 1993, and Surfer Rosa in 1988, were the Pixies really only around for 5 years? Guess so. 2 or 3 great songs here, 1 big hit (“Cannonball”) that was good but not great, and a bunch of goofing around. I liked their first ep a bit more, if only because it was more economical (and had “Safari,” my favorite Breeders song).

299) The Birthday Party: Junkyard

What a great, scary album. Roaring, discordant punk noise, rockabilly riffing, a little Nino Rota here and there, and Nick Cave bellowing about big-jesus-trash-can. I cheated and listened to this one 3 times, twice because I wanted to and once to wash out of my ears this thing:

300) Glass Hammer: The Middle Earth Album

I have no idea who gave me this, but they made a copy of both CD and CD cover, so they must have been pretty impressed. I can’t figure out what they are trying to do, but it scares me; it’s music for the Renaissance Faire, but not as fun as all that, there’s no Faire or turkey legs or muddy wenches or jousting… and just when I thought it couldn’t get more scary, the musicians lapse into really limp prog rock noodling, which made me long for the fake medieval crap. Nice trick. According to Wikipedia,

Glass Hammer is a progressive rock band from Chattanooga, Tennessee. They formed in 1992 when multi-instrumentalists Steve Babb (then known as “Stephen DeArqe”) and Fred Schendel began to write and record Journey of the Dunadan, a concept album based on the story of Aragorn from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. To their surprise, the album sold several thousand units via the Internet, TV home shopping, and phone orders, and Babb and Schendel were convinced that the band was a project worth continuing.

Or not. Now I get to listen to a box set, Astor Piazzola, I think…
Please buy my book! Thanks!

Tags: cd collection, poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
No Comments »

The magazine Poetry has been timid and robotic for a while now, but the archives are certainly worth looking at:

A Day on the Big Branch

Tags: poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
No Comments »

Ok, maybe not so shameless… review of my book #2 at outsiderwriters.org.

Tags: poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
No Comments »

So says Joseph Beuys, via Ben-Ami Scharfstein; I’d never heard of Beuys until I started reading Scharfstein’s Art Without Borders, which is a tremendously exciting book for an number of reasons but especially because of the above premise: everyone is artistic all the time, we are constantly creating and interpreting, always using artifice, nothing “as it is” because we are fundamentally incapable of “as it is,” as Scharfstein puts is, “nothing made by human minds or hands, nor any human act, is without its aesthetic origin or aura.” We recognize and appreciate great art because we recognize the action of our own beings within it, and in recognizing and appreciating, we collaborate in an ongoing act of creation. Not a new idea, of course… might well be the oldest idea. That’s why the delivery system matters, why seemingly arcane hipster dithering like this essay actually do mean more than they appear to, because the way we learn to engage art shapes how we are artistic on a daily basis; if someone learns that only art that emerges from corporate massaging is worthwhile, then they are likely to make their own daily art the same way, they will move through their lives the same way an idea moves through a corporate boardroom. I remember reading an interview with the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine who answered the very valid critique that their band sold political revolution through the marketing of a multi-national corporation by saying something like, “well, they’re just like an investment bank, we take their money to make our music and they get a return on their investment, and because we are anti-corporate, we are subverting them.” That’s why you should not ask rock stars to speak. In any case, it does matter what gallery your work is in, what journal, what boombox, what ballfield, and not just because some charge more. Corporate art makes for people who live corporate lives, which are not lives at all.

Oh yeah, and more CDs:

232) Captain Sensible: The Best Of

“Jet Boy, Jet Girl.” Ha. And yes, “Wot” and “Glad It’s All Over” and “Happy Talk” and the rest, but “Jet Boy, Jet Girl” always makes me smile, so rude and catchy… I’m kinda surprised it hasn’t replaced “YMCA” at sporting events.

233) Van Morrison: Veedon Fleece

Ok, “Jet Boy, Jet Girl” makes me laugh, this CD makes me glad the wind exists, that wine exists, that I got to spend some time in this world. Van has about 6 or 7 CDs that do this for me…

234) Sparklehorse: It’s A Wonderful Life

Not sure why Sparklehorse hasn’t come close to making a recording this good since; even the collaboration with Dangermouse is not so striking as this. Perhaps they only have the one idea? It works here, anyhow–I mean, check out “Little Fat Baby”:

235) Beastie Boys: Check Your Head

Checked. It ain’t Paul’s Boutique, but then neither is Paul’s Boutique.

236) Sham 69: Best Of

Some good punk songwriting, some throwaway junk, plenty of opportunity to bellow and throw pint glasses at your best friend.

Tags: cd collection, poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
4 Comments »

The great Busy-ness is nearly slackened, soon 70-80 hour weeks of work will be done and perhaps I will write more about each CD then. Or maybe I will go fishing, or work on other writing, or practice walking on my hands. Or, i will go our and try to sell my next book, which BlazeVox books has accepted for publication in the near future. Woo-hoo!

148) Van Morrison: Down the Road

My wife has a spreadsheet with every Van Morrison CD listed on it, because she gets me one every Christmas and doesn’t want to repeat. Luckily for my lifeline, he has oodles of recordings, and keeps cranking out good new ones, like this bluesy bit of comfort and yearning.

149) The Psychedelic Furs: All This and Nothing

Hits, hits, hits from the 80’s–”Pretty in Pink,” “Heartbreak Beat,” Ghost in You,” “Heaven”… $2.10 is scrawled on the back in crayon, so I must have gotten this at the Goodwill store.

150) Harry Nilsson: Best of

This CD got at a gas station, I remember, somewhere in Georgia. More hits, hits, hits, “Everybody’s Talkin’,” “Jump Into the Fire,” “Me and My Arrow,” and of course, “Coconut.”

151) XTC: Waxworks, Singles 1977-1982

More hits! Geez, I hope the next CD isn’t a compilation of hits. Not that these aren’t some great songs, and yes, all the world is football shaped, but I’m starting to get a strong feeling of deja vu, and I’m not really digging it.

152) David Byrne: Feelings

Ah, Byrne to the rescue! Not a goddamn hit to be seen! But, has “Miss America,” the snarkiest extened metaphor criticizing the American mythos since, oh, John Prine’s “Great Compromise,” perhaps?

153) Fabulosos Cadillacs: Rey Azúcar

Now this is post rock, never mind all that “angular” crap that comes out of design schools. They started as a ska/dance band in Argentina, and have become… well, they can mix samba, metal, and be-bop jazz together in one song and make it sound perfectly natural. Plus Big Youth is on a few songs. PLUS Debbie Harry sings a spanish language cover of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” ‘Nuff said.

154) Atrium Musicae de Madrid: Musique Arabo-Andalouse

Sinuous Andalusian songs from the 9th-13th centuries. Captivating, and full of melody threads that survive in both modern flamenco and middle eastern pop. Broke my rule and played this one twice…

Tags: cd collection, poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
No Comments »

Scholar/Author/very busy man Jamey Hecht has written a far more insightful review of my book of poems than it probably deserves, and it is currently the feature review on Rattle’s website. Thanks much, sir.

Mr. Hecht’s website.

The contradictions that reading my book seem to have provoked in Mr Hecht–he didn’t like the poems, hated reading them but thought they were successful, that it is a “good, strong book” and would recommend reading it–is wonderful. That Mr Hecht did not find the book funny, which it is certainly meant to be, says something about how social class works, I think, but ‘m not sure I’m ready to explore that argument just yet. Also, he began the review stating the poems were “unabashedly autobiographical” but later recanted and said that I might be a very different person from the narrator. I’m not sure why folks want to try and find autobiography in these poems; maybe because many are in first person, and they follow a fairly straight chronology? In any case, how much of the book “really happened” and how much did not is irrelevant. What is important, from a critical perspective, is that I am the kind of person who would think to write poems like these.

Tags: poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
No Comments »

I have posted mp3 recordings of the first part of my book of poems here.

I will try to finish them all by the end of April, and will also start messing about with them, chopping them up and splicing them with other things… please feel free to do so as well, if you are so inclined.

Also, I will be reading tonight at Talking Leaves Books, 3158 Main St in Buffalo, with Rebekeh Keaton. I’m lousy at self promotion, boy…

Tags: poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
No Comments »

I have a publisher, Zeitgeist Press, that is small and has not the resources a huge publishing house might have, but they have the freedom to publish work that they like, not just work they think can sell a boatload of copies. Because they cannot send me a $10,000 advance and put me on the John Stewart show, I have to do some of the work if I want my book to sell. And I do want to sell copies of my book, as well as copies of any other books I might write in the future. In the traditional publishing model, or at least the most recently dominant model, I would try to parlay the reputation gained early in my career, via small but prestigious presses, into a contract with a larger publisher. This larger publisher would then print and distribute my later books, set up publicity campaigns, and so forth; in return, I would get a small percentage of the profits of each sale, called a royalty, as well as positions on the boards of poetry journals, increased reading fees, and so forth. The internet, however, has made the exchange of media so easy that this old model is dieing (thankfully). A number of new models have cropped up, most being variations on marketing models that predated the big publisher model, and these new models allow for greater author control over their work and a much larger share of the profits for the author as well, but lack the resources large publishing houses can muster. For example, large publishing houses can offer a dedicated editor to help shape a written work; because it is so easy to make one’s book available as a pdf, say, or via print-on-demand publishing, a lot of not-so-polished work is offered to the reading public using these forms of distribution, and a lot of just plain shitty work, too. So, finding excellent writing is harder under these new distribution models, the argument goes, because there is so much more crap to wade through. Of course, much of what was published under the old model–most of what was published, perhaps–was also crap, albeit crap polished to a high gloss, and finding alternatives to the shiny turds offered by big publishers was much harder. The biggest problem a new author faces under new models, like the street performer protocol, is gaining enough name recognition, enough core readership, to make releasing further works economically feasible.

Most of these new marketing models have risen up around music and software production, I’m not sure how many authors have tried this with written work. I know that strayform, for example, has a text area, and my own book, and eventually podcasts of readings, will be available as Creative Commons copyrighted material, but I need to spend the next few days trying to find out what other resources exist. I will post what I find.

Tags: Uncategorized, poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
No Comments »

My book of poems …and the whole time I was quite happy is now available from zeitgeist-press.com. I am setting up a separate page for the book and a link to it on the right, and I plan to record the whole thing as a group of podcasts, accessible through that page. Should be up in the next week or two… (wink, nudge).

Tags: poetry/fiction/lit type stuff by admin
No Comments »