Broken Glass

My callused hands grasp broken glass
Made smooth by the sands of time
Opaque, a different shape
Warm and smooth now in my mind

Different colors, different sizes
I collected and prized them all
But what these bottles looked like
I cannot quite recall

Still I pluck their remnants from this shore
Alone on the beach with nothing to do
Trying to empty my head with this tedious chore
In the absence of something new

Were they just vessels for my outpourings?
My hopes, my dreams, my fears?
Did you pour in some of your own
Sour wines or bitter tears?

Either way there was little left
But a container, an outline
After we poured their contents out on the beach
When came the ending time

Did I smash them, drunk, angry, glad?
Or could it have been you?
Our eyes are cameras that reuse the film
Life erases the memory of what’s true

And the artifacts are hopelessly changed
The glass now smooth as stones
I can’t even see what the breakage looked like
Nor can I leave them alone

My pack is heavy and battered
Zippers ripping from the strain
Of carrying rocks I haven’t dropped
But all I can think to do is complain

And cram these relics in my bulging pack
Amongst the heavy stones
I grunt and heft it on my back
And turn and walk towards home

Once there, I root around inside
And blindly cut my hand
These trinkets, once safe, are safe no more
So I start mixing stone and sand

To cement this rebroken glass
Into something whole and new
A mosaic with strange patterns
A fresh take on what was true

And if you see this new creation
When I hang it on a wall
Will you know it came from me and you
Will you recognize it at all?

--Alfonso Mangione
   May 29, 2010

The Golden Gate Bridge

This was taken from the Golden Gate Bridge in August, 2009.

Cosmos

Sex and the City
Is why you feel shitty
Plus you done drank up everything in the Cosmos
I saw stacked by your shitter
While you were hitting the one-hitter
At the wrong end of a no-hitter
Bitter
Obliterating yourself, now you wanna hurl
Slow it down, baby girl
Break the blues, make new blueprints, your own plan
Don’t try and be a man, that don’t make us feel good neither
Take a breather
Stop the treadmill
If you wanna get some head, we’ll
Work it out without
Screwing each other over
Aww, who am I kidding?
I’m not a pimp
Just another love gimp
Limping from one sick doctor to another
Getting blue balls
‘Cause no one makes house calls
And to forget about the ouch
I will lie upon the couch
My memories are fed
By the movies in my head
So I need random pictures, war dead,
Something shocking to replace the dread
I feel it too
I’m alone at 32
But still I hear the clock ticking, same as you
When I’m home alone
No one gives this old dog a bone
But it’s later for me than you, and I’m hungry too, so
I’ll head out, a tortoise now, with less than a house on his back, but a pack, just enough to avoid
Being home with the lack
And the panic attack
Slow and steady doesn’t win in the end, sometimes it just leaves you lonely
And as I crawl past the pubs I see you and your girls,
I look up at the cosmos
And laugh
‘Cause you could drink a carafe of it
And you still wouldn’t know the half of it
You’re a giraffe, not an ostrich
Holding your head too high
To get it down in the sand
While I live in the dirt
So it doesn’t hurt
As much
At least when I put on that shell
It saves me from hell
But it keeps out touch as well
Maybe I should shell out some clams for a softer one
But I’m afraid of everyone
Even though I have no basis
I’m all up in your databases
A ghost in your machine
It’s mean
But I’d rather talk about you than me
It hurts less, you see
To see where you go wrong
Than me, I can’t follow along
With my own logic
It’s tragic
But I don’t believe in magic
Putting a stop to this
With a fantasy kiss
I don’t know how to end it
So I’ll just defend it
Trying to be a poet
By writing about your shit
If you wanna be a friend, it’s
Gonna cost you

- Alfonso Mangione, May 14, 2010

Dumped Truck

I took this after work on Friday in the West Loop and figured I'd share.

(© 2010 Alfonso Mangione)

Bleeding Hand

Did I know you long ago
Were we deserters from that war
Veterans stacking sandbags
Who found the chore a bore
Trying to fight the flood and dam this river
Or did we think it safe to swim, me, you, him
Damn your liver
And lost sharks smelling blood
I’m a forgiver
Who came
With the heart of a dope
And veins full of same
Who can’t give up this slender rope
Where’s the harm?
I’ve got a hole in my arm and a bleeding hand
And a sliver of hope
To reach dry land

- Alfonso Mangione
  May 5, 2010

Czech Countryside

I've been missing Prague a lot lately. Two years ago, I was there for two weeks, working on the Heydrich book. It was long enough to make friends, and to start going to grocery stores instead of restaurants, and to start recognizing Czech words once I got there. (Hruska = pear.) I took this picture in the countryside; I'd rented a bike and pedalled up there so I could see the things Heydrich's assassins had seen, and ride the routes they'd ridden. I thought I was happy with the book; now that I'm waiting for feedback, and compulsively thinking about the fact that I haven't gotten it yet, I'm not so sure. Still, I am grateful for the journey.

Through Your Life, Darkly

I posted a review of Through the Darkened Window by the Pinstripe .45s (a formerly local band) here.

Still Waters

A favorite pic of mine. I took it in Alaska in 2003. Thought I'd share.

(© Alfonso Mangione)

Pawnshop Laptop

Actions speak louder than words and all you ever do is talk the walk of shame it never fazed you I’m amazed you love that strut you want lovers you don’t have to love yourself myself I talk a lot, too, but I can do anything better than you you’re a pawnshop laptop your jobs, I’ve had them, I seat them at a two-top or a four-top in my black and whites I nab them, I cop to that, I grab them, I’m a table whore, I gab them up, like a horny whore getting money for what I’d do for free anyways my talk is cheap but I do it for pay and I touch my rent a dollar at a time each day and and sometimes I hate myself for it, these same stories always, it’s a bore, but they don’t know the score, they’re a conveyor belt chore, so I stay game, I walk a good game, I’m a geek to the Greeks up front and the Mexicans in the back making the food Greek, camisas and cabezas all I see, and all I do is run it out and why can’t I judge myself against me and not against you, and why can’t I get paid for what I love and not just what I do.

A Poem About Hipsters

Tramp stamps on food stamps
These hipsters get my palms damp
Little Hitlers on bikes, a critical mass
Of pompous ass
But every one pretends they’re not one
A spectator, not a dictator of taste
A waste of a college degree
Same as me, too much humanities,
Your histrionics tire me
And you’ve got too much ink, I think
On your skinny arms; the only exercise you get is pumping irony
And I don’t drink your PBR
But I do what you do, I sink
Into the couch at the trendy coffee shop
With my laptop, but not a Mac, a Toshiba, black, writing poetry
No Starbuck’s for me
Unless I can’t see another place to get a fix
And get off on mental masturbation, the generation of verbal jism
Our nation of criticism
And lies I despise
Your Chrome bike bags
And hurl invective
At Animal Collective
But still go to Pitchfork
And drool
And thank God it’s finally cool
To be a dork

- Alfonso Mangione
  5/5/2010

Technicolor Dreamburst

So I'm trying something new on the blog. Rather than just posting criticism and rants and things of that sort, I'm also gonna put some poems up here and there, and maybe a photo or two. (Granted, the poems may themselves be criticisms and/or rants, but, hey, what do you expect?) Anyway, here's one I wrote back in April; it also recently appeared in a literary newspaper called The Deadline that my friend Liz put together. OK, here goes:

I’m a supernova, baby
Brighter, hotter than the blues
A Technicolor dreamburst
With a million different hues
And it’s not about you ‘cause there’s
A thousand other yous
I don’t choose these thrashing fevered nights
Booze used to turn them off but now I choose not to lose the
Queues of yous
That form outside my head
As I thrash about, my bed
Energetic
But it’s potential, not kinetic
It’s pathetic
What can set me off
A smile, a look, a wave
Surging crashing foaming surf
Until it lands upon my turf
A clean white page
These thoughts rage
Or better yet race
Motorcycles in a death cage
My empty head
But now I’ve fled
My empty life, at least,
Netflix, no wife
And coffee, wired, watching the Wire
Eating peanuts, butter toffee
Feeding the fish, a betta, Max
Not compatible with VHS fish, blue from loneliness too, perhaps
At least I get to go out and see the other fish, the sea
While he’s in his bowl
But he looks whole
Content with only me
Or so it seems
But still I wonder
Does he wish for other fish
When he dreams?

- Alfonso Mangione
  April 21, 2010

Buried Treasure

I posted a review of Neil Young's "On the Beach" here. This is a very underappreciated album--one that might be the best thing in Neil's catalog. Anyway, check it out if you get a chance.

National Pleasure

High Violet finds The National at a high point, poised to either find their way at last into the hearts and minds and stereos of Middle America, or to fall back—either into hipster obscurity in the bars and art galleries of Brooklyn, or hipster exile in the suburbs—and be mourned by their dedicated fans but unremembered by the public-at-large.

Ever since 2005’s Alligator (or better yet, 2004’s Cherry Tree EP), it’s been clear to everyone who was actually paying attention that this is a band with the ambition, and more importantly, the skills to be the Next Big Thing. And yet they also have the canny hipster sense that it’s unwise to look like you’re actually trying. So this album finds them both writing anthemic choruses and mumbling them, crafting sharp tunes and sludging them up, and generally continuing to be infuriatingly fascinating.

The New York Times’ recent glowing profile of the band—one could call it a puff piece, but this is a band that deserves puffing—alluded to the general critical sense that this is a band poised to make the musical equivalent of the Great American Novel. And while that’s an accurate picture of their potential, it’s still somewhat misleading. Their previous two works were like Bukowski set to music—they’re edgy and darkly funny tales of urban alienation and angst and alcoholism, tremendously enjoyable, but still somewhat out of the mainstream. Whereas High Violet is more like Updike, with married-with-child lead singer Matt Berninger as Rabbit Angstrom, and a little extra angst on the side. He’s settling uneasily into domesticity and starting to care about the things most people care about, but he's also trembling with fear, seeing danger around every corner. He promises us it isn’t Rabbit, Run; “I won’t be no runaway, ‘cause I won’t run" ends up being one of the best and most memorable choruses on the album. But there’s enough conflict and longing for oblivion that it obviously isn’t Rabbit at Rest, either.

Again, Berninger’s observations seem more squarely aimed at the average American here than on previous works; “I still owe money to the money, to the money I owe” feels like a zeitgeist-capturing line if ever there was one, something that sounds equally apropos for Brooklyn or Brooklyn Park. And yet Berninger’s unable, unwilling, and has no need to entirely shed the jaded urbanite persona he’s revealed to us on previous albums. So all this leaves him with one foot still planted in white hipsterdom and another astride the white picket fence, and with no clear sense of whether he’s coming or going. Whereas on Boxer’s “Slow Show,” he sang “Can I have a minute and not be nervous, and not think about my dick,” here he’s talking about how “we live on coffee and flowers, try not to wonder what the weather will be.” He mentions hoisting his kid on his shoulders and giving him ice for his fevers, but also says, “I don’t have the drugs to sort it out.” Is he out of drugs? Is he off of drugs? Abstaining for the sake of the kid, the wife, himself? Or are there simply not enough varieties and quantities of drugs to give him peace of mind in such a complicated situation? Like all the best lyricists, he’s written this in a way that it can be interpreted many ways, and mean many things to many people depending on which parts resonate with their own experiences.

Musically, the band’s as tight as ever; they always remind me of a moonlit sea, dark and energetic, deep and intense, but with bright flashes and intricate details. They’ve sludged things up a bit at the end of the somewhat Springsteen-ian “Terrible Love,” taking a page from their live act, where they’ve been doing a messy deconstruction of “About Today” as a staple closer for some time now, and “Little Faith” has wonderful low ominous strings that help make it perhaps the most brooding song they’ve ever written, which is really really saying something. Still, all in all, it’s of a piece with their previous works, which isn’t exactly a bad thing. (The album as a whole has a solid, conventional arc to it, which isn’t bad, but also isn't as daring as Alligator, which put some of the most charging and driving songs at the end of the album—the musical equivalent of trying to end a relationship with face-melting post-breakup late-night rage sex.) It closes with relatively sedate songs, “England” and “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” which, one senses, are either the least exciting songs this band’s written in a while, or the ones that just take the most listens to let their slow brilliance sink in.

It’s perhaps fitting that they’re ending things on a mellower note; again, the band seems like they're at least trying to settle down, to reverse the exodus so many of our generation made at the beginning of our twenties when we fled suburbs and responsibility, preferring the darkened streets and crowded bars of the city to any sort of domesticity. “We’ll leave the silver city, ‘cause all the silver girls gave us black dreams,” he says on “Conversation 16.” But it’s hard to tell whether he’ll succeed, or whether he wants to; the same song finds him declaring that “I’m evil,” one who wants “to believe in all the things you believe” but is nonetheless “a confident liar.” “When I said what I said, I didn’t mean anything,” Berninger tells either his wife or himself or us, which obviously leaves one wondering about the sincerity of it all. Do they want to find a comfortable place in Middle America? Do we want them to? Or is it just for show, something they’re doing because they think it’s what’s expected of them? “I’ll explain everything to the geeks,” Berninger promises, but since it’s the last line on the album, he doesn’t; the questions remain unanswered, the tension, unresolved. But that tension is what brings us back to their albums again and again, and hearing new things each time; it’s not answers, but the search for answers, that makes this band compelling.

Muslims and South Park

I have to say, I'm always a little amazed at the disingenuousness of Radical Islamists when they say they want to "raise awareness" of an issue and then do so by posting threatening pictures, and personal information, and so on, as is apparently the case here.

Good Author, Bad Book

So I wrote a review of the last Haruki Murakami book I read, and I posted my take here. The book wasn't all that great, but hopefully you'll enjoy the commentary. Still, you don't have to like it to click on the "Yes" button next to the "Was this review helpful to you?" question, thereby hastening my impossibly slow ascent to the top of the Amazon reviewer rankings. Excelsior!

Catholic Blues

If journalism school taught me anything, it is that a story's arrangement is more art than science; different reporters will structure the same story differently based on their own beliefs and prejudices. And coming up with a good kicker--that bit at the end that makes you think just a little more--is a big part of the art. So you may or may not agree with this piece about the Catholic Church's sexual priorities, but if you like good kickers, you won't be disappointed.

Some More Thoughts on Writing

I wanted to add a little to what I wrote on Friday.

I am trying to give up the notion that my success or failure as a writer will be influenced by how well I manage other areas of my life.

I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to believe in cause-and-effect relationships that simply aren’t there. Nor is this unique to me; a lot of what people commonly understand as karma is predicated on this notion that what goes around, comes around. When I was waiting for feedback on my manuscript, it occurred to me that I had promised to read and review a book that another author had mailed me. (Actually, it didn’t occur to me; the guy had to email me and ask if I’d done it yet, at which point I promptly remembered that I had put the big shipping envelope with his book down at the bottom of my pile of mail that kinda sorta needed to be acted on eventually, and I’d promptly forgotten about it.) So naturally, I figured that all the invisible mojo was somehow blocked up, and if I reviewed this guy’s book, I’d promptly get the feedback I’d been looking for on my book.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. I read his book, wrote a thoughtful and incisive—albeit harsh—review, and shipped it off to him. And I got none of the feedback I was waiting on.

So what? You may rightly ask. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, perhaps it doesn’t really matter all that much. I guess the big lesson is that I should do things for their own sake, and not for the sake of some imagined unrelated outcome. I’m glad I reviewed the other author’s book, but I’m glad because it was something I promised I’d do, and because I got something out of it.

There’s a large blue book that I read fairly frequently that mentions that people like me are usually a victim of the delusion that we can wrest satisfaction from life if we only manage well. It is a delusion; if I manage well, it will not necessarily bring about all the things I want in this world, and even if I were to get all the things I want in this world, it wouldn’t necessarily make me happy. Other people’s free will and other people’s choices are often at work, sometimes in ways I don’t even know about, and sometimes working towards ends far contradictory to mine. And more importantly, God’s running the show, not me, and the things I strive for are often the things that make me unhappy, whereas the things I avoid are often the things that help me grow and benefit me in the long run.

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with striving to achieve my goals; I just have to keep in mind that it’s not all about me, and that any setbacks or detours or hardships along the way are ultimately for my benefit, as is the ultimate outcome—even if it’s not the outcome I intend.

Writing about Writing

So it's Friday afternoon, and I'm sitting in a coffeeshop in Milwaukee and listening to Big Star. This is not just any coffeeshop, mind you; it's a hip (read: non-Starbucks) bright little place with bright sticker-covered windows and hardwood floors and potted plants and people smoking. (Remember that, Chicagoans?)

When I'm working on something I'm really excited about, there's no happier place for me to be. But the book's on hold, and I don't have any reviews in the works. So I'm feeling less like a writer indulging in hackneyed habits, and more like a guy who's just trying to escape the real world and go off into his own world for a little bit.

I'm trying not to be a whiny complainy tortured-artist type. My biggest problems today are an inattentive agent and a little writer's block; there are far worse problems to have in this world. But as Neil Young says, "Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make 'em go away."

What does make them go away, then? Doing the proverbial "next right thing." Getting out of my head and helping other people. Living in the world and engaging them, rather than withdrawing into my head.

I've learned that life works best when I believe that everything happens for a reason, when I trust that I don't always know what's good or bad for me but believe instead that God's got my back and everything, both the things that seem good and the things that seem bad, are gifts from a loving God who has my best interests at heart. I've been told that every problem has a gift inside, and sometimes, to get that gift, you have to get that problem.

It's hard to always believe that.

But ultimately I have to, because the alternative is to believe in a world of random rewards and random punishments, a world of ultimate pain and futility where there is no hope other than oblivion. I've lived in that world; it really sucks. I'd rather not go back, and I know I don't have to.

So, as mentioned above, I just have to keep taking action. I'm not writing to complain here, or to piss and moan; I'm writing to write, because I know that even if I write crap on any given day, I've still done something. It feels a lot better than not writing anything, and anyway, I can always go back and edit it.

The National

Just when I thought I couldn't love The National any more, they go and knock my socks off again, as depicted here playing "Terrible Love" from the new album. (High Violet, due May 11th, in case you didn't already know.)

In many ways they're like a white-collar Bruce Springsteen, which paradoxically makes them seem more authentic. (At least to my college-educated suburban whiteboy ass.) Some bands end up aping their influences more and more closely as time goes by, and losing any extra authenticity they once had, and "Terrible Love" itself initially seems like a Springsteen retread. But as it gains in intensity, it becomes both more personal and more universal. The charging finish is on a par with "Abel" or "Mr. November," and the lyrics sound absurdly surreal and nonsensical--until you realize the terrible love is not romantic but alcoholic. So the song ends up feeling gritty and real; it isn't new territory lyrically, but they cover the old ground in ways that make it feel fresh.

"Blood Buzz, Ohio" ends up being perhaps even more broad in its appeal; it's insistent refrain talks of how "I still owe money to the money, to the money I owe" and, like all true classics, it makes you want to sing along before you're done with your first listen. (If there's a lyric out there today that better captures the zeitgeist, I haven't heard it.)

As far as I'm concerned, this band is already on par with Radiohead and Wilco in their sonic depictions of life in the early 21st Century, and if High Violet is as good as Alligator and Boxer, they'll hopefully start getting the recognition they really deserve.

An Update

Still nothing from the agent. Setting internal mental deadlines for other people to do things is a sure path to unhappiness, especially when those deadlines are never discussed with the other person. But I've taken some positive action to get out of my head, and I'm actually feeling OK.