Showing posts with label Cleaver and the Eye. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cleaver and the Eye. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Reporting from Maine (2), the demise of the Advanced Learning Lab at NYU Child Study Center

A short one--

stayed up too late last night watching the entire all star game--as a Met fan it was no surprise to see Wagner give up the tying run. Good to see David Wright get a hit. He is an all star.

Today, lots of work on the new poetry manuscript--working name now is Invisible and I think I may actually be able to finish it before the summer ends. Katherine did some nice drawing and painting. We went for a drive and saw some wonderful scenery, a pretty pond called Rocky Pond which I might be able to fish but may need to rent a kayak to get away from the public access. Pablo and I talked and he gave me some good advice on two Hinojosa poems. Grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, made corn salad a la Frankie at Nimrod. Nice walk on the beach at Clam Cove. Tomorrow we hope to get there early enough (the tides) to give Cannonball a chance to swim, ourselves as well.

Read Jesse's Cleaver and the Eye screenplay draft. It has some good stuff in it, some good writing, good drama. Made lots of notes on it.

The Advanced Learning Lab (at NYU Child Study Center) is closing down after all. It doesn't even appear anymore on the Asperger Institute website (which it did such a short time ago). No joy here. Yes, ALL failed Jesse, failed others, but it had the potential to do a lot of good for some kids who needed this kind of place.

Harold Koplewicz and Glenn Hirsch. E-mail them and ask them what happened. I'm sure they'll have some something to say, if they are willing to respond (they always seem to be away from their desks). . E-mail me and I'll have something to say as well.

Saludos.

Mark

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Reporting from Maine

Saturday we made the 400 mile drive up to Glen Cove, ME, a little hamlet between Rockport and Rockland and just south of Camden arriving at Anne's Seaside Cottage which looks out (some tree blockage) on Clam Cove that leads out to Penobscot Bay (memories of many years spent on Great Spruce Head Island). The cottage is just right, two bedrooms, a large living room with an open kitchen and a big deck. The yard is huge, full of gardens and flowers and Cannonball runs and runs. It's a short walk to the beach, all very pretty. I think I may have also found two ponds nearby where the fishing will be good. Just haven't had the interest (yet).

After a good lunch in Camden at Cappy's (named for Cappy Quinn, of the Quinn family that has run the mail boat to GSHI for years), we dropped Jesse off on Sunday at the Maine Media Workshop (in Rockport) where he is studying black and white photography as well as how to use a darkroom. He seems to be doing well, though we haven't seen any of the work. He's living at a motel converted into a dorm, four to a room. Room-mates seem like good people.

Meanwhile, Katherine and I have been doing a little of this, little of that. Lunch in Camden yesterday where we set on a deck and looked out at the harbor.Katherine has been drawing and painting, working both indoors and on the deck. I've been writing some, a new poem, work on my arts of sport course for the fall, work on Jose Maria Hinojosa. I've printed Jesse's screenplay Cleaver and the Eye which I expect to do some work on in the next couple of days. I also want to start screening the rough draft of his Poet in New York dvd which I can do in short bunches but want to have some things to say about it before I see him (hopefully this weekend, though he may decide to stay at the dorm over the weekend--last night when we talked he said it was a possibility).

We were finally able to figure out a way for me to get the Hinojosa books from Spain: wire transfer. The whole thing was a little nutty because the books are 17 euros a piece and the postage is 21. Add the wire transfer cost and the postage and it's 39 euros and the books are only 34.

Meanwhile the Hinojosa poems do make me a little nuts. There are all these wonderful lines and images and then he adds one which in Spanish makes perfect sense but in English just becomes strange and even bad (a wonderful poem about the amazon and the andes ends with the question why he wears no loincloth!). It's a challenge, too, because there are times he seems to be fooling around with syntax that looks simple but is really complicated and all meaning gets messed up. Since he is caught up in the surreal the question of meaning is blurred anyway, but still...

Mid-afternoon. Clearly time for lunch. More later.

Saludos!

Mark