Thomas J. Kitson

@thatiliazdguy

Translator from Russian to English. Iliazd, _Rapture_. 2019 NEA Translation Fellowship for Iliazd, _PhiloSophia_ (excerpts from Rab-Rab Press). Iliazd's _Speechless Sentence_ and excerpts from _parisites_ and _dUnkee fərEnt_ in _TYPO_ #7.

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Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· 16d

Whose fault is this? Remedial Intention fails. So what? Booze flows to piss. Immediate Sensation. Preen and strut. Tuned in, turned on, trained well to punch Above their weight, the sands Of time can tame a naked lunch, Or love- and hate-scarred hands.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· 29d

My uncle, who worked at Cape Canaveral, sent me this patch before the ill-fated Challenger mission.

Patch for the 1986 space shuttle Challenger mission, with a depiction of the shuttle originating from Florida and leaving a trail orbiting the globe and emerging in the foreground above the stars and stripes. Around the outside are the names of the crew members: McNair, Onizuka, Resnik, Scobee, Smith, McAuliffe, and Jarvis.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· 29d

Among the things turning up in our closets: I remember how excited I was to visit! #Bicentennial

Two tickets to the American Freedom Train (TM), Detroit, Michigan at Penn Central Depot-17th St. & Vernon Highway, Wednesday, July 2, 1975, Good only 12 noon till 6 p m, with a stylized train in red, white, and blue with three stars and trailing out into a waving flag.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jul 2

Cleaning some things out (so my daughter doesn't have to when I die). Part of my Bicentennial celebration: a child's own copy of John Trumbull's "Declaration of Independence."

Crayon drawing with block lettering in red: [Th]e Declaration of Indipend-ence, and a child's reproduction of John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 30

Some real malevolence here. (Spotted on a USPS truck yesterday afternoon.)

Round brake lights on a USPS truck. The top one is lit red. The middle one is covered by a round sticker that mimics the typical "I VOTED" sticker you receive after depositing your ballot, red, white, and blue with a row of stars. But this one says, "I TRADED," and advertises Kalshi in the red stripe.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 26

Tap-a-Keg, UWS.

Green-painted, battered wooden bar facade with sandwich boards tucked away in a niche just off the sidewalk. Taped crudely to one of the sandwich boards with blue masking tape is the slogan: Solidarity Forever with a red fist grasping a rose.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 26

It bothered me a lot that this advert was playing on the LinkNYC kiosks in my neighborhood on Election Day. Especially during a low-turnout primary. Maybe more people were betting than voting. Were these odds perhaps intended to have an effect on voters that day?

LinkNYC kiosk screen showing advertisement for Kalshi and betting odds for the candidates in the local Democratic primary for NY-13, Adriano Espaillat and Darializa Avila Chevalier, with Espaillat up 70% and Chevalier down 30%. Chevalier eventually won by about 4 points.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 26

Anyone in NYC interested in home-built picture frames of various sizes, nearly all with glass cut to fit? (made by my dad from the 1970s through the 1990s)

Cardboard box with wooden picture frames. The one in front is made of old barn wood.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 20

Just saw that portrait yesterday @metmuseum.org .

Raphael's portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione (1514-1516), in brown tones, with the sitter wearing furs and a large hat. He looks out directly at the viewer and wears a full beard, his hands clasped at the lower edge of the frame.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 20

Amit Majmudar in The Nation, July 25, 2022

We Are All God's Poems

We all want to be joined in holy
metonymy. You are a part of me, we want
God to say, that stands for the whole of me.
Instead of immanent, just say man.
Instead of wishbone, just say wish.

Sound out the word, and we are all God's
onomatopoeia. Gaga comes from God mad:
Coo, coo at the one you love, madman,
across the carousel of the cosmos,
these painted horses circling the sun.

We are all first drafts, shy in public
and rhythmically iffy. We are all
orphan lines yearning to become
couplets, willing to rhyme slant
if that means we don't have to be alone.

We are all written to be read
aloud by the light of a bay window,
out of earshot of the guns and slogans.
Every amnion is an epithalamion,
every kenning is a wedding.

The king of heaven wears a crown of sonnets.
We are all his serifs, we are all winged words,
my sister sestinas, my brother odes.
Don't worry about the ending. We've gotten
an acceptance. He knows us by heart.

Amit Majmudar

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 20

Went on Tuesday to Open Mic, the second Contemporaneous Ensemble event I attended over the past year. They are fantastic performers. Open Mic gives composers the opportunity to hear their work performed and have it recorded. The whole program was high quality.

Musicians on stage at BRIC Arts Media in Brooklyn, a black box studio with blue lights along the walls, the stage brightly lit. Contemporaneous musicians tend to dress in brightly colored outfits.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 17

Willi Apel, The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900-1600 (1953 [1961 reprint])

Spine of The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900-1600

Title page of The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900-1600 by Willi Apel, Fifth Edition, Revised and with Commentary, The Medieval Academy of America, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1953

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 17

Hermann Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (1954 Dover reprint)

Title page of On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music, Hermann L. F. Helmholtz, The Second English Edition, Translated, thoroughly Revised and Corrected, rendered conformal to the Fourth (and last) German Edition of 1877, with numerous additional Notes and a New additional Appendix bringing down information to 1885, and especially adapted to the use of Music Students by Alexander J. Ellis, With a New Introduction (1954) by Henry Margenau, Dover Publications, Inc., New York

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 17

Herbert Joseph Spinden, Maya Art and Civilization (1957). I have a vague memory of Spinden's work being discussed by Charles Olson, maybe in the correspondence with Robert Creeley. Spinden predates the deciphering of Mayan glyphs, so....

Spine of Herbert Joseph Spinden's Maya Art and Civilization, with dust jacket

Title page of Maya Art and Civilization, Revised and Enlarged with Added Illustrations by Herbert Joseph Spinden, Curator Emeritus, American Indian Art and Primitive Cultures, The Brooklyn Museum; President Emeritus, Explorers Club, Part I, A Study of Maya Art, Part II, The Nuclear Civilization of the Maya and Related Cultures, The Falcon's Wing Press

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 17

Here are some books I would rather hand off than leave in a Little Free Library. They haven't found a home on Buy Nothing. Anyone in NYC? 1) Three volumes of Lafcadio Hearn (Dodd, Mead, and Co.) Interpretations of Literature, Vol. II (1917); Appreciations of Poetry (1918); Life and Literature (1919)

Spines of three volumes of Lafcadio Hearn with staining.

Title page of Life and Literature by Lafcadio Hearn, Selected and Edited with an Introduction by John Erskine, Ph.D., Professor of English in Columbia University, New York, Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1919

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 17

A convincing nightmare! (from Ingeborg Bachmann, _Malina_, tr. Jaccottet)

Et lui: Reste, reste donc, et regarde! Je ne comprends rien, je sais seulement que j'ai lieu d'avoir peur; mais la peur n'aura pas été plus grands que le mal, car mon pere donne l'ordre de démolir ma bibliotheque, oui, il dit "démolir", je veux m'interposer, mais les hommes y sont déja, grimacants, je me jette a genoux devant eux et dis: Laissez au moins mes livres tranquilles, rien que mes livres, faites-moi ce que vous voulez, fais-moi ce que tu veux, jette-moi par la fenetre, essaie donc une fois encore, comme jadis! Mon pere feint d'avoir oublié sa tentative de jadis, il commence a prendre mes livres par paquets de cinq ou six, comme des briques, et les jette pele-mele dans une vieille armoire. Les complices, de leurs doigts gourds, arrachent les rayons, tout s'effondre avec des craquements, le masque mortuaire de Kleist flotte un instant devant mes yeux, et le portrait de Holderlin au-dessus duquel

est écrit: O terre, je t'aime, que t'endeuilles avec moi!

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 16

I ducked in to see what was at Zurcher Gallery on Bleecker Street Saturday evening. The streets were crowded with people preparing to watch the Knicks, and two paintings on mylar by Kazuko Miyamoto (somewhere betw. 1964 and 1968) seemed to be celebrating too. The gallerist didn't like my suggestion.

Two abstract paintings in blue and orange on mylar. The mylar support gives the paint the appearance of floating slightly above the surface. The painting on the left is mostly long horizontal strokes, and mostly orange. The painting on the right includes a blue circle over a blue ellipse. A crescent area inside the circle has been smeared with orange through blue paint. The remaining space in the circle is filled with concentric blue arcs. The space on the right formed by the overlap of circle and ellipse is filled with solid orange paint.

Current / On view through July 7th / Kazuko Miyamoto / Works Related to Miyamoto's Time / at the Art Students League / 1964-1968
Features an Untitled abstract work of black ink on paper.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 16

I found this on the sidewalk in the rain in my neighborhood in Paris and figured I'd try it. I'm not going to read the German, so what could be better than a translation of Bachmann by Philippe Jaccottet?

Battered cover of Ingeborg Bachmann, Malina, Roman, traduit de l'allemand par Philippe Jaccottet, Aux Éditions du Seuil

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Jun 10

Wow! #Borbetomagus

Bumper sticker stuck to the top of a newspaper box repurposed as a little free library: "I'd rather be listening to Borbetomagus."

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· May 29

Coal silo. Beacon, NY.

Coal silo, like a medieval tower with a small door at the bottom and some windows near the top, with the addition of a conveyer shaft to the top and some metal chutes at the bottom of each cylinder. Covered in leafless vine.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· May 29

Drove up to Beacon today to see Matt Harle's current sculpture show. Closing will include music performance. mattharle.com/home.html

Poster for Matt Harle New Work Now, Opening: May 2, 5-8pm, Closing: June 6, 5-8pm, 1154 North Ave (Rt. 90), Beacon NY, (Formerly Mother Gallery). Black and white image shows detail, a tile-like, scored piece of clay, some knotted string.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· May 19

My last Paris photo. Place Jacque Demy.

A red and yellow-striped tent inscribed "THEATRE GUIGNOL" on the marketplace at Place Jacque Demy.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Apr 29

It’s not delusion, and it’s not Invention, or it is A finding of a hidden spot New made for emphasis. Revisiting a station where We stopped to view a scene, I slumped into a comfy chair And took the time to preen.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Apr 24

Spent the previous day in Saint Denis, admiring the light in Abbot Suger's apse in the sunny weather.

Colored light from stained glass spills across the pavement and effigies in Abbot Suger's gothic apse for the Basilica of Saint Denis.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Apr 24

I had forgotten that yesterday was St. George's day, but did capture the place of honor Gustave Moreau gave to his own copy of Carpaccio's St. George, the only copy included among the ensembles in the large studios.

One wall in Gustave Moreau's studio, featuring his own copy of Carpaccio's St. George in the top center. Other paintings depict favorite "plots" like Orpheus, the Wandering Jew, Prometheus, Christ in Gethsemene, Europa, Alexander, etc. The wall is covered almost to the last square inch by paintings.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Apr 23

A detail from "The Suitors" by Gustave Moreau.

Detail from the lower right sector of Gustave Moreau's painting "The Suitors, shows the layering of different elements of drawing and color, different levels of finish across the surface of his large painting. The cartoon-like face of a dead suitor stares over a heap of objects and limbs, including a spilled wine cup in the foreground on a patterned cloth. A branch of fig hangs over the head.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Apr 18

Synecdoche and metaphor May lack legit appeal: A DocuSign you get before You sit to take a meal. Imperfect the abode may be, And yet you will abide. The surf you rode. That stretch of sea. The setter by your side.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Apr 16

And another shovel: Geoffrey Hill.

4

Let mind be more precious than soul; it will not
Endure. Soul grasps its price, begs its own peace,
Settles with tears and sweat, is possibly
Indestructible. That I can believe.
Though I would scorn the mere instinct of faith,
Expediency of assent, if I dared,
What I dare not is a waste history
Or void rule. Averroes, old heathen,
If only you had been right, if Intellect
Itself were absolute law, sufficient grace,
Our lives could be a myth of captivity
Which we might enter: an unpeopled region
Of ever new-fallen snow, a palace blazing
With perpetual silence as with torches.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Apr 16

From the drift of files: Geoffrey Hill.

Amherst

Redemption spurns parody. The first fruits
Are spoken for beyond the call of shame.
The elect dip their fingers in cruets
Of reason; burnt feathers revive the psalm.

A Daguerreotype

The faultless central parting; stolid jaw;
Frank as a rebel sharpshooter's her eyes
Yet chaste to our promiscuous surprise
Haunt no manb's land between vision and law.

Thomas J. Kitson@thatiliazdguy· Apr 15

To speak the joy of other skies, The rain of other tongues: A measure poised to realize The pain of weathered lungs. What tragedy could spoil our fling? What intimacy mount? The fragile day, the boiling spring, The sprinting sea don’t count.