St. Louis 2326 Miles // Zach’s Road

I found a black hole
behind the abandoned hotel.

When I pushed you into it
you just kept falling
right there
at its infinite lip.

You looked like the second hand
of a clock
without a clock.

You looked like an arm
uncrossing.

OOOOOOOOOO
OOO

That’s the sound
you made.

Excerpt from Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg.

Info about this road-borne poetry series here.

Zach is in the midwest, I really love the self-portraits he’s been taking. Some people look like they were born doing what they do. The baker who looks like a baker, the electrician who looks like an electrician. Zach looks like a poet. Sounds like a poet. Lays on the blue floor like a poet.

Drive safely across the middle, poet.

Denver 1446 Miles // Zach’s Road

I suppose I should tell you
I’ve finally been fired
from the globe factory.
I’d been putting beaches
in North Dakota
for two months.
Before that, it was mountains.
When I was on map duty,
I put a fairground
next to our neighborhood.
I thought it would help.
I could have spent
an entire week there
painting your face.
Remember when
I took you to see Kansas City?
That was Omaha.

Excerpt from The Man Suit, by Zachary Schomburg.

Let me explain this business. Bad-ass (in the most legit sense) poet Zachary Schomburg is on the road. He’s cris-crossing the country for two months, performing, speaking, reading, and poet-ing. Mr. Schomburg has just finished his Ph.D. in poetry and is the best live-reader I have ever heard in my life. He agreed to me grabbing shots from his travelogue and posting snippets of poetry from his newest two books; Scary, No Scary, and The Man Suit. The images are photos Zach is taking while on the road, off the road, thinking about the road, and probably hating the road.

Beyond being generous enough to share his writing with you all, Zach is a true gentleman and a friend of the Fort. His bewilderingly charming verse and stone cold imagery combine into a flurry of language that is constantly surprising.

This series will last as long as Zach is on the road, you can follow him on his blog, The Lovely Arc!

Drive safely, Zach!

Mixtape – Get Me To Africa

DOWNLOAD
Get Me To Africa Mixtape

This weeks tape is an explosive little number. Representing Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda, and more, it’s as diverse as it is exotic. I’ve loved the entire continent for decades and this is a little cross section of my gatherings. As a side note the bird on the cover is a Kori Bustard of central Africa, likely shot in or around the Namib/Kalahari deserts. Some of the tracks are cinematic in scope, others will get your blood pumping. In the end though I love sharing this sort of thing in hopes that you might be exposed to something new and exciting. The continent is home to some incredible sounds. Enjoy!

Also – I was able to figure out how to have the individual tracks show up in iTunes (thanks Bobby), so that’s a nice new feature.

The second track, N’kosi Sikeleli Africa, is the national anthem of South Africa, and means God Bless Africa. This song has so much meaning in world history, considering the struggles they have faced over the last several decades & freeing themselves from colonial rule.

The songs by Geoffrey Oryema are equally moving, as they are both from the incredible film, War Dance. In the face of Ugandan turmoil, some the youth of the country have overcome through tribal dance, and have become much more than children of war. Incredible. One of my favorite quotes from the film:

Music is our tradition,
even war cannot take it from us

Endless Night in Russia

This is it – this is what I have been looking for.

Murmansk is the largest city in the world north of the Arcitc Circle, but sadly its population is in decline. Currently the 300,000 residents endure 2 full months of darkness every winter. I want to know how a human copes in this sort of environment. What happens to the social structure, the ability to be productive, and what about leisure time? It’s just so ridiculous and sad and charming. Let me say it again; 2 months of darkness.

The photographs above come from Alexander Gronsky, a Russian photographer with an eye for the profound. I am so pleased that he chose to photograph humans living in this conditional state of perpetual night. Our species’ survival depends on the ability to adapt to an endless variety of environments, and the ones at the extremes are so very intriguing. At this point in human history there is nothing keeping 300,000 people on the edge of a frozen continent. Something else must be going on here. Jobs? Family? Masochism? Whatever it is, it’s not working, in 1989 the population was closer to 1/2 million souls.

Murmansk could one day be another soviet skeleton of a city, quietly decaying in the dark.

Kids covering Beach House!

It doesn’t seem so sad anymore!
Found this on the Tripwire, I love what they said “It’s a school bus jam!”
Lunch pails, untied shoes, backpacks, and humming along to Beach House. I’d love to be a kid in 2010.

This adds such a quality to the idea of Beach House. It was already nap music, now it’s napping in a church on the beach, during a Northwest summer.