Banner Week

This was a banner week for Three Rooms Press. It started on Monday, when we discovered we'd won the pool at a local pub for the Super Bowl. Our numbers were 7 and 9, but we weren't sure which team had which number on Sunday, so when we wandered in Monday morning, all we knew is that we had a 50-50 chance of winning. Not bad these days. We asked Bob, the bartender, "Are we lucky?" He said, "Yes!" and handed us an envelope with what we assumed was $500. Wrong. It was twice that! What a trip! We immediately celebrated our good fortune with a leisurely lunch at that most-distinguished restaurant, The Pink Tea Cup. Lunch Special: Soup, salad, collard greens, black eyed peas, pepper steak AND dessert: $7.95. The rest of the week was more mild successes: a brother who snagged a great job at a large Public Radio station in L.A., Robert Burns singing and a big art show. But then it was Friday, and all broke loose.

On Friday, we discovered that myspace is not just for teenagers and child molesters. Here's what happened:

The Post announced on Friday that the band, Mnemonic Devices was playing in Brooklyn at Pete's Candy Store. In our punk rock days, we used to be pals with the MDs and, so we decided to confirm the story be checking out myspace to see if they had a website. They did! And it was amazing, because in their "friends" section, it was like a class reunion of sorts. Every other "friend" was someone we used to hang out with it the distant and more recent past. We spent much of Friday and all day yesterday writing to people that we haven't seen for 20 years. Most of the time, it was just guesses as to whether or not the "friends" were actual acquaintences. Was "Sonja the Red Haired Menace" actually THE Sonja that we went to Austin with a few times? Turns out, she was! How about Monte Vista: was that Tom, the lead singer of first rate lounge act lovingkindness? Sure nuff! It was a dream come true. How often we've thought about these people, with no way of getting in touch with them, due to lost address books, and the moving shuffle so many have gone through. Pictured here is "ours truly", left, with the lovely former lead singer of the Mnemonic Devices (and a hell of a fiddle player), Ann DeJarnett, in Austin, circa 1988; those were the days when we both had legs!

The funniest thing is--the band that was said to be playing in Brooklyn wasn't even the same band, just the same name.

Robert Burns update

The Robert Burns festival continued last night with magnificent fervor!

Linda prepared an amazing feast of a sausage-carrot-cabbage collage, strawberries with chocolate and hot toddies with GlenFiddich: "the malt that wounds." But the food was secondary to the words of the master--especially his songs.

Burns was the Neil Young of his day and age, penning verses that could either be read or sung. And sung they were--and sung they are--you can find numerous versions of his poem/songs on I-tunes, including a hardcore Pouges-like rendition of "Red, Red Rose" by Bob Hay and the Jolly Beggars, to many great versions of "The Banks of' Bonie Doon" (spelled 14 different ways!). The latter we sung at our meeting--before, during and after the meal. It's such a sad, beautiful song:


Ye banks and braes o' bonie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu' o' care!
Thou'll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro' the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o' departed joys,
Departed never to return.

Aft hae I rov'd by Bonie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine:
And ilka bird sang o' its Luve,
And fondly sae did I o' mine;
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree!
And may fause Luver staw my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.

Kind of makes you wonder, though, if Burns wrote this version of it (there are 3) for a woman to sing, or if this hard-drinking womanizer had a secret life that didn't require child support payments (see last line of second stanza).

Afterwards, still singing, we wandered a few blocks to the art opening at the Salmagundi Club, to take on a BIG art opening featuing 48 painters. You get 48 painters together, you got a crowd. You get their friends too and you have a HUGE crowd! It was packed and full of good vibes. Highlights for me included a giant (16' x 6') brand new painting by Charles Yoder of a forest glen, which invites the eye to wander through it's parts and whole for hours. Also interesting work by John Bowman and Anne Shostrom, plus a really amazing ink and watercolor piece by Pier Consagra feature mad satyrs galavanting about (possibly in a forest glen). The show is open daily from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. at 47 5th Avenue.