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.

And what about that smell on Monday?

Poetry affects almost all the senses: you can touch it in book form, you can see it, you can hear it, and, with the right descriptions (or the right good-looking reader), the saliva glands are affected so much so that you can taste it.

But can you smell it? In modern poetry--rarely.

While some poets excel at writing descriptions that ignite the sense of smell, it is difficult. Smell is our most coveted personal asset; we want to think of it as part of what makes us unique. Anyone can admire a beautiful woman's eyes, but we rarely share in a group admiration of the same smell, especially if it is not related to food.

During the printing of Karen Hildebrand's amazing book "One Foot Out the Door," the author and her Three Rooms Press agent did share a smell experience. After a press check in midtown, we walked outside and smelled a sweet, vanilla-like odor whose source we couldn't place. Back in Greenwich Village a few minutes later, we caught the same scent again. Next day's paper said that we weren't alone. Thousands of New Yorkers had been collectively smelling this rather pleasant scent and no one could explain where it came from. Certainly, not one single person proposed that the scent came from New Jersey.

Monday morning in Three Rooms Press' Greenwich Village headquarters, staffers were overwhelmed by a scent that smelled like someone turned on a gas oven but forgot to light the pilot. As visions of Sylvia Plath danced in our heads, we staggered outside, only to find the smell permeating the street as well. We drifted a few blocks, where the smell was less, to the embracing arms (and scents) of The Pink Tea Cup on Grove Street. There, the smell transmuted to a blend of bacon, coffee and hot biscuits. After breakfast, we came back to a much dissipated gas odor, and breaking news commentary about how thousands were affected by this smell from midtown to the Village. More than one expert declared that the source of the odor was ABSOLUTELY New Jersey.

Poor New Jersey. And poor news reporters. Like poetry, television and newspapers have a difficult time displaying anything that accurately describes thousands of people being affected by smell. All the photos in the world can't do it. It requires either direct contact with the smell or very difficult word usage which modern poetry can inspire.

From now on--more poems involving smell!