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Actual Air

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Instead, I guess I'll be at home, having dinner with my wife, watching my cats laze around and play, watching the late-summer sunlight fade out of the sky through the red maple in my front yard, trying to appreciate again the way the dark leaves change color as the light of the day changes, from a kind of amber to something more inky as evening comes, maybe I'll also listen to some records by the man I was going to be seeing play his music live for the second time in my life. It's whatever the opposite of Kafkaesque would be: instead of dwelling on the horrors of bureaucracy and its totalitarian overgrowth, Berman describes the evils of American society with beautiful imagery.

obviously a lyricist such as Berman is really a poet and obviously he has more to say on the subject of America, addiction, aging, and 5:30 pm. David Berman reinvents the overlooked and seemingly ordinary details of everyday life--from the suitcase of a departing girlfriend to a baseboard electrical outlet. In his review for Spin, Joshua Clover praised the book, writing, "his instrument is his own; very few of the poems fail to find a finger of mystery, a ring of familiarity. And like any great body of work, if you break it down to the miniscule, line by line, word by word, at a molecular level, it shines just as brightly, radiates just as much, on a macro or micro scale. These artists are suffering and I'd trade all the comfort of their music for them to have not been suffering.Over and over again his music and poetry made meaning for me and comforted me and made me laugh and made me sad and made me look at the objects and people and situations of this world in a new light. I knew that the best things were hidden, and all of this was said in a private voice, a cousin to the one I used to speak to pets. there is a beautiful artlessness to david berman's poetry that belies the breadth of his content and vision. However, despite his musical genius, Berman considers himself first and foremost a poet, as he should. Some of what works about "Snow" --Berman's playfulness and seeming endless supply of fresh, spot-on images/metaphors, --thankfully show up throughout the collection, keeping the reader amused, awakened, and impressed.

Or just great lines like ' all water is classic water, or ' The nurses are so beautiful, he thought / Try to remember they are covered in germs. His poems chart a course through his own highly original American dreamscape in language that is fresh, accessible, and remarkably precise. I saw Silver Jews play back in 2005, a lifetime ago, and I feel fortunate to have seen Berman perform his music at least once, music which has been some of my very favorite since I was a teenager, music and lyrics that really meant the world to me, and created a very specific world for me and many people I know.David Kirby of The New York Times likened the "whimsy" of Actual Air to the works of poets Mark Halliday and Campbell McGrath, but felt "In their poems, though, whimsy always leads to serious ideas and emotions that don't consistently materialize here. Instead of a long and ultimately not satisfactory review, I'll simply quote just a few of my favorite lines from this collection (if the pages with dog ears give me any idea of how many quotes I wanted to remember, it looks like I enjoyed one from at least each page). De enige dichtbundel van de geweldige David Berman, frontman van The Silver Jews en Purple Mountains (als je het nu hoort donderen ergens in de buurt van Keulen, luister naar zijn muziek, echt wereldtop). self-portrait at 28" is a work of particular brilliance; each time i read it i am piqued and comforted, loving it anew.

Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. First, the title itself evokes the concept of what “Cassette country” would be… it made me think of things like mix tapes, old radios, and the row of cassettes one would have on their own cassette shelf. Avoided this for a long time because I assumed these were gussied up variations of David Berman's lyrics for The Silver Jews. Or talking about signing his name on the lower corner of a window so the world becomes his art through his perception of it. Sometimes Berman so singularly wrangles English into uncanny, dream-logic revelation it gives me goddamn chills.

However, overall, I’d recommend it for its strengths, and it does seem to fit certain kinds of moods and inspirations. has been a dark year, and hearing lines like "I spent a decade playing chicken with oblivion" can be a comfort when you finally feel understood. In conversation with Mason, Billy Collins said the poems of Actual Air "are full of complex turns and tricks and conceptual hijinks, and yet there's this surface clarity. As Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate said, "These poems are beautiful, strange, intelligent, and funny.

The Virginia-born poet and the lead singer of the Silver Jews expresses his observations of pop-culture, Southern history, souvenirs, community colleges, back pain, hallways, and the weirdness of daily life. I think of the sky above the Italian restaurant I ate at in that neighborhood, shading into hues of blue and red, contoured with the paint strokes of clouds, the wine that was poured for us, the laughter between friends and the unconscious wonder at new experiences that might always be around the corner, when you are a visitor and traveler in a place that is not your home. Often as I read his poetry, I was struck by the idea that Berman used one of those word/phrase generators that push out unexpected combinations of words. However, the first poem in this collection, "Snow", I had read before; it may be a "greatest hit" of sorts for him, as there seem to be a lot of online references and commentary about it. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.His recent album with Purple Mountains has been in massive rotation for me this summer, particularly the opening track " That's Just the Way I Feel" which has gotten me through many long days, but listening to it on the way home tonight I can't help but notice the cries for help in the lyrics.

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