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Jason Crane Posts

POEM: It isn’t merely the fashioning

Published 1 February 2010 by Jason Crane

I wrote this last February while thinking of my friend Julie White. She knits, cycles, gardens, teaches and other worthwhile things. Visit her blog.

It isn’t merely the fashioning
for Julie White

It isn’t merely the fashioning
of new meanings from the threads and whisps,
rather it is the intention, the

unsounded affirmation of a
relationship, woven into each
chosen strand and intricate pattern.

Pearls uncovered in the depths, the craft
rows back to shore, where it is met by
the warm wool and the gathering in.

One must take stock in it, and accept
the gift for what it is, speech rendered,
unspoken, as textile manuscript.

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POEM: At Mr. Frost’s

Published 29 January 2010 by Jason Crane

I wrote this poem after a visit to Robert Frost’s house in Shaftsbury, VT.

Stone wall behind Robert Frost's house
Stone wall behind Robert Frost's house. Photo by Jason Crane.

At Mr. Frost’s

Bathed in
autumn
sunlight
on a
table rock
in the fallow field
behind
Robert Frost’s
stone house,
I’m reminded
of the poet’s
advice
to not press
the poems
too hard.
Sometimes sunlight
is just that,
and fallow fields
need only
sun, seeds,
water
and time.

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POEM: Long Haul

Published 25 January 2010 by Jason Crane

Photo from the David Faust Collection
Photo from the David Faust Collection

Long Haul
(for my father and his father)

it wasn’t easy keeping all those wheels on the road
another late-night diner and a nap in the cab
hauling one of the damned things was hard enough
it took a man to pull two

it wasn’t easy to raise seven of them
the boy was first and then six — six! — girls
you’d think we would have stopped trying
to make him a brother

and since he was a solitary boy even then,
he would put on his suit and walk down to the little church
that was happy to have an usher
an extra boy to pass the hat for what little there was

he wrecked the car, I made him replace it with college money
I wasn’t teaching him a lesson about responsibility
I was trying to hang on to my boy
the one who’d always had his eye on the horizon

and then later, when he was home from the service
we’d go down under the church to drink at the Legion hall
thick smoke in the air, cheap beer on tap
looking down the barrel of a one-stoplight life

it took a man — and I knew it — to leave
to drive and keep driving until he’d built a better life
to be more than I was and to do it with dignity
and I never told him, but I was proud



(Thanks to David Faust for letting me use a photo from his collection of St. Johnsbury trucks. That’s the company for which my grandfather drove.)

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POEM: Memorex Hummingbird

Published 19 January 2010 by Jason Crane

Hummingbird photo by Derek Scott.
Hummingbird photo by Derek Scott.

Memorex Hummingbird
by Jason Crane

Memorex hummingbird hovers above the nectar cup;
animatronic woodpecker hunts for scuttling food.
Nature or Disney ride? Who can say?
Disconnected as we are from snow falling off branches.
I hold the binoculars steady and point out the Blue Jay
as it pecks the last leaf on the winter elm,
and through those lenses peek the unspoiled eyes of my son.
He shouts, “I see it!” and is rooted to the spot,
A sapling full of the coursing energy of the yet-to-come.

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People for whom I’m thankful (an incomplete list)

Published 26 November 2009 by Jason Crane

A small sampling of people for whom I’m thankful. Not complete and in no particular order, but worth writing. I may add to it, too.

Jennifer: 14+ years of putting up with me. I don’t know how she does it. Or, for that matter, why.

Bernie & John: It’s incredible to be unconditionally loved by your kids. Plus, they’re fun to wrestle with.

Mom, Dad and Gretchen: What haven’t we been through? Actually, skip that question, because I’m finding out that this year there are quite a few new and unpleasant answers. They’re always there, though, and that’s amazing.

Linda, Todd & Sarah, Tammy, Dick, Denise & John, Lynne & Mike & Jack & Grace, Jill, Jimmy & Karen: Couldn’t ask for a better family.

Carol, Amy & Michele, Sandy & Carol Jr. & Autumn, Dorothy & Ethan, Kit & Sue, et al: Couldn’t ask for a better second family.

Bernard & Dorothy Flanders: My debt to them can never be repaid.

Jeff & Leeann & Jake: They know how to be friends, which is a hell of a lot rarer than you might think. And one of these days, Jeff and I will have a very successful show together. Probably a strip-tease show.

Kevin & Jen & Momo: My oldest friend (and his wife, who would probably be disturbed to learn that she’s my second- or third-oldest friend). Uncompromisingly honest and loving people with a real cute kid.

Josh & Jen: Smart, funny and wonderful. Josh is always expanding my world, which is just about the highest compliment I can pay.

Team RocBike: You couldn’t ask for a better gang to ride with, blog with, and be positively influenced by.

The musicians, promoters and record labels who’ve made The Jazz Session possible: What can I say? “Beyond my wildest expectations”? Yeah, that about covers it.

Chuck & Bobby D: Never were two guys more accepting of my crazed need to wave at everybody. Plus, they pick good tunes.

Jo & James: Even kinder than they are talented. And they’re supremely talented.

Sue & Jenny & Katie-Kate & Elinor: Love ’em, love ’em, love ’em. (And miss ’em, too!)

Tom & Susan: Beautiful people who made Raymond Street just barely tolerable.

Satoru: Pops up when I least expect it, and is always welcome when he does. One of those people you know will be there when you need him.

Otto: He understands and inspires.

The members of the Rotary Club of Albany: Nice people doing nice things, as Harry Shearer would say. Except in this case, it’s true.

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POEM: Gene Ludwig

Published 24 October 2009 by Jason Crane

GeneatClefClub
Photo by Ben Johnson, Sr.

I saw organist Gene Ludwig in concert earlier tonight, and wrote these three pieces while watching the show. If you’d like to know more about Gene, listen to my interview with him on The Jazz Session.

Gene Ludwig

1.

Gone deep inside, he slides
effortlessly across the organ keys,
never losing the sense of weightlessness
every earthbound mortal
longs for.
Unlike most, he isn’t held
down by gravity, not forced to
wear the chains of step-by-step,
inch-by-inch. Instead, he
gently leaves the earth, smiling.

2.

Perhaps he’s the local mortician,
skin made alabaster through
affinity with those he serves;
or an accountant, toiling away
until life’s energy winds down
like the gold watch they’ll give him;
he could be any one of a hundred
buttoned-up Rotarians in grey flannel suits,
friends with the mayor or with
the chief of police.
Then he sits down at the organ, and
joy springs from those ivory fingers.
He strips off the grey shell,
revealing the light at his core.
That light is the only thing
that reaches us faster
than his sound.

3.

Grabbing two handfuls of
electricity, he
naturally believes that life is beautiful, that
everyone has ready access to this
level of presence, this certain
understanding of the melody.
Doubtless, they all
would trade places
if they could, exchanging
Gene’s grace for their own.

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POEM: Bernard Orrin Joseph Flanders, 1912-2009

Published 18 October 2009 by Jason Crane

grandpa

A poem for my grandfather. The first letter of each line spells out his name.

Bernard Orrin Joseph Flanders, 1912-2009

Bent over one of many art projects, he is perhaps
eyeing a stitch in a pattern, or
running his hands across the smooth surface of a
nascent scrimshaw.
All of our houses have some
reminder of his artistry,
done on commission or by surprise,
or given over after a move to a smaller apartment.
Rarer pieces, such as the carved nameplates
resting from nails set
in doors of his own making, will
never pass from their owners’ hands, nor will our
joy dim each time we catch sight of
our names carved in the
soft wood.
Each of us holds onto whatever small treasures we’ve
placed so carefully in the bank of our memory.
He never seemed to understand the weight of his gift,
feigned embarrassment at our gushing praise,
lowered his eyes
and said, “It’s
nothing,
don’t mention it.”
Each of holds onto whatever small treasurers we’ve
received from him, ever thankful that his love has been captured in
stitching or ivory or wood.

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POEM: Lillian Dupree & The Ballad of Frenchman Street

Published 27 September 2009 by Jason Crane

UPDATE: This poem was published in the Winter-Spring 2010 issue of Blue Collar Review. You can get your copy at partisanpress.org.

Photograph by Richard Oliver

Lillian Dupree & The Ballad of Frenchman Street

It always starts with the rain and wind kicking up.
Clouds circle like vultures far out over the ocean,
higher than the sailors could see them,
if they were looking.

In a bar near Charity Hospital,
the TV shows the slowly spiraling storm,
but the sound is off and no one pays much mind
as the weatherman says “this is the one.”

In old westerns, the Indian lies prostrate,
ear to the ground, listening for the approaching hoof beats
of a warring tribe. If Donald Harrison, Jr., were to put
his ear to the ground, he would hear the low rumble of the future.

A factory in Texas made the guitar
that will be strummed when the horn should be sounded.
The strings are tight across the bridge,
like the cars and the buses and those on foot will be later.

Back on Frenchman Street, Lillian Dupree gets up from the bar
and starts for home, noticing that the breeze is strong.
She’s still in her scrubs after a long night taking readings,
listening for pulses and watching the moving lines.

This is the old part of the city.
The part the French built when it seemed like they’d be here forever.
As time and the storm proved, no one
is guaranteed this plot of land at the edge of the gulf.

First the French, then the Spanish, then the French again;
they all tried to conquer what could not be tamed;
tried to civilize the wild Caribbean soul of a city that was
never really part of this country, and yet is at the heart of it.

Perhaps it is that very separation, that very wildness,
that will make it easy for many to look away
as the bowl fills with unholy water like a rusty pot
left to decay in the tall grasses out behind the house.

Lillian Dupree is tired.
Tired of walking these same streets every night.
She wishes she could drive, or that she could afford to live
far enough away to commute.

She was born at this very hospital, born to a mother
who was born to a mother
who was born to a mother
who was born a slave.

Did you know that the last ever shipment of African slaves
from the continent came to this very city?
By that time, all the Africans you could ever want
were being mass produced in Virginia.

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More evidence that either God or Al Roker hates gays

Published 20 August 2009 by Jason Crane

Godal-roker-bluebackground

From a Facebook exchange today. You need to read the initial link for the rest to make sense.

Sonya posted a link.
The Tornado, the Lutherans, and Homosexuality

“What do you all think?”

Will:
WOW! I’m sure they’ll miss the overtones of this.

Graham:
Proclaiming truth and extending grace. It made me think of the verse in Proverbs 24:26 that states “an honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.”

Jason Crane
Remarkably offensive.

Meli:
sound thinking. it is a very serious problem for the church to feel she has the right to decide whether or not something is sin when God’s Word very clearly states that it is sin.

Jason Crane:
A gay man is stranded in a sailboat, and a wind comes up and he reaches shore; does that mean God loves gays?

Sonya:
Jason, I think the question for me goes back to the probability issue – what the heck is the probability of this just happening. The meteorologists happened to be clueless. That is where this differs to me a bit from an event such as a tsunami which is the result of an earthquake that was predicted and noticed, or a hurricane that was tracked for days. This sort of came out of nowhere and left to go nowhere…

And, yes, the answer is God does love gays. He loves us all. He just cannot be with sin.

Thank you also, for reading my page. I am grateful for your friendship!

Jason Crane:
I’m a big fan of Occam’s Razor. In this case, is it more likely that a meteorological event happened, or that an incorporeal invisible entity made a political statement by making the wind blow?

Plus, how do you know it wasn’t Zeus telling the world that he dislikes Lutherans? Or Vishnu declaring hatred for the Minnesota Twins? There is exactly as much evidence to support both those positions as there is to support a Christian reading.

And if logic isn’t enough: How does God loving everyone mesh with creating a potentially deadly tornado near a densely populated area?

The thing that I find hurtful is that it’s OK to demonize gay people, but not to criticize the frankly crazy notion that an invisible being decides where tornadoes go based on conversations about individual sexuality.

Your comment under the article is “What do you all think?” If by “you all” you meant “you all who think the same way I do,” then you should be more specific about inviting only certain types of comment.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Strain

Published 19 June 2009 by Jason Crane

I have a soft spot for good vampire books. I love the original Dracula, particularly it’s fast-paced epistolary style. I also enjoyed the first few books in Anne Rice’s original series. And I’m sure that if I started Twilight or any of the other currently popular brooding-emo-vamp series, I’d guiltily enjoy those, too.

But Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan have written a larger, more intense book than the current crop of tween sensations. This is a vampire novel that strikes deep at the heart of our modern fears of terrorism and biological weaponry. The protagonists have all the technology of the modern-day disease fighter at their disposal, pitted against an ancient — but intelligently updated — foe.

For me, The Strain is just what vampire books are supposed to be. It is fast-paced. It’s villains are sometimes cunning, sometimes brutish. It’s heroes are flawed but basically good. And the odds are heavily stacked against them.

If I have one complaint, it is that volumes two and three in this trilogy are not to be released until 2010 and 2011. What a pain in the neck. (See what I did there?)

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BOOK REVIEW: Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball

Published 14 June 2009 by Jason Crane

Donald Hall, one of the country’s great poets, writes with passion about Dock Ellis, one of baseball’s most colorful figures. If all you know about Dock Ellis is that he once pitched a no-hitter on LSD, then you need to read this book and learn the other 90% of his story. And if you, like me, have never heard of Dock Ellis at all, Hall’s engrossing account will acquaint you with a man who deserves wider recognition, as much for his constant support of the black community and his commitment to fighting drug addiction as for his on-field stats. Highly recommended.

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POEM: Bongocero

Published 4 June 2009 by Jason Crane

Bongocero
(for Arturo O’Farrill)

the meaty slap of flesh on flesh
the pop of skin on skin
fingertips, the side of the thumb
legs a vice to hold the shells

the heart of the matter is a mix
of rhythm and freedom
of accompaniment and improvisation
of ancient order and modernity

then from the back of the stage
the trumpets kick in
and the bongocero drops his drums,
which fall to the stage with a thud

now it’s skin grasping wood striking metal
as the bell cuts through
the urgent stabs of the horns
and gives a lift to the dancers

gi-gi-go
gi-gi-go
gi-gi-go
gi-go

gi-gi-go
gi-gi-go
gi-gi-go
gi-go

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Big news for The Jazz Session!

Published 19 May 2009 by Jason Crane

headersmall

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a new partnership with All About Jazz, the world’s most visited jazz Web site. AAJ founder Michael Ricci and I have been working together for several years now, with AAJ hosting transcriptions of the interviews that appear on The Jazz Session.

Now we’ve decided to combine forces. That means The Jazz Session will be featured on the home page at allaboutjazz.com. We’ll also be working together to visit festivals on behalf the new TJS/AAJ partnership, starting this summer with the Tanglewood Jazz Festival and others. The idea is to conduct interviews right in front of the crowds who come to see the artists. Then we’ll bring these interviews to you after the festivals.

We’re also launching a widget for The Jazz Session that will allow you to display the latest episode right on your blog or Web site. I’ll be mentioning the blogs and sites that do this on episodes of the show, and also linking to them from this site. So if you decide to link to The Jazz Session, please let me know at jason@thejazzsession.com.

For more information on the new partnership, and for instructions on adding the widget to your site, please read the press release.

The Jazz Session hits 200,000 downloads

On the very same day that The Jazz Session announced its new partnership with All About Jazz, the show hit 200,000 downloads. I’m so proud of the show and grateful to all of you for supporting it. This is a true labor of love for me, and I hope it shows in the interviews.

PLUS:

hugh

Jason Crane interviews trumpeter Hugh Masekela about his 2009 album Phola (Times Square Records). The album finds Masekela in a quieter, more reflective mood — a decision he credits to producer Erik Paliani. Despite the more reserved surroundings, Masekela’s flugelhorn playing is as intense as ever. In the interview, Masekela discusses Miriam Makeba, music as a political force, and why he doesn’t play for fun.

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This week on The Jazz Session: David Sanborn!

Published 4 May 2009 by Jason Crane

sanborn

Jason Crane interviews saxophonist David Sanborn. Sanborn is one of the few jazz players whose name is known even outside the jazz world. It’s fitting, then, that he’s using his new album Here & Gone (Decca, 2008) to bring a lesser-known jazz saxophonist into wider awareness. Here & Gone celebrates the music of Hank Crawford, a saxophone player and the principal arranger for the Ray Charles “little big band” of the 50s and 60s. Crawford’s playing had a huge impact on Sanborn, and Sanborn repays the favor with this thoughtful and soulful tribute.

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