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Music Monday: Some ‘Words from the Front’

An Appreciation of Tom Verlaine, the Former Frontman for Television and a Brilliant Poet and Guitarist, Upon His Passing

Hank Kalet Jan 30 ∙ Preview

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In the poem “Ars Poetica,” the French poet Paul Verlaine argues for a kind of open-ended sensibility, a poetry that exists in the gray, murky areas of the mind. Meaning is elusive and allusive, very much like instrumental music, open to interpretation on an emotional if not intellectual level.

For Nuance, not Color absolute,

Is your goal; subtle and shaded hue!

Nuance! It alone is what lets you

Marry dream to dream, and horn to flute!

“Ars Poetica” might be seen as the Symbolist’s creed — Verlaine is often linked to the movement. “Symbolist artists sought to express individual emotional experience through the subtle and suggestive use of highly symbolized language,” Brittanica says.

They attempted to evoke the ineffable intuitions and sense impressions of man’s inner life and to communicate the underlying mystery of existence through a free and highly personal use of metaphors and images that, though lacking in precise meaning, would nevertheless convey the state of the poet’s mind and hint at the “dark and confused unity” of an inexpressible reality.

I mention Verlaine and the Symbolists in the context of the news that a different Verlaine has passed, Tom Verlaine. Verlaine was born Thomas Miller, and took his stage name from the great French poet, also borrowing the French writer’s symbolist sensibility, which was evident in both his lyrics and his sinewy guitar playing. Verlaine led the seminal New York punk band Television and recorded numerous solo albums, creating a music that has long influenced my own writing in ways I can’t explain.

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A Marvelously Militant Moment for Labor

The Ownership Class Wants to Loosen the Job Market and Weaken Workers

Hank Kalet Jan 11 ∙ Preview

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About 1,000 faculty, staff, students and allies rallied on Dec. 6 at Voorhees Mall and Winants Hall at Rutgers University’s College Ave campus. My union, PTLFC-AAUP-AFT (the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union), was a primary sponsor.
About 7,000 nurses in New York City¹ have walked off their job, the latest in a string of job actions by workers seeking to take control of their working lives.

The nurses are seeking what they call “Safe staffing” levels, which will require the hiring of new nurses and an increase in wages and benefits to keep current nurses on staff.

Labor militancy is in the air, as Labor Notes reports:

Workers are hoping to take advantage of a tight labor market to reverse years of concessions and win big raises to help cope with inflation. New leaders in the Teamsters, and potentially the Auto Workers (UAW), have promised to put up a more aggressive fight.

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This is a free, public post from Hank Kalet’s Channel Surfing. You will continue to receive these email stories and newsletters as long as you remain a an email subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber and get paywall-protected posts, the ability to comment on posts and participate in discussion boards, offers to write guest blog posts, and copies of my books. If you are a $5-a-month Patreon patron, you already are considered a paid subscriber.

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This is a free, public post from Hank Kalet’s Channel Surfing. You will continue to receive these email stories and newsletters as long as you remain a an email subscriber. Consider becoming a paid subscriber and get paywall-protected posts, the ability to comment on posts and participate in discussion boards, offers to write guest blog posts, and copies of my books. If you are a $5-a-month Patreon patron, you already are considered a paid subscriber.

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