Patrick Cooper: Greetings from Evanston, Ill.

California trip, day six: The road, redwoods, wine, diner, and end

Patrick Cooper — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:21:40 +0000

The evening after the redwoods, we went to Eureka and had an amazing dinner at Brick and Fire Bistro. Local wine, mushrooms and meat across different pizzas and grilled wonderful things. No pix turned out because it was so dark inside. But if you are near Eureka, run there now and eat. We headed back [...]

Six poems with which to escape the week

Patrick Cooper — Tue, 07 May 2013 02:30:03 +0000

It's only Monday. How is it only Monday? Do the number of problems to solve ever become less rather than more? Coming through my streams recently: "Bird-Understander" by Craig Arnold, "Extinction of Silence" by A.E. Stallings, "Almost Ashore" by Gerald Vizenor, "Muscadine" by Mary Moore Easter, "For Jane" by Stephen Stepanchev, and "Emerald Spider Between [...]

The people with whom you don't think twice in talking

Patrick Cooper — Tue, 07 May 2013 01:44:40 +0000

Two Saturdays ago, Bluemont and Willowcroft wineries near Leesburg, with some new friends and others going back to high school and even further. A nice reminder: 1985 was a long time ago by any measure but friendship's. From Hilary's camera: From Hilary's camera:

California trip, day five, PM: Deep in the redwoods

Patrick Cooper — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:33:48 +0000

The fifth day of the California trip was amazing. We started at a hotel on the water, found Bowling Ball Beach, said goodbyes at the farm, then took Highway One north to the redwoods. The road had more sharp cliffs and corkscrews than any stretch previously, and after the surprising fun of the drive-through tree, [...]

In praise of The Rumpus' Letters in the Mail

Patrick Cooper — Mon, 06 May 2013 01:44:52 +0000

You should join it. Real letters in the real mail! From a recent one: In a poem called "A Cold Spring," the American poet Elizabeth Bishop describes fireflies rising from a lawn "exactly like the bubbles in champagne." I've probably read that poem only six or seven times, but I've never stared into a glass [...]

Can't wait for Luhrmann's 'Gatsby'

Patrick Cooper — Sun, 05 May 2013 21:01:55 +0000

NYT preview. And, man, do I want to take this trip, even if it's awful. He first got the idea years ago, he added, after finishing “Moulin Rouge.” As was his custom, he wanted to decompress by taking a trip, so he booked himself a passage on a trans-Siberian Express. “I think what he really [...]

California trip, day five, PM: Driving through a tree!

Patrick Cooper — Sun, 05 May 2013 16:09:05 +0000

If you ever get the chance to drive through the Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree in tiny Leggett, Ca., do it. The spot sits at the junction of Highways 1 and 101 in Northern California, and the semi-nauseating turns and occasional lonely work zones as you 1 crosses from the coast to inland are worth it. I [...]

'Like so many metallic soft-shell crabs'

Patrick Cooper — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:14:56 +0000

In George Packer's "Don't Look Down: The New Depression Journalism," in the back of the April 29 New Yorker, Packer gives us a truly great passage from Edmund Wilson's 1932 "The American Jitters: A Year of the Slump." The home of the open-hearth furnaces is a vast loud abode of giants: groans, a continual ringing, [...]

Five poems that made this week better

Patrick Cooper — Thu, 02 May 2013 04:20:02 +0000

1. There is no good link… anywhere… that contains this poem all the way through, and it makes me sad. I only hope someone liberates it some day because it's my favorite recently and gives wordplay the business like few can, all while sorting through the mysteries of passion. So, here's what I'm going to [...]

Bagels, yard sale, tacos

Patrick Cooper — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:59:46 +0000

I haven't been in too many yard sales in my life. Something I didn't know about yard sales until today was how, even more than the selling, the best part was sitting outside and taking in the neighborhood sun. Lori and her friends held a sale this morning, and while clouds brought a chill, the [...]

My desk has a strange spot in the new NPR building

Patrick Cooper — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 03:31:01 +0000

On tonight's PBS NewsHour, at the 7:43 mark below, I emerge fully grown from Dina Temple-Raston's shoulder. At 8:02, I return — only to vanish.

Favorite things in the latest Runcible Spoon

Patrick Cooper — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:47:20 +0000

(Get your issue here.) 1. How Malaka mailed it in a gold envelope. 2. How much, while reading James Ringwald's "Hot Dog for Breakfast," I want to eat a Lazy Corndog, which sounds awful but great. "Alternate bites of cooked hot dog and light cornbread. Mix in mouth, swallow, repeat." 3. How, in Wesley Tashir-Rodriguez's [...]

Two songs that can end today

Patrick Cooper — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:20:01 +0000

Not because the two songs are thematically connected to today, at least not on purpose, but because I heard them in passing during the past few days and they both had a clarity that felt good and right before sleep. Laura Cortese cover of The Cure's Just Like Heaven, via Cover Lay Down. (Live version, [...]

Belatedly: Family Easter celebration

Patrick Cooper — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:48:55 +0000

It was also my dad's birthday; and my mom made a wonderful meal; and my brother came down from New York; and aunt, uncle and cousin Molly came in from Maryland; and the weather was gray, but it was a nice day.

Seamless: I have a wife and a family and a dog and a cat

Patrick Cooper — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:46:32 +0000

Saw this ad in the Metro the other day and was mystified. What Watergate phone call? There were lots of phone calls about Watergate, but there was no "Watergate phone call." Googling turned up Post columnist John Kelly wondering the same and getting amusing Clawson-like fear from Seamless.

Underground exhibited above, but it works

Patrick Cooper — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 23:26:22 +0000

Washington is a small town, and even we natives often forget it. But then the Corcoran museum does an exhibit on the town's punk and go-go rise, and a native of nearly any age can't go six feet without hitting something or someone familiar. The exhibit was short, but sweet that way. On a wall, [...]

Thank you, Al Neuharth, for the help to stay and the help to go

Patrick Cooper — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 01:34:33 +0000

USA Today founder Al Neuharth died Friday at 89. The paper had a good obituary of him, and a surprisingly fun remembrance from his cousin as well. A Times obit was also strong. His death appeared in many tweets, even amid the Boston conclusion, and my favorite may have been one from former colleague Josh. [...]

Other than that, how was the CMS?

Patrick Cooper — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:05:23 +0000

On top of the ridiculous news week, hackers infiltrated a number of NPR accounts and proceeded to vandalize the website and five Twitter feeds. The Two-Way covered the break-in, as did several other news orgs. We stayed up many hours to get affected content back in shape. Could have been much worse. But despite the [...]

My dad's on WordPress, and that makes my day

Patrick Cooper — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:27:06 +0000

When I was at my family's house for Easter and my dad's birthday (the same day this year), my dad mentioned he was now on WordPress. We'd talked in the past about its power as both a blogging tool and a broader content-management system; I'd begun using it for this blog in 2008. Roll Call [...]

'Bubbling and spuming / as if trying to talk under / water'

Patrick Cooper — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 03:01:32 +0000

The week, still young, has flapped up and down like a hatchling. We've at last arrived in the new office, which, as hoped, seems better, but national and office events have left both day and night off mental kilter. To distract myself, I've been reading the March pages of Poetry furiously on the train. My [...]