RECOVERY
I have to confess that I spent the last week dozing deliriously in front of the TV with some kind of respiratory ailment, which is why I’ve haven’t been telling any tales of pachinko neon, Mt Fuji from the Bullet Train, the strategic brilliance of Osaka Castle, and the people in Japan who took such good care of me. I sometimes forget that I’m far from being as young as I used to be, and, at definite moments, the barnstorming poet felt more like Dexter Gordon in Round Midnight as I paused in some Tokyo doorway to catch my breath. But fear not, the rock & roll went off well – mainly thanks to Ken and the Marble Sheep and the specially recruited Nabeji, and even the seemingly suicidal exercise of reading poetry in English to a Japanese-speaking audience, even if they did have a printed translation by the splendid Yukiko Akagawa. One audience member even came up to me and said that I had a speaking voice like an electric guitar. It was a compliment, I believe.

CRYPTIQUE – Bob Dylan on 60 Minutes.

And here’s a depressing but crucial read from The Jackson Progressive...
http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/econandwelfare/dollarandsanity120404.html

And some military weirness...
http://www.skippyslist.com/skippylist.html