Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Welch Actress Stephanie Parker Hanged Herself
Stephanie Parker
March 29, 1987 - April 18, 2009
RIP
We wanted to pay our respects to the family, friends and fans of Welch Actress Stephanie Parker, best known for playing a popular character, Stacey Weaver, on a BBC Wales' television show "Belonging." She'd played the character for seven years, since she was fifteen. Stephanie was found hanged in a field near her Pontypridd, Glamorgan home. Coincidently, her home is 10 miles from the mining town of Bridgend where there has been a curious series of suicides.
"There are no figures available for the past year, but between January 2007 and February 2008, 17 people under the age of 27 took their own lives in the area. The previous year, the South Wales Valley coroner Philip Walters said that in an 11-month period during 2006 he was seeing one case of suicide a week." - The First Post
The police have ruled the death a suicide, but are continuing their investigation into why she might have taken her own life. She was 22 years old, beautiful, talented and now she's a dead girl. In pace requiescat!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Party Girl Sable Starr 1958-2009 RIP
"...they called me awful names at Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco, old being the most popular odious declaration of loathing. I let them get to me; they told me I was over the hill, and I looked in the mirror, inspecting my twenty-five-year-old face for early stages of decrepitness. The most hideous of these tartlets was Sable Starr. She thought she invented nipples and pubic hair." - Pamela Des Barres, 1987
Sable Starr
1958 - April 17, 2009
RIP
She's been called "Scenester," "Socialite," "Supergroupie," "Tartlet," but I think I prefer to call her a "Party Girl." While that choice may not suit everybody's taste, I not only think this phrase illustrates her best side, but it is inclusive of all the other titles. Face it, "Party Girl" is better than "Skank Whore."
In 1958, Sable Starr was born Sable Shields in Palos Verdes, an affluent suburb on the southwest peninsula of Los Angeles. In the 1970s, she came uptown to the Sunset Strip and made the scene like thousands of others.
Well, she Venied, she Vidied, and she Vicied enough to be mentioned in an Iggy Pop song:
"I slept with Sable when she was 13
Her parents were too rich to do anything
She rocked her way around L.A.
'Til a New York guy carried her away."- Iggy Pop
She had a bad love affair with Johnny Thunders of The New York Dolls. She cut her wrists and wound up in Bellevue. But her friends and family helped Sable straighten out her life. She had a couple of kids and worked as a dealer in Nevada. Over her years, she made a lot of friends who respect her and grieve for her now. They report that Sable died of brain cancer, peacefully, in her sleep, on Friday, April 17, 2009. In pace requiescat!
Here is an excellent short article about Sable Starr at the LAist with links for more information: Sable Starr has Left the Scene 1958-2009 - LAist
If you want to see who and how many rock guys she dated go here: Who's Dated Who?
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Rhyolite - Death Valley Ghost Town
"On August 9, 1904, Cross and Harris found gold on the south side of a southwestern Nevada hill later called Bullfrog Mountain. Assays of ore samples from the site suggested values up to $3,000 a ton, or about $72,000 a ton in 2009 dollars when adjusted for inflation. Word of the discovery spread to Tonopah and beyond, and soon thousands of hopeful prospectors and speculators rushed to what became known as the Bullfrog Mining District." -- wiki
Rhyolite - Death Valley Ghost Town - wiki
Complete Poe Forward Rhyolite - Death Valley Ghost Town Galleries
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Poet and Teacher Deborah Digges Commits Suicide?
"Deborah Digges, who passed away April 10, 2009, reads from her work at an event honoring winners of the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Award, co-sponsored by Claremont Graduate Univ. and Red Hen Press at Boston Court Performing Arts, Pasadena, CA, 3/5/2009." -- http://www.poetry.la/
Deborah Digges
February 6, 1950 - April 10, 2009
RIP
"Deborah Digges, a renowned poet and memoirist whose work often sprang from private adversity, died on April 10 near Amherst, Mass., apparently in a suicide. She was 59 and lived in Amherst.
Ms. Digges apparently jumped from an upper level of the Warren P. McGuirk Alumni Stadium, on the campus of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a university spokesman said on Tuesday. She was found on the ground outside the stadium and taken to Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Mass., where she was pronounced dead.
The spokesman, Edward F. Blaguszewski, said that the university police, who were called to the scene, concluded that Ms. Digges had taken her life and did not suspect foul play." - NYTimes Obituary
No suicide note. No motive mentioned in the news reports. The You Tube reading embedded above took place a month before her death. Could it have been an accident?
BROOM
More than my sixteen rented houses and their eighty or so rooms
held up by stone or cinderblock foundations,
most facing north, with useless basements,
wrought iron fences to the curb,
beat-up black mailboxes--
eagles impaled through breasts to edifice--
or set like lighthouses
some distance from the stoop a thousand miles inland,
or close enough to sea the sea gulls
settled mornings in the playing fields I passed
on this continent and others
as I walked my sons to school or to the train--
more than the kitchen door frames where is carved the progress
of their growth, one then the other on his birthday
backed against a wall, almost on tiptoe--
and more than the ruler
I have laid across their skulls
where the older's brown hair like my own,
or the younger's blond like his father's, covered abundantly
what was once only a swatch of scalp
I'd touch as they slept to know their hearts beat--
more than the height at which, and in this house,
the markings stopped like stairs leading to ground level,
and they walked out into the world,
dogged, no doubt, by the ghost of the man, their father,
and the men who tried to be their fathers,
father their wildness--
and more, even, than the high sashed windows
and windows sliding sideways
through which I watched for them, sometimes squinting,
sometimes through my hands cupped on cold glass
trying to see in the dark my men approaching,
my breath blinding me,
the first born surely the man I would have married,
the second, me in his man's body--
more than the locks left open and the creaking steps,
the books left open like mirrors on the floor
and the sinks where we washed our faces
and the beds above which our threefold dreams collided,
I have loved the broom I took into my hands
and crossed the threshold to begin again,
whose straw I wore to nothing,
whose shaft I could use to straighten a tree, or break
across my knee to kindle the first winter fire,
or use to stir the fire,
broom whose stave is pine or hickory,
and whose skirt of birch-spray and heather
offers itself up as nest matter,
arcs like the equator
in the corner, could we see far enough,
or is parted one way like my hair.
Once I asked myself, when was I happy?
I was looking at a February sky.
When did the light hold me and I didn't struggle?
And it came to me, an image
of myself in a doorway, a broom in my hand,
sweeping out beach sand, salt, soot,
pollen and pine needles, the last December leaves,
and mud wasps, moths, flies crushed to wafers,
and spring's first seed husks,
and then the final tufts like down, and red bud petals
like autumn leaves--so many petals--
sweeping out the soil the boys tracked in
from burying in the new yard another animal--
broom leaving in tact the spiders' webs,
careful of those,
and careful when I danced with the broom,
that no one was watching,
and when I hacked at the floor
with the broom like an axe, jammed handle through glass
as if the house were burning and I must abandon ship
as I wept over a man s faithlessness, or wept over my own--
and so the broom became
an oar that parted waters, raft-keel and mast, or twirled
around and around on the back lawn,
a sort of compass through whose blurred counter-motion
the woods became a gathering of brooms,
onlooking or ancestral.
I thought I could grow old here,
safe among the ghosts, each welcomed,
yes, welcomed back for once, into this house, these rooms
in which I have got down on hands and knees and swept my hair
across my two sons' broad tan backs,
and swept my hair across you, swinging my head,
lost in the motion,
lost swaying up and down the whole length of your body,
my hair tangling in your hair,
our hair matted with sweat and my own cum, and semen,
lost swaying, smelling you,
smelling you humming,
gone in the motion, back and forth, sweeping.
More than my sixteen rented houses and their eighty or so rooms
held up by stone or cinderblock foundations,
most facing north, with useless basements,
wrought iron fences to the curb,
beat-up black mailboxes--
eagles impaled through breasts to edifice--
or set like lighthouses
some distance from the stoop a thousand miles inland,
or close enough to sea the sea gulls
settled mornings in the playing fields I passed
on this continent and others
as I walked my sons to school or to the train--
more than the kitchen door frames where is carved the progress
of their growth, one then the other on his birthday
backed against a wall, almost on tiptoe--
and more than the ruler
I have laid across their skulls
where the older's brown hair like my own,
or the younger's blond like his father's, covered abundantly
what was once only a swatch of scalp
I'd touch as they slept to know their hearts beat--
more than the height at which, and in this house,
the markings stopped like stairs leading to ground level,
and they walked out into the world,
dogged, no doubt, by the ghost of the man, their father,
and the men who tried to be their fathers,
father their wildness--
and more, even, than the high sashed windows
and windows sliding sideways
through which I watched for them, sometimes squinting,
sometimes through my hands cupped on cold glass
trying to see in the dark my men approaching,
my breath blinding me,
the first born surely the man I would have married,
the second, me in his man's body--
more than the locks left open and the creaking steps,
the books left open like mirrors on the floor
and the sinks where we washed our faces
and the beds above which our threefold dreams collided,
I have loved the broom I took into my hands
and crossed the threshold to begin again,
whose straw I wore to nothing,
whose shaft I could use to straighten a tree, or break
across my knee to kindle the first winter fire,
or use to stir the fire,
broom whose stave is pine or hickory,
and whose skirt of birch-spray and heather
offers itself up as nest matter,
arcs like the equator
in the corner, could we see far enough,
or is parted one way like my hair.
Once I asked myself, when was I happy?
I was looking at a February sky.
When did the light hold me and I didn't struggle?
And it came to me, an image
of myself in a doorway, a broom in my hand,
sweeping out beach sand, salt, soot,
pollen and pine needles, the last December leaves,
and mud wasps, moths, flies crushed to wafers,
and spring's first seed husks,
and then the final tufts like down, and red bud petals
like autumn leaves--so many petals--
sweeping out the soil the boys tracked in
from burying in the new yard another animal--
broom leaving in tact the spiders' webs,
careful of those,
and careful when I danced with the broom,
that no one was watching,
and when I hacked at the floor
with the broom like an axe, jammed handle through glass
as if the house were burning and I must abandon ship
as I wept over a man s faithlessness, or wept over my own--
and so the broom became
an oar that parted waters, raft-keel and mast, or twirled
around and around on the back lawn,
a sort of compass through whose blurred counter-motion
the woods became a gathering of brooms,
onlooking or ancestral.
I thought I could grow old here,
safe among the ghosts, each welcomed,
yes, welcomed back for once, into this house, these rooms
in which I have got down on hands and knees and swept my hair
across my two sons' broad tan backs,
and swept my hair across you, swinging my head,
lost in the motion,
lost swaying up and down the whole length of your body,
my hair tangling in your hair,
our hair matted with sweat and my own cum, and semen,
lost swaying, smelling you,
smelling you humming,
gone in the motion, back and forth, sweeping.
In pace requiescat!
Deborah Digges - wiki
Deborah Digges - NYTimes Obituary
Poe Forward's Poets and Poetry: Ancient, Classical, Modern, Contemporary
Poe Forward's New Dead Girls 2009
The Original Dead Girl: Mary Rogers/Marie Roget
Special thanks to Poetry LA for the You Tube video.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Angeles Abbey Memorial Park - Compton, California - Part One
"At Palmer Street and Bullis Road, Angeles Abbey Cemetery contains examples of Byzantine, Moorish and Spanish architectural style. The cemetery was built in 1923 and survived the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake." - The City of Compton
Angeles Abbey Memorial Park
1515 E. Compton Blvd.
Compton, California 90221-3499
Phone: 310-631-1141
Sunday, April 19, 2009
A Troubled Cemetery - Grand View Memorial Park - Glendale
VISITATION DATES APPROVED THROUGH JUNE 2009
On December 8, 2008, Judge Mohr ordered that the Grand View be opened on the following dates in 2009. Visitation times for each date remain the traditional 12 noon - 4:00 p.m.
January 11 and 25
February 8 and 22
March 8 and 22,
April 10 (Good Friday), 12 (Easter), 24 (Armenian Genocide) and 26
May 10 (Mothers Day) and 24
June 14, 21 (Father's day) and 28
Grand View Memorial Park - Glendale
Grand View Memorial Park - Glendale - wiki
Grand View Memorial Park
1341 Glenwood Rd.,
Glendale, CA 91201
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Rebel Grave at Ojai, California's Nordhoff Cemetery
"The Nordhoff Cemetery, owned and operated by the City of Ojai, is located at the corner of Del Norte and Cuyama Roads. It was founded in 1870 and taken over by the City in 1963. It is part of Ojai's history, dating back to the Civil War veterans who were buried at the turn of the century.
All full burial sites are sold. However, there are still cremation sites available. The cost for the space is $750. There is a $270 service fee for maintenance support involving opening/closing of urn site and marker setting at the time the cremation service is scheduled. There is also a $130 fee for a required urn vault." -- City of Ojai
Poe Forward's Complete Ojai Cemetery Series
Poe Forward Cemetery Photography
Friday, April 17, 2009
Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors Promo - 2009
Creation Entertainment presents
Fangoria's
Weekend of Horrors
LA Convention Center
April 17-19, 2009
"#1 Conventions for Fans of Dark Entertainment"
The festivities will include: Gruesome Guests, Vicious Vendors, Zombie Walk, Spooksmodel Contest, Photo Ops, Sinister Seminars, Celebrity Cocktail Party, Horrorcade, Creepy Costume Contest, Frightful Film Room, Autographs, and Art Ghoulery.
In attendance will be powerhouse horror auteurs Sam Raimi, Clive Barker, Tobe Hooper, Tom Savini, Fred Olen Ray, and the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis.
Actors present will be Brad Dourif, Johnathon Schaech, Thomas Dekker, Bill Moseley, Bill Johnson, Thomas Jane, Doug Bradley, and Peter Stickles.
Scream Queens will include Tiffany Shepis, Jordan Ladd, Shannon Lark, Adrienne King, Jennifer Lynch, Malika Sherawat, Caroline Williams, Marilyn Burns, Laura Leigh, Bobbi Sue Luther, Marieh Delfino, Tracy Coogan, Alice Amter, Valorie Hubbard, Eve Mauro, Sita Young, Katherine Randolph, Monique Dupree, and one of my personal favorites, Ashley Laurence.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Marilyn Chambers 1952-2009 RIP
New Poe Forward Dead Girl
Marilyn Chambers
April 22, 1952 - April 12, 2009
RIP
I suppose Marilyn Chambers could be considered a Scream Queen, but of a different sort. She was born in Providence, Rhode Island. I've been to Providence several times and visited the Trinity Square Repertory Theatre. My father's family is from Providence. H.P. Lovecraft lived and died in Providence. Poe proposed to Sarah Helen Whitman in a Providence's Swan Point Cemetery. I'd recommend visiting the Rhode Island Historical Society and the Providence Athenaeum. In Hollywood, I once worked in a building next to the Pussycat Theatre which was showing DEEP THROAT and BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR in its 10th year. However, I've never seen a Marilyn Chambers film. For that matter, I never saw the IVORY SNOW box either.
Marilyn Chambers Official Website
Poe Forward's New Dead Girls 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Annabel Lee Tavern - Baltimore, Maryland
“But we loved with a love that was more than love –
I and my Annabel Lee”
"ANNABEL LEE TAVERN is a little Tavern located a bit off the beaten path in the Canton area of Baltimore City. It is here that we hope that our guests feel at home. We always offer friendly service and affordable cuisine. Our food is what we like to call, ‘upscale comfort.’ Our menu is eclectic but not pretentious. In addition to our menu we will always have at least six daily specials to choos from and a good dose of vegetarian options. Our wine and beer lists are varied but not pricey.
We, on a daily basis, celebrate Edgar Allan Poe, Baltimore and Maryland. We have a lot of pride in our home, town and state. It is here that a couple can come for a romantic dinner for two. This is also a great place to play a late night game of darts with friends. In a nut shell, this is one place that guests can watch an O’s game by romantic candle light.
Everyday we strive to be the best corner tavern in the city."
Annabel Lee Tavern
601 South Clinton Street
Baltimore, MD 21224
Phone: 410.522.2929
Fax: 410.522.2992
email: info@annabelleetavern.com
Looking over their menu, I would start with the Tomato Bisque (with cheese tortellini and marscarpone cheese) or the Caesar Salad (with house Caesar dressing, onion foccaccia croutons and four cheeses). However, the Classic Spinach Salad (with a honey Dijon vinaigrette, mushrooms, hard-boiled egg, tomatoes, bacon, and red onions) does intrigue me.
My appetizer choices would include the Jerk Shrimp (with Malibu pineapple relish) and the BBQ Chicken Nachos (with applewood smoked bacon). Now the Duck Fat Fries – what the heck is that? I’d try it. I love duck and goose, and rabbit for that matter.
They have sandwiches, all served with blue cheese coleslaw and sweet potato (or duck fat) fries. The Annabel Lee Chicken Salad with tarragon, bacon and craisins, could have been something Poe might’ve eaten on the Veranda with his Allan relations.
Curiously, they define their main dishes as “small plates.” But perhaps that is a Baltimore tradition. (I live in L.A., the consumption capitol of the world.) These dishes include BBQ Chicken with chili fries, Crab and Roasted Sweet Corn Quesadilla, Spinach and Portabella Burrito with roasted red pepper salsa rojo, Potato Crusted Salmon Steak, and the obligatory and always lovely, Shepherds Pie, with ground lamb, Guinness gravy and topped with mashed potatoes and cheddar. There’s a lot of Mexican influence here. Something I know about living in L.A. I’d like to try their Baltimore interpretations. Perhaps, crab enchiladas could suit the rest of the menu?
On tap in the bar is Raven Lager. I think that is the local Poe brand. They name their specialty drinks after Poe characters and titles. They have a wine list that covers the globe. This sounds like a tasty place. I’d love to hear from folks who have dined there.
The Chef is Mark Littleton, formerly of the defunct Lulu’s Off Broadway.
ANNABEL LEE TAVERN HISTORY
"Annabel Lee was the last poem that Edgar Allan Poe wrote before his tragic death at the age of forty in the year 1849. The Annabel Lee Tavern as established December 7th, 2007. It is here that we pay homage to the great poet and too, the great city of Baltimore. The building was built in 1905 and as far as wee know has always existed as a tavern.
It is our pledge to provide a welcome place for the neighborhood, sincerely and without pretence always."
Hours:
Monday – Satuday 4:00pm – 1:00am
Closed – not by choice – Sundays
Phone: (410) 522-2929
Kurt X. Bragunier, proprietor
For dessert, they have a tri-chocolate pate served with maderia raspberry coulis called the “Edgar Allan Pate.” Additionally, they have Pie du Jour. I love pie. When I was a kid, I liked cake. Now, I like pie. Go figure.
Take a look at their photo gallery. It’s pretty cool. They have that east coast tavern on the corner look. The inside fondly reminds me of several taverns I’ve been in from San Francisco to Boston to Santa Barbara and to L.A.
“The beautiful Annabel Lee Tavern opened in December and was an instant hit. Opened by Kurt Bragunier, a former general manager at the Brewer’s Art, Annabel Lee, like Brewer’s feels contemporary in spirit but old and unpretentious, too.”
-- Richard Gorelick, “High Spirits,” Baltimore City Paper
They have a raven in their window.
Annabel Lee Tavern - Baltimore, Maryland
Annabel Lee - Poe Forward (text)
LINES ON ALE 1848
Edgar Allan Poe
Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain --
Quaintest thoughts -- queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.
