tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58394942024-03-17T23:02:33.078-04:00Paula's House of Toast<em>like a hole in the head</em>Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.comBlogger1014125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-30374430530193982482020-12-08T23:40:00.001-05:002020-12-08T23:46:37.830-05:00The blue file box #3 So...as I will explain multiple times, I'm NOT a blogger...or i wouldn't have put these three posts in the wrong order....so be it...This is the blue blue file box. It's been sitting Paula's office for years, and I'm sure I looked in it...but somehow, i missed all of these great things I found in it.I met Paula in 1985. On my birthday, March 22nd. We spent the next 30 years together. I met Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-5488544195137978502020-12-08T23:08:00.000-05:002020-12-08T23:08:13.609-05:00The blue file box: #2 Okay, so i'm going backwards....i should have put #1 in last...but I'm not an expereicned blogger...This poem, on the inside of aniversery card I found in the blue file box, that for some reason I hadn't carefully checked out, is...Paula's idea of a joke.No one could write bad poetry with greater wit than she could when she decided she needed to. This bit of fun she would have Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-55511143448124363202020-12-08T22:55:00.000-05:002020-12-08T22:55:20.555-05:00The blue file box: #1I haven't put anything here in a couple of years, and i can now see it will take more than one post, and this one will end up last when it should be first....Not like I haven’t seen the blue file box: it’s been sitting on the floor in Paula’s office for the last five years. And I’ve looked through everything. But somehow, I had missed the treasures it contains.Paula and I used to love giving eachPaulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-65204842357679877422018-11-12T00:26:00.000-05:002018-11-12T00:26:29.709-05:00Rats Live On No Evil StarIf any of you are still out there coming to this site, I'm sure it would make Paula happy. I haven't posted here for over a year..but oh, I still miss her so....the grief has maybe changed, but it will never go away.
I haven't done very well in my quest to get her more published, but haven't given up.
In the meantime, I put out a new album...it has settings of two of Paula's poems, Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-78144922115800812612018-02-19T20:47:00.001-05:002018-11-11T23:51:11.536-05:00....as if blessing nuptial vows...Sorry, it took me a long time to figure out how to sign in again and be able to put up posts...
I wanted to share with you the links to videos of our October performance of The Death Of Simone Weil.
I'm so pleased with this music: perhaps we will record it again someday (perhaps not, too, alas)...
I'm also just about to send out a manuscript of a book of Paula's poetry...Paula as so good at so Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-5411393924217378472017-10-09T09:33:00.003-04:002017-10-09T09:33:45.256-04:00The Death Of Simone WeilIf any of you are still reading, and if you're in the Boston area: Thursday night I have a concert that features one of Paula's great epic poems, The Death Of Simone Weil. It was one of her works that was really special to her: Simone Weil was one of her all time favorites, and Paula wrote about her with great clarity and passion.
I found a high school list of things she loved and it Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-58961446589443112017-03-06T09:48:00.001-05:002017-03-06T09:55:26.904-05:00
To any of you still reading, I think you will want to read this article about Paula:
http://www.mezzocammin.com/iambic.php?vol=2016&iss=2&cat=featured_poet&page=featured_poet
Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-54268171303256304292017-01-07T20:59:00.000-05:002017-01-07T20:59:04.135-05:00Just a note...new people may be visiting this site...
Please make sure to find Paula's posts.
None of them from 2016 are hers, only one from 2015.
But all of the rest are.
Please do explore. She had a most unique and special way of looking at the world.
I will continue to celebrate her spirit, and will hope that you, whether this is your first time here, or have been coming here for years, will Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-5929281349128559372016-08-21T12:50:00.000-04:002016-08-21T12:50:12.499-04:00Paula, me, and Billy....These pictures of Paula with one of our kitties, Billy (we had declared that Billy was the finest animal in the universe) give a rather historical perspective.
Paula holding Billy when he was a kitten.
And 12 or more years later.
And here's us. I'm guessing around 1987. We were at a friend's farm, while back in Kansas, visiting my parents.
And....at WBGH's studio....at Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-63153661897521678612016-08-20T19:36:00.003-04:002016-08-21T12:52:55.411-04:00After Aftermathamatican and other bitsIt never occurred to me until just now to post some of my settings of Paula's words...I've released a number of CDs featuring her poetry extensively, with the Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra....and have a new one out soon, with more,with my new, smaller group, OddSong. A name Paula gave to me in a poem...I read this poem to her regularly while she was in the hospital...I probably Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-38813192215471114732016-05-08T20:31:00.000-04:002016-05-08T20:31:29.848-04:00Photo BoothI don't know if any of you are still out there reading...but if you are, I thought you might want to see some of the photo booth pictures that Paula took of herself. Photo booth, if you're not familiar, is a mac application that lets you take pictures from a camera mounted on the screen. Paula, generally, was camera shy. An introvert. She was fond of making self-effacing comments about her self: Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-67749866496915958442015-09-24T13:30:00.001-04:002015-09-24T13:32:04.212-04:00Burial SermonSara Irwin was Paula's priest and friend...
Her homily was very personal and moving...she added to this, but here is the written part...
Everyone that knew Paula learned from her. I just now learned how put the photos (randomly selected, I'm afraid, and without her keen sense of finding just the right one) in between blocks of text.
There is a section in one of the addenda to the Episcopal Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-42022912608804427492015-09-20T18:14:00.001-04:002015-09-20T18:19:18.966-04:00EulogyI don't know most of you, but Paula often spoke fondly of the people who came here. She was flattered that you would care about what she did.
On Friday, and then Saturday at her funeral service, in what was an incomprehensibly difficult moment, I wrote and then delivered her eulogy.
I knew Paula better than anyone ever has, and most of you just know her from this House of Toast. But I want you Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-11884541139038754642015-09-18T13:51:00.002-04:002015-09-18T13:56:01.367-04:00In loving memory of Paula Tatarunis: 2/9/1952 to 9/16/2015At 7:45 AM,September 16th, my beloved wife, Paula Tatarunis passed into the great beyond. She has, as John Barth said in phrase that always gave her much mirth,"met with the destroyer of delights and the severer of societies." My heart is broken, but I so appreciate all of you who have followed this blog and loved her amazing creative work. She damn near invented her own art form...
I have been Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-39309972689305921182015-04-13T18:12:00.000-04:002015-04-13T18:12:38.114-04:00By Way Of Explanation
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There is a reason for my recent radio silence that's known
to only a few of my internet friends. On 2/14 I had a sudden cerebellar bleed:
the AVM discovered at the time of my chronic subdurals last Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-68197617127604979082014-12-21T11:54:00.000-05:002014-12-21T11:54:27.766-05:00Postscript
It is time to stop making claims and to simply listen. Myths still hang, blood red, on the winter branch; barberries, too. On the lawns blow-up Santas deflate at dusk. I sit vigil with them overnight. At sunrise, as they resurrect, I flee; from the bushes, I watch the young ones dance circles around the restored, cheerful effigies. The dancers sing; stray words drift on the sharp Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-15377971672487441262014-11-22T12:40:00.001-05:002014-11-22T12:40:34.283-05:00EpiloguePaulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-28126493530911231632014-11-08T10:55:00.000-05:002014-11-08T10:55:20.981-05:00Trip(tych)
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I. Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-11105720015417110402014-11-02T08:15:00.000-05:002014-11-02T08:15:31.640-05:00Even At The Grave
The river -- opaque, blighted, smelling of oil -- called to me yesterday.
I'd spent the morning wandering the halls of the afflicted to have more opinions rendered on the topic of my battered brain. I was, it seemed to me, one of the luckier ones: I was walking, talking, and my destination was not the oncology floor, so what more could I ask ?
I like that part of the name of the Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-18982363388385027622014-10-15T18:39:00.000-04:002014-10-15T18:39:28.212-04:00Ms. Anthropy Goes To Rock MeadowPaulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-62953603118054397852014-09-27T09:19:00.000-04:002014-09-27T10:31:48.821-04:00Without Me
Recently, for the first time in weeks, I (and my camera) re-entered the comforting indifference of the natural world. I found that summer had proceeded marvelously without me, and was gearing up for high post-harvest autumn, busily disseminating itself before the great, cold sleep of winter. It welcomed me (its semblable, soeur) as it usually does, indifferently: no smile, handshake, service Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-87533245431151643332014-09-09T15:53:00.001-04:002014-09-09T15:53:03.414-04:00Rapid Transit
Yesterday, one month downstream from cheerful madman #1 removing and replacing a chunk of my skull in service of hoovering up a messy subdural coagulum that had sneakily collected after my Green Street nose dive, I ventured out for my first solo neighborhood walk. I have been, I realized, slowly metamorphosing into something like a stone -- immobile, insentient, unwilling -- and it Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-68808793952457280732014-08-30T11:50:00.001-04:002014-08-30T11:50:24.445-04:00Credo<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 0 1 62 355 2 1 435 11.1287 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> 0 0 0 <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment-->
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August, seasick Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-74218949737701127832014-08-23T17:48:00.002-04:002014-08-23T17:48:17.824-04:00Descent
It wasn't so much a leap as a step, a movement so subtle that even I barely registered it. But it's true: at some point in the past year or two I'd simply stepped off the edge, consigned myself to space and gravity -- a demotic into thy hands moment -- an anti-Icarus gesture lovingly prepared along with my face before its birth. Of course, one seldom gets away with such half-assed Paulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-91775258262424373912014-08-13T19:32:00.002-04:002014-08-13T19:32:37.558-04:00A Hole In The Head. Literally.
In late June, a few seconds after finding myself face down and bleeding on the dark sidewalk a few yards downstream from the Green Street bus stop in Central Square I suddenly thought of the line from Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, But suddenly the Calle Nicaragua rose up to meet him.
But unlike the drunken Consul, I was stone cold sober , and had no memory whatsoeverPaulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08662032255136738684noreply@blogger.com11