OLD MISTER LITTLE TREE

Picked up an old post card in Pottersville, New York last Thursday. With United States election day coming up it a few weeks I was amused by the comments attributed to Hosteen Yazzie, an old Navajo. The back of the postcard has this to say:

"Old Hosteen Yazzie, was one of the last Navajo Indians to surrender to the Army Scout, Kit Carson, and the U. S. Soldiers. He has been a familiar figure throughout the Southwest. His "LAMENT" gives an idea how difficult it is for him to understand "White Man's Ways". He is past 110 years of age."

J.R. Willis, Gallup, New Mexico is company responsible for the card.

A little internet research finds he is also known as
Hosteen Tee Yazzie. The Navajo meaning is
Hosteen (Mister, Sir, a very Respected Elderly Man)Tee (pronounced "Tsh E") (Little)Yazzie (Tree)Old Mr. Little Tree

JIMMY OLSON, CUB REPORTER

Click on image to enlarge

On a rainy wet moist night (It was October 6, 2010. It was too many adjectives on purpose) WOW! My Black Mountain North adventure took a predictable turn, a run around the block on Irving Street in Albany New York (the dirty, the mean streets, urban decay, wet leaves waiting for street cleaners) Yes we waited. We waited for street cleaners as a few of us, braze souls, waited for MORE! Cleaning like the fire that swept through Clarksville, New York burning houses, rumbustious old photos, that have caught--yes predictable, inevitable has caught the eyes of Obeedude. "Bird, Bird ", he said. "There is a lot of history in Clarksville." Braze meant "hardened". With the end in the beginning, I see cosmic sorting out. Said to Jason Crane, "Surely you know from jazzchasing the sound certain times when the players, the sound is perfect & right and you look around and see who is there, how the heck you got there to that club at that time and the wonder of the sorting out not formula though you could probably do it mathematically but as I know there are wee people inside the numbers on the page as well. It was a daRK ANd storMy night when into the Parting Glass Tavern in Saratoga Springs walked Tim Cook who unsurprisingly greeted Albert and Pat Glover first. I had arrived earlier. Glover had his nose in Obeedude's IPAD. Now there was a meeting strong in ROOTDRINKER mythos, "Obeedude meet Glover" "Albert this is Obeedude" I was dejected like Creeley. No not like Creeley, "Creeley was Creeley" as Albert was kind enough to school me. I thought instead of lesson of silence when I wasn't shouting and strutting my stuff.

The scene moved. I am overcredited. On Phila Street next to Hattie's Chicken Shack above a comic book store lying in wait Cafe Lena.

No joke Albert Glover gave us a great poetry reading. Jason Crane recorded the event which means at some near point he and I will make it available to the World-O-Sphere. For Ken Warren, Michael Boughn, Hoa Nguyen, John Roche and other A Curriculum of the Soul (the book version) fans here is what happened. Carol Graser the open mic host asked me if I had any personal bits she could use in introducing Al. I went over to Glover's table and hijacked the copy he had in front of him brought it over to her, I took it out of the plastic bag it was in and then out of the box the book fit in and put it in front of her. She opened it and spent a minute or two looking at pages. During her introduction she referred to it. She wanted to say "Bible" but then changed it to "Dictionary". I guess other people there were paying more attention to this all then I thought. Glover read beautifully from RELAX YR FACE and OMEGA SEQUENCES. Then something happened that had never happened in Cafe Lena poetry history (to anyone there's memory). Carol asked Albert (after he had already sat back at his table) if he would do an encore and the crowd (not those of us with intimate knowledge of the CofS) started calling for Albert to read more poetry and started calling for A Curriculum of the Soul. "Read from the Curriculum" 'Read from the big book" The crowd actually called for the Curriculum to be read to them. WOW! again (more sincerely this time) so Albert read briefly from the Charles Olson Introduction, read the Table of Contents and then read a nice piece of THE MUSHROOM

If you have not yet seen here is a taste http://jasoncrane.org/2010/10/


Now Thursday morning a respite from many-armed Black Mountain slopes. Blue sky