whaleheadking

A record of the Poetry Wars

whaleheadking — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:54:15 GMT

Two poets sat on the deck behind the Bank Street Cafe and they stared silently at the broken rocks that make up the breakwater lining New London Harbor. Granite, cement, rebar, asphalt slabs...anything and everything solid, guards New London's shoreline against tides like the Hurricaine of '38 threw against the city. New London doesn't give up ground without a fight.

New London's bedrock contains hairline cracks from the shocks and repeated aftershocks of the Poetry Wars that rocked Connecticut's Whaling City a few years back. Most people were unaware that a poetry war was being conducted under their noses, but two combatants, and many, many more, were on the front lines, fighting the good fight. Two of them were blood-stained and combat-weary yesterday afternoon. Thier Cottrell drafts tasted like the soot of cannon fire but they numbly slaked their thirst nonetheless. They had been cannon fodder once so the fresh breeze off the Thames River brought nothing more than thanksgiving for being able to inhale fresh air.

They reminisced about thier fallen comrades, sister-in-arms, and they got teary-eyed describing how Town Hill Ceasar had been deposed. They looked at the wake behind the Fisher's Island Ferry and thought they saw a mermaid's hand waving. The Old General pulled up a chair beside these two veterans. "General." one of them said, "Your limp is almost gone."

The General looked at his companions. "No," he replied, "I still limp. If I walk alright, I don't write the way I used to. My verse is poet-tasting at best. I'm afraid New London is where my best battle was fought, Thank God Almighty it was a good one." The three raised their glasses and drained them. The three walked down the back steps to the waterfront park. No one else was there. The wind played off the Thames and tossed the General's hair like a prom girl's. They decided to go to Brad Guarino's studio to get thier portrait painted, three forgotten heroes in a halo of Lyme light. They thought the majesty would do them justice for posterity and, well, the Lyman Allen Museum could use a new modern painting in its collection.

A forked tongue

whaleheadking — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:07:48 GMT

Listen to the message being whispered out the left corner of New London's mouth and you'll be seduced. Press your ear to the sidewalk on Meridian Street, and you'll hear something else. It won't be the ocean's roar. You'll hear dead silence on a dead road no one travels.

If you see New London from its right sided profile, you'll lean all the city expects of itself. It's all very proper and proprietary. This is an old-stock, Whaling City, built by adventureres, etc., blah, blah, etc...

A Poetry War rages in New London, Conn. None but the poets know it's existence. Their trenches are invisible to the people on Coleman Street, the people who need ingenuity more than anyone else to get through a New London month. Is it June so soon?

Another New London winter is approaching and only the artists who call this Whaling City home look forward to January, New London's most hygienic month. To everyone else in every other profession, it is just another day unfolding, like so many others. The sun may come out or it may rain. Little, beyond the weather disrupts New London's daily routines.

When expectations are low, you get what you wish for.

Dowager Queen

whaleheadking — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:43:51 GMT

New London, that olde dame of Connecticut's cities, wears a scruffled veil of dense fog. Have you looked past the shoreline lately? The sky presses down as heavily monochromatic as an elephant's buckled knees. Is life lightweight and easily borne in New London? Ask your neighbor. The mussels in the intertidal zone are suffocatiing under a slimy film of oil.

New London has a stumblebum parade of torn up concrete to welcome visitors. A tourist destination? Yes, if your tourists are composed of urban planners researching misteps. The convention center hasn't been sold out. The tourist information booth in the parking lot downtown is sleepy most weekend hours. The volunteers nap until there is the sound of a footfall on the retractable steps. Knock...knock. Anybody home? Yes. Want ot strolll our waterfront park? It's nice and hot and shadeless and there;s nothing to do but walk on a sidewalk suspended over water. Doesn't that sound like fun? There's no tide like low tide in New Lodond, Conn.

Go further into New London and you'll discover a little, living city. You'll be cajoled into playing your part in comic or dramatic operas. You'll find things to buy and you'll fall in love with the jolly, rollicking, devil-may-care, ne're-do-well, slap-happy, punchdrunk citizens of this Whaling City. You will fall in love. People can;t help being enraptured with a matron. New London, Conn. hides its charmsl but if you look under its veil you'll find a coquette

Acela

whaleheadking — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:30:08 GMT

The Acela sped through the Roxbury Crossing T station in Boston at mid-speed this afternoon and your humble narrator was whisked back in time when he realized this very train had shortly before been in his old home town, New London, Conn., where women are beautiful, men are hardworking and long, pointless sentences pass for artful conversation. It was inspiring.

Whisper-quiet and ultra-modern, the train was a phantom bullet stiking the psyches of all it passed. A real train passing through environs normally inhabited by trundling, heavy trams, the Acela had been places. It has been to New London, Conn., one of the world's queen cities.

With all the authority and majesty that time spent in New London brings, no matter how briefly, the Acela looked regal. It was proud as only a New Londoner can be. The train had been other places and stopped there: Washington, Philadelphia, New York, New Haven, Providence and points in between. It carried a New London air about it, though. This was a train that had crossed the world's umbilicus and had also passed through a threshold, existing on a plane where neither placenta nor teat mattered much. This was a train with teeth and toothsome appetites.

Once briefly touched by New London's magic, nothing is the same. Only red meat and gusto will satisfy a whaler's deepest desires. A New Londoner can drain a hogshead with a gulp from the bung and wake up at daybreak more than clearheaded enough to take on a squalid world plumb with measly rewards. Once bitten by New London's bug, a body cannot be shy. As the sleek Acela passed through Boston it had the haughty, undefeated air of a city scorned but never beaten. I offered a salute to my fellow traveler.

A Dry Cornucopia

whaleheadking — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:40:06 GMT

Not that I blame anyone for not jumping onboard. Who doesn't have anything better to do than surf the internet and check up on the opinions of crackpots. I have looked at other towns in the scintillating zip06 universe and cannot blame anyone for not joining in the shennanigans. The more I review what my fellow southeastern Nutmeggers have to add, the more I become a grumpy old man.

C'est la vie and plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose. Perhaps New London is a land that time has passed by. Perhaps New London is biding its time for the next information revolution. Perhaps the citizens of this fair city have better things to do than living virtually. Life in New London is lived on the streets, in the round and in the flesh. The city doesn't bustle because people sit home staring at thier computer screens. They are out and about, seeing and being seen. I would love to see the stats for this publishing endeavor.

Despite the lackluster performance of this forum, I still think there is a place for it. Natives and deep-rooted transplants probably have no use for it. They are already connected to the Whaling City's parade. They are marching in it. For newcomers though, it may be a nice place to browse before they make new friends and enmesh themselves in New London's tail-chasing politics, its round of bars and late night venues, its waterside vistas and its ever-vigorous volunteer activism.

No child is a robot and neither is any adult New Londoner. They are flesh and blood and spirit. The computer takes as much as it gives. If you are reading this, log off now and head to the Dutch Tavern. Tell the proprietor that Whalehead King sent you and that the pickled eggs are highly recommended.

What Traffic?

whaleheadking — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:45:56 GMT

Since the recent jump in gasoline prices and the attendant jump in ridership, Amtrak has been advertising like they've just discovered it. In Boston they are touting the benefits of the 'Northeast Regional', what you and I know as the Acela.

This evening, Boston's (and formerly New London's) own Motor Scooter Madman pulled up behind behind the #66 bus on Dudley Street. What to his wondering eyes appeared, but a familiar vista. The photo on the plaquard on the back of the bus was taken from the swing bridge that crosses the mouth of Shaw's Cove. It was an early sunset. The Mohican Hotel reared it's haloed head lit with sparkling, bijoux bulbs to the far left. Closer to the picture's center was the old A&T building. To the right was the Waterfront Park, characteristically empty of activity, and further to the right was the majestic Thames River reflecting a nacreous sky.

The tag line for this halcyon, inspiring scene: "Traffic? What traffic?" Whoever wrote that copy has surely been to New London. Our man followed the bus, imagining himself tooling down Bank Street without a care in the world. A commute in New London is certainly more peaceful than a cross-Boston errand. What traffic, indeed.

Another Lazy New London Weekend

whaleheadking — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:22:21 GMT

Friday comes to a close but New London never shuts up shop. The streets will be busy tonight: Bank Street, State Street, Truman Street, Coleman Street, Jefferson Avenue. The hotel rooms will be booked. Please do not disturb. The Millenium Inn has no vacancy.

A 21st Century city, New London is foxy and sly. It plays its cards close to its vest pocket parks. I saw William Tell, also known as "Brownie-Boy"', aiming a slingshot from in front of The Day's printing press toward the back entrance of Bangkok City. This is a whaling city that has use for both spices and sweets. Molasses and chile and everything nice: that is what New London is made of. Slugs and snails and fishermen's tales: that also is what New London is made of.

Friday will turn in to Saturday and Saturday will turn into Sunday. We all know what comes after that: Get to work. We have a city to live in and make liveable. When you wake up in the morning, New London wakes up. Come Saturday morning, it will be time to get to work, not at a paying profession but at making New London a cosmopolitan place. Equidistant between Boston and New York, between Providence and New Haven, New London is none of these and all at once. New London is New London. Let us get to work, we have a century's worth of play to enjoy.

McNLDC

whaleheadking — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:14:33 GMT

Keep the hot side hot and the cool side cool. New London is like that. While life heats up downtown, things are quiet around Trumbull Neck. Sometimes appearances aren't decieving. If tumbleweeds were native to Connecticut, they would be blowing past the Italian Dramatic Club.

The west side of Bank Street is hotter than the eastern side. The Bulkley House provides ample shade, but it can't compete with the unimpeded breezes that blow off the harbor onto the deck that front the Thames.

The arboretum is a green oasis at the city's northern border, but during a scoot down Ocean Avenue, one can feel the temperature drop as one nears Ocean Beach. Ah paradise and the lazy, hazy days of summer. New London, white hot and air-cooled, contains the best of all worlds. It is filter tipped and mentholated. It's toasted. It is where those in the know retire to live and relax.

Afterglow

whaleheadking — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:56:46 GMT

Is Sailfest over already? Pinch me. It seems the good times can just keep going on and on. In the interlude between the second weekend in July and the last weekend in January, New London doesn't slumber so much as tuck its pant legs into its boots. Lyme disease is prevelant in Southeastern Connecticut, but there is little chance of catching it in a whaling city. It doesn't hurt to be cautious.

The city's work crews have a katzenjammer cleaning up the napkins and water bottles discarded over Sailfest weekend, but by the following Wednesday New London looks as good as 'lightly used.' The city's streets sparkle in competition with the refracted sunbeams off the Thames River. New London: where good times roll.

Sailfest opens with a bang on a blow-out Friday night. It bursts again on Saturday with bombast and cheers in the dark after a afternoon that builds up the crescendo. It leaves town on Sunday afternoon. The carts are packed, the vendors head to the highway to their next venue and New London seems a little emptier. It isn't.

As long as people walk New London's streets, the city is alive. It may not be the sound of music, but New London's music is no threnody. The sounds of traffic clotting the interesection of Bank Street, Montauk Avenue, Jefferson Avenue and Ocean Avenue, is as confident as a Sousa march. Be kind to your fluke-footed freinds. A whale is somebody's mother.

Sailfest comes and goes every year as regularly as the tides that swell New London Harbor. Hygienic Night follows six months later. There are so many days in a year.

Sailfest 2008

whaleheadking — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:45:43 GMT

The fried dough is crispier around the edges and more powdery on top this year. 2008 will be remembered as the year that vendors' fry-o-lators were free of transfats. Or were they? Ateries may have been clogged by spicy, Italian-style sausage and french fried potatoes cooked in squeeky clean peanut oil, but who is to know for sure? For the record, the fried dough was healthier than during any other episode in Sailfest's history. Those trucks came from outside New London and the city's Health Inspectors, though top-notch, are underpaid and overextended. Any carny can fudge a cooking oil invoice to fool a rube in a small city. None will be the wiser and the cook that cooks with coconut oil will get word of mouth that their dough is the real deal, with more of what they call in the trade, "mouth-feel." That hasn't happened so far this year.

New Londoners are a heart-healthy bunch. They often feel so much and so strongly that their hearts are pitched to bursting. No real harm is done. There are no infarctions and few attacks. Much like their city, New Londoners are bruised but not broken. If anything is vented, it is a spleen here and there, and nothing more. The shenaningans in City Hall provoke targets for urinary bladders more than they attract gall. This is a jaded city where relief comes quickly, if temporarily. There is plenty of rest in a city with so many rooms.

New Londoners are healthy even if Sailfest generates more per capita fried dough consumption than any other festival hosted in Connecticut. The second runner up is the Brooklyn Fair in Connecticut's Quite Corner. That fair sells 3.8 lbs of fried dough per attendee. Official estimates put Sailfest's quota at 5.6 lbs of fried dough per attendee. There is something about large scale fireworks that provokes an appetite. Despite all the grease in thier guts, New Londoners walk with a spring in their steps. Zip-a-dee-doo-06.

Free Press

whaleheadking — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:24:57 GMT

DATELINE: BOSTON, MASS. JULY 9, 2008. Has New London hired a marketing director and no one told me? First the New York Times names New London as the fifth best vacation destination in New England. Some people credit Maura Casey for this product placement since she is now employed by the NY Times after toiling for years at the Day. I don't think this is the case.

On page E12, at the back of the Boston Globe's 'Food & Arts' section, is a full page spread entitled, "Whale of a City: close-up on New London, Conn." Lest anyone get a swell head about this coverage, Niantic was featured this past autumn.

The article is dominated by a half-page photograph from the front steps of the Bulkley House deck. Your humble reporter has spent many an hour at one of the featured tables looking at Robert's Audio-Video, the Sub Cafe, the Hygienic Ladies and the view of the magestic Thames River down the alleyway between Robert's and Book-a-Zine. Those were wistful times.

It seems New London has a lot of second-, third-, and fourth wind in it still to billow its sails. I learned about Rouge, about Kirkland House B&B, about Mangetout and about Fronteras, none of which I had ever heard of before. Let us hope that these are not like many starry-eyed New London businesses here today and gone next year.

The Globe article contained a nice mention of Flavors of Life, which is a very nice business run by two tireless entrepreneurs who believe everyone in the world deserves a fair shake. Marcie and David, whose last names I don't remember, are good people who believe in community on both a local and a global scale and they are doing all they can to nurture it. They have a lovely daughter who is sharp as a thumbtack. They are scooter people too, if you couldn't guess it. All the good people in New London travel either on two feet or two wheels.

Mare Bellatorius

whaleheadking — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:30:26 GMT

Like much that goes under-reported in New London, Conn., a poetry war has been alternating between simmer and boil for about a year. The Whaling City's scribbling class has been packing shivs and engaging in rumbles off Washington Street, Central Avenue, Green Street, and Pequot Avenue. It isn't the Sharks vs. the Jets, but there is plenty of singing.

There are different factions in this royal battle that is being waged to determine whither New London's poetry school will tack. There are the O'Neills, the Trypots, the Loblolly Boys and the Town Hill Gang. Everyone adopts a colorful nickname and persona. You know how artists like to put on fancy airs and blow everything out of proportion.

The Poetry War gained a lot of underground press a few months back when it flared up for the first time on Masonic Street. Since then, the action has moved elsewhere so that now nowhere in New London is safe from rhyme or whimsy, parable, metaphor, iambic verse or onomatopoeia.

People nod with a mix of gusto, determination, weariness and ennui when one of the barflies announces, apropos of nothing, "A poetry war is raging in New London, Conn!"

Harbor Point

whaleheadking — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:46:41 GMT

I liked the old Fort Trumbull Neck. I haven't been by recently, but I assume it is still the moonscape it was when I was last in Connecticut's Whaling City. Cocorran Jennison was hired to masterly develop this dynamited neighborhood along the lines of the 'miracle' they conjured on Harbor Point in Boston, Mass. It just so happens, your correspondent lives across the train tracks, just a blighted beeline away, from the project that made this firm the developer of New London's choice. If he had a second story apartment he could look over the elevated exit ramp of I-93 and gaze in loving adoration at Cocoran Jennison's brightly lit sign posted over their headquarters.

It glows like a beacon in the night. One lantern if by land. Two lamps if by sea. 16 neon letters if by monied greed.

The stroll from the JFK/UMASS T station to Harbor Point is a treeless trudge along an avenue reminscent of Howard Street in New London, but with even less visual interest or amenities. This wouldn't bother New London's tree wardens. As any pedestrian will tell you, Connecticut's Whaling City has no love for shade.

As for Harbor Point's many vaunted and envied amenities, we will have to save them for a future dispatch. Let us just say that it is a cheerless as the NUSC compound is now, but with more people and more builldings. Sometimes, you can pay a lot of capital without making an investment. I am off on my motorcycle to scout around Harbor Point in order to deliver accurate, disappointing news. No news there.

W.K.

New London is for Lovers

whaleheadking — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:36:46 GMT

Traipse down South Water Street in the rain with the Thames River at your right. The ferries blow their whistles as the train rumbles to its station. The rain spatters happiness in a measure to match your joy. The angels in Heaven are weeping with bliss. You are in New London, Conn. What could be better?

Arm in arm with a companion in a city made for love, what could be better than that? New London was made for romance, though no one was thinking that when they founded Pequot Plantation in 1646. London, England is far away, a new London with a bigger heart is where lovers make their dreams come true. It is in Connecticut, The Land of Steady Habits, The Provision State, The Constitution State, the state flavored with nutmeg. Connecticut's Whaling City is a place that waxed fat and grew strong by trading in sperm.

A city of carnal pleasures and animal heat, a city of brotherly affection and camaraderie, a city of sororities and coffee klatches, a city of ad hoc organizations and fraternal clubhouses: New London, Conn. is a city where people get along with gusto. You have a friend in New London, Conn. You have a lover in New London, Conn. You have a match and a mate in New London, Conn. Your needs will be met, your hungers satisfied, your thirst will be slaked and your mother will be pleased you have found your place in the sun.

New London NOW

whaleheadking — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:37:11 GMT

BostonNOW was a free newspaper delivered to commuters taking mass transit, in Boston's case that would mean major bus depots and T (subway) stations. The paper was out for a year and was on the verge of making a profit. It was bankrolled by an Icelandic media company looking to branch out its holdings in its limited, if volcanic, home market.

The interesting thing about BostonNOW and what separated it from its competitors, was the use of blogs to gather content. There were no payments to writer or royalties, of course, but what made this scheme palatable, from the contributors point of view, was that snippets of blog entries were printed in hard copy and distributed to the reading public. Your humble narrator could look over someone's shoulder on the train and read what he had written the night before.

The newspaper had a built in audience of interested parties ready to take the paper and read the advertisements if only to see if they were published that day. The public was treated to street level observations that any regular newspaper couldn't afford to pay a beat reporter to cover. Good writers got a wider audience and BostonNOW archived every word of every article from which they swiped the content, and even those they didn't choose to print. It was a good deal all around.

No one will argue that New London has as many pairs of eyes or hands as Boston, but that doesn't mean the model cannot be aped and be successful on a smaller scale. We wish this endeavor good luck and godspeed. We are neither for nor against it. We play along, letting the chips fall where they may. We hope this will be a mutually profitable venture for all involved.

New London has a graveyard reserved for failed, free broadsides. The exception is THE SCOPE. This magazine has been around, off and on and on and off, for awhile, available wherever there is a flat surface to lay a few copies for serendipitous pick up. The publishers are dedicated to providing an alternative to what a reader can purchase for fifty cents. You can't put a price on originality. The editors sometimes shoot wide of the mark but at least they are shooting. We hope Zip06 provides a similar firing range without the fiscal investment.