Mark O'Connor (1)

review of
The Sky's the Limit: An Homage to Larry Walters
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 19, 2011

At one point I proposed the founding of a writer's association in my neighborhood called "P.H.E.W.": Polish Hill Elucubrating Writers. The idea was that we wd publish a compilation of our work. This idea never went anywhere & several of the people that I proposed it to moved away. THEN, my glorious neighbor Dr. Mark O'Connor proposed a similar project when he was sitting in our local show more coffee shop one day & he "realized there were enough writers and artists within earshot to create an interesting artist book." Voila! The Sky's the Limit: An Homage to Larry Walters was conceived.

I don't remember how the subject of Larry Walters' weather-balloon-&-lawnchair flight became the subject but it was no surprise that we all embraced it w/ enthusiasm! Unintentionally reckless (&, fortunately, wreckless) as Larry Walters' flight was, it's still a symbol of DIY flight that I've always had the greatest admiration for & I think all the contributors felt similarly.

There're 7 of these contributors: 5 writers & 2 artists. Isaac Bower provides a color collage as if from Walters' aloft perspective w/ components more symbolic & formal than realistic (despite the realism of the rendering) - done meticulously, as is Isaac's general way.

Karen Lillis provides "Guy Walks into a Bar circa April 1997, Hollywood" - something that reads like autobiography w/o necessarily being so. Whether it's based on actual experience of Karen or someone she knows isn't, however, probably as important as the way the background details become the foreground substance. (For a recent review of one of Karen's bks that I wrote see here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3043528-the-second-elizabeth)

Amy Catanzano's poem "Inspiration I" (named after Walters' vessel) is hand-written at the tops of interleaved pages of glassine - a translucent paper. The title appears before O'Connor's piece & the 6 pages of 2-lines-per-page are interspersed between O'Connor's pages & my own. The placement of her text is such that it appears superimposed over the blank areas at the top of Mark's & my pages. The 1st of these:

"rose. flight is a shorthand portal:
airship to airship, theory"

Mark O'Connor's "Everything is A-okay: the Morphology of an American Hero" is probably the most scholarly investigation into Walters - even though, as w/ the other writing, it's framed by personal recollection. O'Connor debunks, eg, the aesthetic, but misleading, choices of Walters' story as presented by the tv show Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed.

My own "Long Live Larry Lawnchair!" is written under the name of "Shayn Fargesn" - a Yiddish reference that will no doubt contribute even further to the substantial confusion & obscurity surrounding my vastly complicated output. The name is deliberately inappropriate given that my text is memorable. Such obscurantistic humor aside, I compare Walters' feat to various other roughly contemporaneous oddities - in particular the weather balloon assisted (successfully tethered) launching of Doug Retzler's 1st-born whilst he was, indeed, very freshly newborn.

Hyla Willis' collage conjoins the great Huey Newton seated, armed, in a wicker chair w/ athlete Tommie Smith's (&, by association, John Carlos's) gutsy 1968 Olympics Black Power salute as an evocation of Walters as an icon of the quest for freedom of humans in general - both politically & personally.

Finally, Tom[my Mac] (who definitely isn't a writer, by the by - but who can still write quite nicely) provides "that willing suspension" - another autobiographical story that the reader is likely to devour in titillated fervor waiting for the Walters tie-in that 'justifies' its inclusion here.. I leave you suspended..

O'Connor's particular joy in making this bk was in his using old weather balloons as the wrapper for the hard-cover. The feel is somewhat skin-like. The title's been neatly silkscreened on this. All in all, a lovingly done publication that's a fitting tribute to a symbol of the free spirit to everyone who's appreciative of such things. show less

A poem in ten stanzas describing a football match in a rural mountain community. Most of the poem is a vivid depiction of the varied spectators and their verbal participation in the game, rather than the match itself.

A poem in ten stanzas describing a football match in a rural mountain community. Most of the poem is a vivid depiction of the varied spectators and their verbal participation in the game, rather than the match itself.

A reflection on Collingwood’s drought breaking premiership win in 1990. Written by the poet while in Beijing it intermingles images of Beijing with recollections of Collingwood players past and present. One stanza of 32 lines.