Jim Carroll - “A Day At The Races” (Live)
Praying Mantis, 1991
Obviously I meant to post this four days ago after Jim Carroll’s death, but time got the better of me. I read “The Basketball Diaries” when I was fifteen after seeing the movie of the same name and quickly fell in love w/Carroll’s prose and poetry. Thanks to books like “Living at the Movies” and “Fear of Dreaming” I was inspired to scribble endless pages of mostly clumsy and ham-fisted poetry (not b/c his poetry is clumsy and ham-fisted, but b/c, you know, there are only so many things I can be amazing at) in countless notebooks throughout my high school and college years.
“A Day At The Races” is my favorite story from “Forced Entries,” his book of journal entries that serves as a follow-up to “The Basketball Diaries.” This album of readings was recorded live at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, NYC. My copy of it was given to me in college as a gift from a girl who, looking back on it, I now realize had a very unrequited crush on me. Hopefully she wrote some clumsy, ham-fisted poetry about me.
3 months ago • 2 notes
