This post is just a reminder to me to go to this.

Saturday, February 9, 6 pm
Ana Bozicevic-Bowling, Justin Marks and Ravi Shankar
Ada Books
330 Dean Street
Providence

Justin Marks does this, and Ana Bozicevic-Bowling just released this. -

Here is a nice poem from Octopus Magazine -


RHODE ISLAND

From water and wood



you build on the jetty

a shrine, and place



1 an acorn

2 a button



on the salt-worn planks.



(O traveler. Grey star.



From your hat, when you upend it,

your small family upturn their faces.)



And morningly

nebulae, red-throated

waterbirds,

typestrokes of

fish



visit the shrine



(to view the film

of a coat, departing.)

Fuckin A part 2

Holy shit. I'm got a piece accepted in EYESHOT. I wrote it this morning and sent it out today.

Wrote this for the Bostonist today. I met Chad's wife at the Showgirls viewing on Friday and my friend Michael broke out a copy. I read two poems and was floored. I was further pummeled by the drawings within. I make it sound like black metal. Brutal! Hopefully it will sell some copies.

Fuckin A

Blake Butler has agreed to take two of poems for his Lamination Colony. That is good good news, for a couple of reasons. 1.) I really like Lamination Colony. 2.) A lot of writers I like have been published there. 3.) One of the pieces I wrote yesterday. Therefore this trip has been worthwhile. 4.) Blake Butler is awesome. I read his blog everyday I can. I like his opinions. Mostly because he can back his shit up with his writing. He is probably one of the most prolific writers out there right now. He's everywhere. And for a good reason. I don't know how does it, but he has my admiration.

An excerpt from Russell Banks' new book, the Reserve over at Conjuctions, I enjoyed this book, to say nothing about it at all. It was classic.

If I weren't in a cage match with my mind here in New Hampshire I'd make my way down to be at this thing.

Steal This Reading:
a Brooklyn Book Burning
w/

C.D. Wright, Eleni Sikelianos, Graham Foust, Joyelle McSweeney, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Julie Doxsee, Max Winter, Adam Clay, Zachary Schomburg, Morgan Lucas Schuldt, Lily Brown, Rauan Klassnik, Cindy Savett, Jon Thompson, Melanie Hubbard

hosted by Black Ocean, Cannibal Books, Free Verse Editions, Kitchen Press, Octopus, Tarpaulin Sky Press & Typo.

Thursday, January 31st
Doors 7 PM, $6 =Admission + Two Drinks
East Coast Aliens
216 Franklin Street

THAT is a line up of temptation. Damn you temptation.

I am in New Hampshire. I am in a "cabin" by myself. The "cabin" is actually a large house on a lake. Its very luxurious and wooden. I ate cheese with bread. Later I made myself coffee and steak w/ cous cous. Then I drank red wine and watched the The Third Man. It part of the Welles education. That movie doesnt really belong to Welles though, it belongs to novelist Graham Greene who wrote the script. I'm surprised myself it took me as long as it did to see this movie. It had an odd feel. It had a noirish storyline and look, with deep shadows and light, but the score was this lighthearted Eastern European guitar medley that was. It was incessant and through off the feel of the film. I didnt enjoy it really, but it did mess with mye expectation.
Death seemed just as lighthearted as anything. Made it into a simple game of cops and robbers, but the consequences of the film are heavy, devastating. Its easy to see why Truffaut and the French New Wave picked up on this.
The most intriguing thing about the movie other than Welles' desperate and cocky performance was the final shot - a very long shot that I have never seen in an American film from that period. It was stark and beautiful and had guts.You don't see guts much these days. Unless it's "There Will Be Blood"

Mostly though I wrote. I wrote and read. I read from this

And this

And this
/>

Mostly though I didnt read. I wrote. Which is why I am up here. Hopefully I can do the same today.

Charles Simic reads tonight at the JFK library back in Boston. It is free and with Robert Pinsky. I would like to see Simic read, but not in a cavern. I dont hear his words that way. And I do not want to have to sit through Pinksy.

The new issue of Quick Fiction is now available. My piece The Road is featured in it, along with Blake Butler, Kim Chinquee, and musician John Vanderslice. I'm not really wild about the version I submitted of The Road. I've since made it better. But I'm glad its in print nonetheless. I like short fiction.

Yesterday was my birthday. I drank copious amounts of Spanish Wine. I ate a lamb pop. I ate an eggplant. I laughed a whole lot and I paid for nothing. We talked about Zeppelins and the future was only was only so far as this Friday when we watch Showgirls at Michael's house. I somehow avoided a hangover. It couldn't have been a whole lot better. While pictures pend, enjoy these airships. I know I will.

I've started writing for the Bostonist. The plan is build a literature column, but the more I read about Orson Wells and Zeppelins the more I want to write about Orson Welles and Zeppelins. This morning I imagined Orson Welles over Allston, throwing Super Mario-like bombs from a silver Zeppelin. He had red eyes and sharks teeth and his laugh was like that of the dark angel's trumpet.

You know what I'm talking about.


Anyway, here is the first post.


My birthday is tomorrow. Send me cases of Campo Viejo.

Friday Celebration of Eight Day Freedom, Part I.

An Exhibition of Art by Writers
15 December 2007 through 27 January 2008
Opening Reception: December 15th, 6-10pm
Closing Reception: January 18th, 6-9pm


Pierre Menard is pleased to announce our next exhibition, a show of visual art by writers, mounted in conjunction with the publication of the new book on the subject, The Writer's Brush, written by Donald Friedman.

The first leg of the show took place in New York in September and October at Anita Shapolsky Gallery, and this incarnation is an expanded version of that event. Our show will open, with reception, on the 15th of December and run through the 15th of January. The Writer's Brush will then travel to Los Angeles in mid-February to be displayed at Denenberg Fine Arts.

The Writer's Brush features work by more than 120 writers, including:


Walter Abish, Rafael Alberti, Roberta Allen, A.R. Ammons, John Ashbery, Enid Bagnold, Amiri Baraka, Djuna Barnes, Mary Beach, Andrei Bely, Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Elizabeth Bishop, Star Black, Jorge Louis Borges, Breyten Breytenbach, Joseph Brodsky, Charles Bukowski, Gelett Burgess, David Burliuk, William Burroughs, Josef Capek, R.V. Cassill, G.K. Chesterton, Tom Clark, Daniel Clowes, Jean Cocteau, Norma Cole, Douglas Coupland, Morris Cox, Jim Crace, E.E. Cummings, Annie Dillard, J.P. Donleavy, John Dos Passos, Rikki Ducornet, Robert Duncan, Lawrence Durrell, Russell Edson, David Eggers, Kenward Elmslie, Mary Fabelli, Jules Feiffer, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jacopo Fijman, Charles Henri Ford, Federico Garcia Lorca, Kahlil Gibran, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Allen Ginsberg, Louise Gluck, Guenter Grass, Alasdair Gray, Nicolai Gumilov, Alan Gurganus, Brion Gysin, Donald Harrington, Hermann Hesse, Jack Hirschman, Susan Howe, Georges Hugnet, Victor Hugo, Aldous Huxley, Tama Janowitz, Charles Johnson, Donald Justice, Anna Kavan, Weldon Kees, Robert Kelly, Jack Kerouac, Maxine Hong Kingston, Bill Knott, Richard Kostelanetz, Alfred Kubin, D.H. Lawrence, Jonathan Lethem, Wyndham Lewis, Pierre Louys, Mina Loy, Lucebert, Clarence Major, Gerard Malanga, Andre Malraux, Robert Marshall, Leonard Michaels, Henri Michaux, Henry Miller, Susan Minot, Bradford Morrow, Walter Mosley, Vladimir Nabokov, Hugh Nissensen, Clifford Odets, Fernando del Paso, Kenneth Patchen, Mervyn Peake, Claude Pellieu, Francisco Picabia, Alexandra Pizarnik, Sylvia Plath, Beatrix Potter, Annie Proulx, James Purdy, Alexei Remizov, Kenneth Rexroth, Maclaren Ross, Peter Sacks, William Saroyan, Mira Schor, Maurice Sendak, Charles Simic, Patti Smith, William Jay Smith, Iris Smyles, Ralph Steadman, Mark Strand, Aldo Tambellini, Igor Terentiev, Cecilia Thaxter, Ruthven Todd, Frederic Tuten, Josef Vachal, Cecilia Vicuna, Tino Villanuevo, Kurt Vonnegut, Janwillwem van de Wetering, Derek Walcott, Keith Waldrop, Rosanna Warren, Lewis Warsh, Denton Welch, Marjorie Welish, Richard Wilbur, Tennessee Williams, Gahan Wilson, Stanislaw Witkiewicz, Unica Zuern

I emboldened the ones I'm excited about.

Friday Celebration of Eight Day Freedom, Part II.

The other day Emily showed be how she prints her etchings. Its about time I knew what she was talking about. We made prints of hares in hay. I may try to do some soon. A series of Zeppelins. Her studio is in her parents basement, which is a wood pannelled rec room. I want to live in all wood pannelling with heavy green shag carpeting.

Last night was the Redivider Magazine reading. Peter Shippy read the first chapter from his new book. It was something. A funny something. He is a helluva reader, one to emulate. I'd like someone to commission a recording of How to Build a Ghost in Your Attic in full. Will definately go see him again if possible.

Today Scientists Successfully Cloned a Human Baby

Hey buddy.


Now I have to start carrying a dog whistle to keep away the clones. Remember! They can't stand high pitched sounds.

I'm gonna be a dick and post a link to a leaked copy of the new Destroyer record, Trouble in Dreams, because Dan Bejar makes things better. Too bad I can't download a copy of his style, cuz it's the best.



Listening to Tortoise a lot. This record has lived with me for a long time. Bass and vibes.

I was bummed this morning when I got a rejection from a magazine I was hoping to get into on this round. BUT! When I came in this morning I got an acceptance note from Thieves Jargon for my poem, The Tap, which I previously posted here. Flippin' awesome.

Airships Disappear into a Black Hole.....

I've been thinking about Zeppelin's lately. What a magnificent thing. Imagine being a seagull circling an airship like that. Imagine a bright blue day somewhere in New Jersey and while hanging your laundry on the line this silver sky beast slowly passes by. I think I'm going to do some research on Zeppelins and write a series of poems about them.



Tonight, Charles Burns visits my store to celebrate the paperback of his evil opus, Black Hole. Thats very exciting. When I first read Black Hole,I believed the ink had soaked into my mind and perverted me. I started hallucinating. I saw deformities in people faces as I walked down the street. Another true story. Maybe Black Hole is an awakening to the mutations that are right before us. Heavy, man.

True Story

It was the second time I worked at an ice cream shoppe. Four cream jockeys navigated in a crowded space the size of a dumb waiter closet. I was rushing around, serving up a cone of a flavor called Heaven to a lunchtime business man. I gave him the cone and his face deflated like a balloon. He held the cone away from him like it was a live animal and said,

Excuse me, but there is blood in my ice cream.

I had cut my hand on the metal ice cream casing and was dripping my plasma all over the Heaven. It was kind of awesome.

In related news.....


Daniel Olszewska has a blog called Bloody Ice Cream. She has a new book out on Dancing Girl press. I'm going to read the fuck out of it. You should too.

I have a vacation coming up. Eight or nine days. I was going to go to Los Angeles, but now I'm not going to Los Angeles. I may go up to New Hampshire to Emily's cabin and hermit out. Off the grid. I could write. I should write. I could conduct cooking experiments. I could play Solitaire. I could watch Orson Welles movies. Read.

Please leave your suggestions in the box.

Last night Jami Attenberg read. She has a new book out called, The Kept Man. Ryan from Hallelujah the Hills sang four songs from the podium. The new face of Podium Rock. Listen to the song "Wave Backwards at Massachusetts." It's the perfect anthem, and fits in nicely along other good songs about Massachusetts such as Roadrunner by The Modern Lovers and Massachusetts by The Bee Gee's. Ryan also makes the best flyers. Here is one from a reading last April I put together.


And here's another -
Also last night we had piles of cupcakes. The aggresively named Kickass Cupcakes gave us over $100 clams worth of baked love. Marvelous Mojhito, Peanut Butter Tears, Chocolate Fun - all the heads ate them up. I like Jami. She's a friend. She wrote me a college recommendation.



I received a copy of James Tate's new book, The Ghost Soldiers. Further curious wanderings decorated in dialog. A longer review is pending, but it's really great so far.

Tonight is the annual preemptive birthday dinner with parents. We will be eating the French. I will be enjoying oysters drenched in brine.

Coercion

He awoke into a conversation about inoculate trees.
She stood narrating at the bay window, prosthetic ankle
peaking out from under her blue dress. He felt something
adhere in his hair, stuck his hand in, found the mint
she'd left pressed in his pillow the night before.

"I'm always the last one to find out," he said.

"I feel like you're never around," she said. "When I'm
at work, you're never there. When I'm at the dentist,
where are you? I can't keep my eye on you."

He wasn't sure how long this had been going on or how
long it would continue. "What are you trying to tell me?"
he said. She turned toward him, marred. Her head resembled
a ruby grapefruit when she spit in his eye.

Vibrations in Reverse

the emerald
awning, that's where
you'll find Jules

Anti-semitic sunset,
a typical fire, caressing
the thing in me

that cracks at the sound of
suitcases on wheels.
My philanthropy

will be remembered
as the hours
between seven and nine

when we wore
coats of llama leather,
saw semiotics in the sun.

Invasion

My new screensaver, which I call Aviarian Standoff.

When Orson Welles says Macadamian Nut, It Scares my Daschund.

I have been thinking a lot about Orson Welles lately. When I sit in front of the computer screen and startle myself only when the drool from my chin drops on my shoe, I think 'If Orson Welles was here, he would have none of this.' And it's probably true. He would have ordered and devoured 3 steaks, produced a play, wrote an article on public drinking fountains and race, and envisioned fourteen movies while pissing, eight of which would have been pretty good.

There should be more men like Orson Welles. A golden touch of unsatisfied lust in ventures great and small, he was an artistic tyrant. If they exist, they are hiding in low wage jobs, bullied by love and the internet.

DC on the Slow Move

A great long and thoughtful interview with David Berman on Pitchfork today. He sounds focussed. No plans for poetry, but the way he describes the lyrics for the new album makes it sound like a short story collection. Here is a great quote.

"Sometimes I notice that people nowadays seem to build their own context, whatever they want it to be. I see someone like Devendra Banhart, and to me it's fascinating that he's able to create a context in which the scene in Animal House where the folk singer's bashed over the head with a guitar never happened. In his context, not all of America saw that movie, laughed, and agreed that folk music was annoying"

I'm Getting Back to Getting Back Into You.

The Art of Drag City

Ever since I was young I've revered Drag City records. To this day they are still the most consistent record label for quality sounds. Their aesthetic I believe to be unmatched. To me they are a mysterious island operation. What lends itself further to their mystique are some of the fantastic album covers that have graced their releases over the years. Aethetically I feel they are just as unified and indicative of the enclosed sounds as anything. Below are a few of my favorites, the artists unaccredited as its not indicated on the website. Visit Drag City.