How to Swim

TETCHY

Bloggers who post whatever goddamned cool books of poetry they've just acquired really tick me off. I mean me.

L-Tryptophan, Carbohydrates, and Fats

Drowsily I stumbled across these photomontages of Hanna Höch.

Launderette

I did laundry tonight. While my clothes were washing I ripped open the envelope I got today from Mike Topp (thanks, Mike) and laughed and laughed. It's not the sometimes focused, sometimes not, langpo I usually eat like a dog. Anyway.

Then I wandered over to the bulletin board, a heap of postings, next to the video game machines and spotted a flyer. For a writing course. So I tore off a tab:



If you do enroll, please, mention me.

Brian Henry is a great guy
and Brian Henry is everywhere.

Comrade: of course I worry about such material things.

take Action

"It smells like ghosts, it smells of slop flesh, it smells of placenta and uranium."

Things People Do in a Bookstore besides Buying Poetry

1. They leave clotted, used tissues anywhere and everywhere.
2. They tell you they're looking for a specific book.
3. They ask you if you have a bathroom.
4. They ask for directions.
5. They try to flirt with you, but you're online trying to read Ron Silliman's blog.
6. They ask you for Ron Silliman books.
   
7. They want to know if you can check on the computer to see whether you have a specific book.
8. They ask whether novels are arranged by author or title.
9. They leave clotted, used tissues anywhere and everywhere.
10. They ask for change.
    

They could've just cropped his head.

Linh Dinh

Here's the part where I impart the soothing restorative agency known as Linh Dinh, poet, short story writer, and translator. If your elbow sags to your desk, your chin to your hand, because your yawping maw knows already everything about him—good for you.

• Translations at Fascicle
• More here
• Poems, poems, poems, & poems
• An essay
• A questionnaire
• Linh's review of Apocalypse Now
• miPOradio (audio links)
• Linh Dinh whispering
• Tinfish
  
• Seven Stories
  
• Chax
  

Now back to our regularly scheduled program, The Jordan, Joshua ("Call Me Jane!") & Ange Show, already in progress.

NEW: Linh Dinh reading at Pegasus Books Downtown here!

To Bring You My (Secular) Love

Very happy indeed to pick up 0520239865. Ted's curiously fantastic. In the introduction his widow writes:

If there was a sequence ready, or a book in a unified style … certainly he would publish that. If he had a stack of dissimilar works or if he didn't even know what he had, he still set about the process of constructing a "book."

Probably would have been better written by somebody else.

Pat Robertson is disgraceful.

Good Poets Smothered by Circles' Cult Love

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Parthenon West Review Issue Three Release Celebration
at Pegasus Books Downtown, Berkeley

11/10/05

(ropinirole hydrochloride)

I saw a commercial on TV for Requip® so I asked my doctor about Restless Leg Syndrome. She told me it was a silly poem by a sillier poet named James Tate, a gateway poet to the harder stuff. Then she rummaged in the drawers of those equipment stands they have and looked me in the eye and handed me a brochure.

I didn't understand half of it.

Haven't felt happy the morning after an election in a while. Almost forgot what it feels like.

Éste es el poema que deseé
escribir en español,
pero era perezoso y tenso,
temblando en calcetines mojados
como padre.

⅓ of 3rd Leg

Shanna Compton & Jennifer Knox at Pegasus Books Downtown, Berkeley

11/06/05

Not for any reason.

The Polite Boys

The Polite Boys. There is no one who hasn't heard of them. They are the hottest musical group in the world. They have sold more records than Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Slim Whitman combined.

Howard Bernard, Daniel Casey, and John Eisenbeiser comprise the three-member group. Each comes from the middle-class suburbs of West Springfield, Massachusetts, a town they have put on the map. Howard Bernard leads the group and composes most of the group's material. Though many of his songs sound like shabby reworkings of old Beatle hits, they do show a definite lack of musical knowledge, imagination, and understanding. Howard's vocals are poor (if not wretched) and his flat, off-key renditions of syrupy Paul McCartney compositions disgust and sicken the listener.

Daniel Casey plays keyboards and is the other lead vocalist for the group. Daniel has had no musical training, and he confesses to play keyboards simply by ear. His random playing of notes and chords add much to the distinct sound of the group. Daniel's monotone vocals are a big favorite among prepubescent girls, who scream and shriek as his voice moans, drones, and groans. Occasionally Daniel will collaborate with Howard in the writing of the group's songs. Daniel helped pen such Polite Boys hits as "Oh Beverly," "When Your Out-of-Town Girlfriend Goes Away," and the immortal "Right-Wing Teenager."

John Eisenbeiser, the group's drummer, is its least talented member. His playing (like that of the other two) gives the impression that he has had no musical training. He has not. On the snare John produces a sound imitating that of machine gun fire. On the bass drum he achieves a sound closely resembling that of an explosion. His tom-toms are often used for the same effect, but more frequently they are simply kicked around on stage. The cymbals are smashed rarely, and then only out of frustration. Rumor has it that in the recording studio Howard overdubs John's drumming with playing of his own. John does no vocal work, except for shouting things in the background like "Run for cover!" and mimicking the sound of diving airplanes.

The question of everyone's lips is, why? Why are The Polite Boys so popular?

Apparently somebody's stolen a copy of Linh Dinh's new book. Perhaps hoping it would be his salvation. Or photographs of the Suicide Girls.

Apparently it's cool now to refer to other poet-bloggers by their first names. And Mildred has a laugh about this. And Clevis weeps.