EYEBALL HATRED
30 November 2006
Likes: Cinephrastics by Kathleen Ossip.
I dug Bob Perelman. I don't care for academic introductions—that tell you what and how, as if you're a highly evolved sentient being with a big vocabulary who's never conceptualized a poem before, or read one—but Jasper Bernes's introduction was quite good.
Through this and that, I got home hella late.
29 November 2006
public service announcement
For anyone left who hadn't known about UBUWEB and/or hasn't learnt they've recently converted all of their rare and out-of-print film and video holdings to on-demand streaming formats.
28 November 2006
More from the arcane world of language: it's a civil war.
27 November 2006
I'm opening a Quiznos franchise.
I'll hire Cliff Richard.
I don't care if he actually does
anything, just greets people.
He's got a good smile, great teeth.
I hope he won't do any singing.
Maybe a little singing.
If his singing helps sell
more subs, he can sing.
This isn't a poem, because if this
is a poem, poems are too damned easy.
I'm canceling my subscription.
OK, we're all nodding.
Here's a lapdog.
26 November 2006
As you're getting wet, as you're staying dry, as you're shivering, as you're taking off more clothes, as you're reading online personals, as you're shopping on ebay, as you're reading the tea leaves of Diana Urban and rethinking your vow to never return to Connecticut, as the dog yowls, as the pining we all know for World War II and mostly hide gets louder, as i've thrown out my shoes, as your giggle, as I cannot hiccup again, as I'm Brylcreem, as you're moving furniture, as your toes supposed, as a red pair of nylons loses its cool and chases you down the hall, as these days remember: the egg jumps.
25 November 2006
24 November 2006
23 November 2006
THANKS from BlaZeVOX.
22 November 2006
21 November 2006
More clear sentences at {lime tree}, hardly surprisingly.
I try to forget everything about American Modernism.
20 November 2006
If you click your Refresh bauble persistently, you will eventually see Daniel Nester's shiny forehead.
19 November 2006
The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association emailed its members Friday to suggest, should members have any qualms about selling OJ Simpson's book, that they donate their profits from the book to battered women's or domestic violence charities.
"It's a form of protest," says NCIBA spokesperson Hut Landon, "but it's a more positive thing than saying we're not going to sell the book period."
How is that exactly? Still be shills for the publisher— just don't profit from your time and energy and investment. After all, independent bookstores are making scads of money all the time anyway, from every dollar they spend and every hour they work. It's not for them to do anything like curating.
Hut Landon has his head up his ass.
Borders will carry it, but they say they're giving profits to charity, too. This is very dignified, and I'm sure they probably thought of this first. Don't doubt Borders' accountants will calculate all their attendant labor costs, etc.
Barnes & Noble is selling it and keeping the money, thank you very much. That is, they're not saying anything ridiculous about giving any money away. Barnes & Noble says they'll carry it just as they "do every book in print," which is a fucking fantasy, in case you haven't noticed.
I probably won't be able to restock any new poetry titles in the coming weeks, as I'll be busy assuaging anxieties and calling agencies, employing Hut's delicate plan. It would be wrong of us, not "positive" enough, to simply not stock it.
I'm fuming, forgive me.
UPDATE: THE PEOPLE COUNT FOR SOMETHING
The book and tv interview have been canceled.
18 November 2006
CROWD 7
John Ashbery Jeffrey Brown Joshua Edwards Melissa Ginsburg Matthea Harvey Garrett Kalleberg Brian Leung Sandra Miller Jennifer Moxley Alice Notley Michael Palmer Elizabeth Robinson The Royal Art Lodge Andrew Seguin Susan Stewart Deb Olin Unferth John Yau Kostas Anagnopoulos Mary Jo Bang Alan DeNiro Graham Foust John Hankiewicz Claire Hero Ben Lerner Susan Maxwell Ange Milko Daniel Nohejl Geoffrey Nutter Deborah Wardlaw Patillo Matthew Rohrer Thaddeus Rutkowski James Shea Lynne Tillman Terence Winch
DISAPPEARING (wherefore, I dunno).
17 November 2006
16 November 2006
I had a nightmare last night about Leo Strauss. When I woke up this morning and lernt Milton Friedman had died, I scrunched to the floor like a poisoned bug and called my manservant, who was already down on the floor with me, reading Richard Powers.
The Andrews-O'Reilly thing is now on YouTube. There is really nothing to say about Bill O'Reilly.
15 November 2006
MACKEY DEFEATS McMICHAEL, HIX, LERNER & GLÜCK. ABIZAID SPEAKS AGAINST A FIRM GELATIN. MURTHA DEFENDS HIS ELASTIC. EMMITT SMITH HAS BEEN ON TV AND YOU HAVEN'T.
14 November 2006
The Power of Nightmares
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
Be it bonnily noted and warned before: This is excellent, but it's three hours.
13 November 2006
12 November 2006
Silliman links to my local paper, which is news to me. The reading last night was lightly astounding, and there were many humans in attendance. Ben Lerner Matthew Zapruder Rite Spot
Meanwhile, there are intentions or stated intentions. There is that-was and this-now. Here is a this-now moment, our new days of hard blowing.
11 November 2006
10 November 2006
I worked hella late
An acquaintance I've known for a number of years told me tonight very plainly and modestly but seriously that he was in fact the son of god.
(Actually, he put it in a kind of "I am he" fashion, but that's just rhetoric, the details.)
I'd never suspected.
I knew he had a temper. He asked me for money constantly, miserably, promising to pay it back, etc.
I hopped on the bus, and I was off. He'd said his mission was to make sure I reached a higher level. I don't know if he meant Curtis Mayfield singing with the Impressions higher level, or some other kind of higher level. I know I sometimes feel like life is passing me by, and nobody notices. He did tell me to take a moment (this as I was running to my bus) to read a few verses in a Gideon's bible, if I had one or come upon one.
I was raised Catholic, and even though I'm an atheist, there's no way I'm reading a Gideon's bible, for fuck's sake.
09 November 2006
Poets Anna Moschovakis and Elizabeth Treadwell were superb tonight. I was lightly confounded a larger throng did not show up—particularly as we'd already sold almost twice as many copies of Anna's I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone as we have of Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. Then again, I am easily confounded. Then again, the throngette was warm and merry. As an oftener reading-misser than
-maker I have to understand. Indeed I do so well I live with chagrin, a small chagrin, but it takes up half my bedspace. I don't want to complain, but I am in constant agony.
If you missed it, you did.
tonight:
ANNA MOSCHOVAKIS
ELIZABETH TREADWELL
I already thought about it. There's no reason to miss it.
RATTLE, newly electronically (pdf).
08 November 2006
456 BERGEN ST., BROOKLYN
ADAM'S ANNOUNCEMENT:
Dear Ones:
Now that Adam's Books has been open awhile, and opening wider each day, the time has come to celebrate. For example, this Sunday, November 12: THE ADAM'S BOOKS GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION PARTY.
If you haven't visited the store recently, you might be surprised at how grand it has become. The shelves are full. The books are sorted and alphabetized. There are soft, comfortable chairs. There are more and better and grander books than ever before.
So: SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12: all afternoon and evening, from 12 to 10 pm, the GRAND OPENING party to celebrate ADAM'S BOOKS. There will be balloons.
Also: short readings by several of the neighborhood's finest writers. (See below for schedule.)
You can dance if you want to. This will be a party.
ADAM'S BOOKS is located at 456 Bergen St., between 5th Avenue and Flatbush.
That's north Park Slope, Brooklyn, just around the corner from the Atlantic Yards landgrab.
Steps from the 2,3 Bergen St. subway; a short walk from the MNQBRW2345 Atlantic Ave subway hub.
***
12 pm – 3 pm: COFFEE & MUFFINS
***
12:00 – 1:00 : Rick Pernod, Andrea Baker, Bronwen Tate
1:00 – 2:00 : Jenn Guitart, Tisa Bryant, Lynn Xu, Sueyuen Juliette Lee
2:00 – 3:00 : Christopher Myers, Erika Howsare, Jackie Delamatre
***
3 pm – 6 pm: BEER & PRETZELS
***
3:00 – 4:00 : Will Hubbard, Jess DeCourcy Hinds, Amber West, Brian Kim Stefans
4:00 – 5:00 : Eve Packer, Holly Tavel, Fred Schmalz
5:00 – 6:00 : Mac Wellman, Erin Courtney, Scott Adkins, Jonathan Ceniceroz
***
6 pm – 10 pm: WINE & CHEESE
***
6:00 – 7:00 : Anika Haynes, Gareth Lee, Brenda Iijima
7:00 – 8:00 : Luisa Giugliano, Jennifer Hayashida, Christopher Stackhouse
8:00 – 9:00 : Bonnie Emerick, Amy King, Adam Tobin
07 November 2006
I'm having some weird AirPort issues—I am connected and I am strong but I am not—so I'm piggybacking on somebody 10 blocks away.
This is troubling, because I have only the cat to ask about it, and the cat doesn't know.
06 November 2006
Labels: died
05 November 2006