"As has been reported, we had staff cuts at LiveJournal Inc. this week. Early media reports seriously exaggerated the impact of the decision on the continued existence of LiveJournal as a company and misrepresented the scope of the staff cuts. The cuts were part of a restructuring that shifted global design and product development to the LiveJournal office in Moscow. Product decisions for the English-language site will still be made in the U.S., and LiveJournal Inc. remains headquartered in San Francisco…

The restructuring is done with an eye to the future to ensure the long-term viability of LiveJournal as a business. As a team, we know that LJ has a great future as it prepares for its second decade. We recently invested a considerable amount on all-new server equipment and a facility in Montana to house it all as part of our commitment to the longevity of LJ. We will be around for years to come and we’re committed to ensuring that your journals, friends pages, and communities will be, too.

As with any of these kinds of decisions, it’s always hardest to lose valued team members. We’re very sad to see our colleagues go and want to acknowledge all the hard work, dedication, and love they’ve given LiveJournal over the years. They will be missed. While they are no longer a part of LiveJournal Inc., they are still a part of the LJ community."

Well, I feel better now.

So I guess that placeholder "Dark Matter" blog I set up in case I have to migrate was all for naught, eh?  (WordPress, for those who care.  Nothing there now; don’t bother looking.  Just set up the account when I was paranoid about the potential for an LJ shutdown. All that work getting ready to migrate just in case — no reason to be worried!  Whew!  Glad THAT’s not gonna happen.)

Another storm coming in this weekend…we’re having a heck of a winter so far, oh boy…

OK, here’s the deal.

Duende has a gig on April 25 in Richmond, VA.  I’ll be doing a workshop in the afternoon, we’re performing at the slam that night, a Saturday.

I’d love to find us a gig for Friday night, somewhere very roughly halfway between Worcester and Richmond, so we don’t have to do the marathon drive with equipment from here to there at a godawful hour of the AM for one show.  It would be good to maximize earnings against expense, y’know?

Anyone got any thoughts or contacts in the general area of South Jersey, Delaware, Philly, etc., for a Friday night gig?  It would be most appreciated.  Even NYC would be OK as an outside possibility…anything to cut a long drive down a bit.

Thanks!

Woman burned to death in Papua New Guinea on suspicion of being a witch.

Thank God nothing like that happens here, right?  Only in those benighted countries overseas…and in Florida…

Teacher accused of wizardry let go from job.  I remembered seeing the story when it came out and looked it up.

I especially love the last line of the story…"Wizardry was only one of the reasons he was let go."  There was that pesky rumor about necromancy, too.  I bet he was also a terrorist…maybe even one of those homosexuals.

I know, I know — old news, right?  I mean, it was back in May…we’re much more enlightened now. 

1.
Tonight at GotPoetry Live, Morris Stegosaurus (who is sitting on my couch as we speak) will be our feature!  Come down and bask in the poetic goodness at Blue State Coffee, 300 Thayer Street, Providence, RI from 7:30 (sign up) to 10.

2.
My poem "Carve" will be appearing in the Winter 2009 issue of Ballard Street Poetry Journal.  Yay!

3.
And, in the "the irony is not lost on me" category…this guy, this one, the one who proclaims the death of traditional publishing on a regular basis, has had a poetry manuscript accepted for publication from Pudding House Press. 

Yup. 

Over and out.

where my poem “Chrysler” is the current featured podcast, along with some wonderful words from our favorite pusher of the soundfiles, mongobear. Thanks, man.

It’s here: http://www.indiefeedpp.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=416834

In addition, the article I posted on Gotpoetry.com regarding the current state of slam is mentioned in the podcast, and there’s some good discussion going on right now regarding the whole issue of persona and personal testimony in poems. Jeff Stumpo, in particular, has some great thought on it all, and also has some thoughts on the topic in his own Indiefeed podcast, which you can access here:

http://www.indiefeedpp.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=346455

Love to have you check it all out. The article, again, is here:

http://www.gotpoetry.com/News/article/sid=23988.html

The event started out well; a good dinner followed by early crashing on the couch, not a drop of alcohol to drink, and a dramatic waking up at 3 AM vomiting session caused by a massive migraine for me.

Today is all about taking it easy and recovering.

Here’s to hoping that 2009 is not presaged by the events of the Last Evening, and more by the spirit of the First Day.

Back to vegging.

Yup…if you weren’t there, you missed a good night of poetry indeed down in Providence…all kinds of cool stuff, including blues harp, the filthiest haiku of all time as Christian attempted to meet Max the barista’s challenge to “murder his mind,” and some damn fine debut work from Mr. Drake. Sending the old year out in style…

Continue on with us next week as we welcome the master of what-the-fuck-did-he-just-say (and I mean that in a totally positive way) himself, Morris Stegosaurus, to the GotPoetry Live Stage!

http://www.countercurrents.org/arrigoni291208.htm

And it seems fitting to repost this, a poem from long ago that’s appeared in a few anthologies and such.

POLITICAL ART

a print of “Guernica” hangs on the foyer wall
above the drink table
here are the famous horse and the upraised human face
they’re screaming as the hors d’oeuvres are passed

and on the facing wall
behind the buffet
hang two photographs
carefully chosen for tonight

in this one is a girl we have seen before
running and burning on a road in Vietnam years and years ago
back then she was trying to fly to safety
on the innocent strength rising along her fiery arms

in this one is a man we’ve also seen before
and despite his death in 1890 he also keeps trying
but he’s frozen awkward and insolent in his attempt
to rise from the snow at Wounded Knee

we are making small talk tonight
clicking our tongues at all these pictures
making crestfallen small talk
because we know we should

handing over money
to save Afghani statues from the guns of rapists
handing over fistfuls of green guilt
for the anesthetic of aesthetics

buying permission to posture unflinching
before those who have fallen
permission to shelter in these picturesque memorials
in the hope of receiving from them some kind of prophylactic grace

as we stare at the burning girl
as we sadly regret Wounded Knee and genocide
as we admire the abstraction of that burning Spanish town
we will click our tongues

while marking the skill of the artist at having those faces
seem so stark in their angled black and white
seem so shot through and through
with an undertone of subconscious red

it’s from this we’ve learned how to watch the news
the news that gives us each day our daily dread
a new crop of victims to be cropped and photoshopped
and we know just what to do when we see the faces

we observe
we regret
we remark
we move on

tonight there’s a gallery fundraiser
tomorrow there will be another
we’ll see the burning girl and the rising corpse again
and we’ll make another print of “Guernica”

why
do we need
all these prints
of “Guernica”?

someday we’ll see
that if we had been changed by all this art
at the first hint of genocide we would smash our cameras
hang our paintbrushes back on the wall

stick our checkbooks back in our pockets
lift the paintings from their frames
and carry them through the streets
to the places of power calling why

why

if the people inside our work could speak
they would tell us that if witness alone could change the world
the world would be changed by now
and we would have no need to learn

that this picture
of that girl
is not
beautiful