The setlists from the tour so far are KILLING ME.

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/live/2007setlists.html#20071009

Dude: “Thundercrack.” “Incident on 57th Street.” “For You.”

WTF?????????

Can’t wait. CANNOT WAIT.

Thanks again, drgeorge.

will be away for a couple of days on work assignment. minimal contact here. if you’ve ordered a book. it’ll go out later this week. sorry for the delay.

i have an important appointment tomorrow before i go — please, i don’t like to ask, but good thoughts would be helpful here. thanks.

Hey gang…hope you can help me out. I’m trying to locate a poem for someone, and I can’t for the life of me find it in any of my anthologies that are close at hand. Anyone know it, and where I might find it online?

It’s a piece about multiculturalism and people’s perceptions of race. I believe it’s by a woman of Mediterranean background, but I could be wrong about that; it’s a series of accounts of her various encounters with people who are trying to peg her and can’t.

The last section goes something like this:

She looked at me and asked,
are you the colonizer
or the colonized?

You could be either,
she replied.

Anyone got a clue? I thank you a lot.

There are a lot of delusional people in the world. I think sometimes that I know most of them. Then, I realize who’s thinking that.

On a more serious note: fuck all hipsters.

I’m a fan, so this is excellent if a little overdue. “The Golden Notebook” is a favorite of mine.

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Thursday, October 11, 2007 — 7:14 AM ET
—–

Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

The Swedish Academy said that the 87-year-old British author
“has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny” with
“skepticism, fire and visionary power.”

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

in that I got a good night’s sleep and just had a cup of good strong tea and a bowl of oatmeal.

So this is what normal people do. Interesting…not sure I’m in favor, exactly, but I do dimly remember this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have a couple of poetic irons in the fire — don’t want to say too much right now, but if you keep a good thought out there for me, especially on one of them, I’d be much obliged.

One is a fait accompli of which I’m unjustly proud that I hope to be able to mention in a day or so; the other, much larger one, will take a while, I think, to come to fruition.

I know — not much to go on, but I do have a few superstitions, and not talking about good stuff too early is one of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just cut a long section of this post that I’d posted earlier because I realized that I’d just written a Zero Point Zero column. You can read it over at Gotpoetry.com.

 
The Zero Point Zero Regular Column!

Very much more than Nothing!

This was a fantastic night — LOVED what came of this, especially for the first time.

Faro’s committed to being here for them as often as possible. He rocked the place tonight, and is really becoming adept at catching what people are doing in their poems and filling in behind them beautifully.

Guess what? We’re going to make it a monthly event…so you’ve got until November 27 to get your stuff cooked and ready to rock.

Bring instruments! (We coulda used some percussion tonight, for instance…) Bring your own musicianship!

This is what we want out of this reading: energy and joy and fun and chances and risks!!! It was all there for the taking tonight…

The Schedule for the next few weeks:

October 16: Melissa Guillet
October 23: Laura Moran
October 30: The Klute

November starts the new format:

November 6: New Poem night — new to you or new to us, but NOT the stuff you’ve read before
November 13: Theme night — bring at least one poem to the reading that connects, somehow, to the word “ring” (your interpretation)
November 20: Feature TBA
November 27: Poetry w/Music night

Come!!! Come!!!

I referred to this briefly last week, but I’m going to reiterate it now for the locals:

We’re really trying to bring the Gotpoetry Live reading to a new level, and it’s kind of do or die for us — John and Ryk and I are reaching a point of frustration with the event because we feel it’s stagnating, and are actively looking at the next few months to determine its future — as in, we may close it down. I think October and November’s results will tell all.

If you can find it in your schedules to be there sometime over the next few weeks we’d appreciate it. Even occasional appearances would be good. We miss the variety of voices and the joy of your presence. That’s not designed to be flattery; it’s the truth.

This week we’ve got poetry + music night, next week is Melissa Guillet, then comes Laura Moran and The Klute.

November sees a new format, with a feature only once a month — I’ll post it in the next day or two.

Please come, if not tonight, then when you can. Thanks.

if you’re interested in purchasing either the new Duende CD/chapbook “Americanized,” or the first CD/book “Jim’s Fall,” drop me a comment here with email address and I’ll send you info for the exchange of monies and good product. All replies screened, of course…

There are currently limited numbers of “Jim’s Fall” left — will be printing and burning more.

Both CD/Book sets are 12 bucks, which includes shipping. I can do Paypal as well as good old checks, cash, and money orders.

thanks.

Tonight at Gotpoetry Live we’ve got a special night — no feature, but a night where there will be musicians available to play with you on your poetry if you wish.

Faro’s coming in with bass, I’ll have guitar and amp, and if you’ve got your own stuff bring it.

Start time is 7:30 sharp. 2.00 cover.

Reflections Cafe, 8 Governor St, Providence, RI.

I got a decent night’s sleep last night, so being up this early isn’t about insomnia for a change…

Saturday night’s show was really, really wonderful. Faro and I ran through the set at his house before heading into town — a fairly ragged runthrough, but I knew we’d be OK. Got into Providence where dealing with the lack of parking made me crazy enough to be on edge right up to showtime.

On the bill:

Night started with a magicican named Kai (sp uncertain) who did some decent if somewhat generic close up work. Note to magicians: try not to spend a lot of time out on the street beforehand doing the same tricks you’re going to do in the show. (As a side note, years ago I did a reading with a close-up magician who performed tricks to go with specific poems. It was fun…wouldn’t mind revisiting that again some time.)

Chris Johnson, Yunus Kados, and another guy (whose name I know but cannot for the life of me recall right now but who can sing, Goddammit) were “Spitting Images” who did various multi voice pieces that worked well in the context of the longer sets. They did their own set later in the night but kicked a couple to warm the crowd up before us.

Then, us. Crowd, I have to say, was loaded in our favor — hell, Faro’s family was half the room — but it still went over well. We did the entire “Americanized” album, and I do think it hangs together well as a set. It’s going to be hard to go back to doing the 30 minute set thing, when having the luxury of an hour to play with made it easy to just settle into that groove and go with it. Still, we’ve got so much material now…the gigs coming up will be interesting, and of course we get to do the full set again in December at Storytellers in Worcester.

We got (ok, I hinted for and got) an encore so Faro could solo a bit on the bass, then he dropped it directly into “Snakes on a Plane” which I did off mike and VERY LOUDLY in the crowd just to unwind us all a bit after the heaviness of closing with “Where Do You Live?” The poem, which I admit to having been embarrassed about for a while, works well as a relatively light and upbeat piece with Faro’s music. (Relatively upbeat is odd, as the poem’s about dealing with suicidal ideation and coming to grips with it.) It was fun. Weird to me — people are starting to recognize our stuff from the music alone. I noticed at the Cantab too, where we opened with “Snakes,” that the opening chords get an immediate response.

After us, Chris and Company retook the stage for a couple of things, and we took a break. Sold merch in decent quantities, although we’re still slightly in the hole from production; that will change.

Chris did some stuff with Chris Wood, director of the theater and a fine sax player. Somewhere in there he did a duet with Marlon Carey, and then Spitting Images did their longer set with lots of stuff about manhood redefined. Nice stuff.

Quick break; the show then closed with Red Planet, an interesting duo (one guy on drums/triggering devices/iPod/spoken word and the other on processed guitar/keyboards/loops/singing/spoken word) who are remotely like a more twisted Soul Coughing/Mike Doughty, but slightly less melodic, if that makes any sense.

Night ended with an informal jam session with Faro joining Red Planet on bass and Chris Lawton (our producer) jumping in on guitar. Fun.

Overall, a very nice start and it showed us what we suspected: that “Americanized” as a whole set works well live, keeps moving, and offers a great cross section of what we do.

Yesterday I was in a not atypical post show funk — slept late and kept to myself, watching football and baseball and NASCAR with much switching between channels during commercials. Went to bed pretty early, adn now I’m here…

Again, thanks to all who came out on Saturday night…it was a big night for us and it meant a lot to see you in the audience.