The new chapbook’s done.
More Names for God includes a lot of what’s here on LJ, along with a few other pieces including “Geodes” and “As Slow as Possible”.
I should have it printed and ready for Baltimore. The master’s printing now.
We’ll see if it was worth skipping the Seroquel so I could stay up.
Ahhhhhhh….medication time.
I just signed off the slam list…and this time, I think it’s for keeps.
Time to say goodbye to all that.
I’ll be doing features in Baltimore (at Xando) on Monday nite, and the NEW Art House (in Newark, Delaware) on Tuesday nite.
If all goes well, I may have the new chapbook in hand.
I will also be carrying copies of the Worcester Poets’ Asylum 2004 Anthology, “What You Are About To Witness…” to sell to help benefit the team. Great anthology this year, with poems from all sorts of people like Morris Stegosaurus, Dawn Gabriel, Sou MacMillan, Andrew Watt, and me among them. 49 poets in all.
Come on out and say hello!!!!
After a string of good days, today bites big wet ones. Not sure why.
I just feel depressed and jittery as hell, not a good combo.
Will be pulling the new chapbook together tonight (More Names For God), so I got a jump on the new Zero Point Zero column and posted it already; an essay on your old poems and your new poems, and how they uneasily coexist in the messenger bag of your life. (Ouch!)
I also put another archived Zero Point Zero up at Blogspot.
Off to a million things now — not sure when I’ll update again, maybe the weekend…
I posted a deliberately inflammatory post to the slam list a day or so ago, implying that the lack of chatter there was a sign of decay and dissension in the national slam community.
chazellik, lowhumcrush, and Bucky Sinister chimed in with points of view on the subject, including the belief that LiveJournal has taken the list serv’s place to some extent (I thoroughly agree). Charles also provided some thoughtful commentary about the importance of the old rough and tumble days of flames and arguments to forging the national community — and I agree with that too.
Interestingly enough, I received a couple of backchannel comments from the infamous bowerbird, who (no surprise) never really left the list he was banned from. This isn’t the first time he’s hit me up like that about comments on the list, so I expected that.
It struck me (as it did back then) that the banning of bowerbird was a mistake, as it took away a lot of the energy flashpoints from the list. Say what you want about him and his frequently unworkable ideas – he provided the catalyst for alot of discussions.
Now, all we get there is announcements and the occasional flurry of indignation.
The slam family is dead. Long live the slam.
But it is a way of life.
I’m so goddamn tired right now I could scream. Too many days running classes in front of people. For an introvert like me, it gets draining. (Yes, I’m an introvert at heart. Training and Performance Poetry are just things I have to do to do my job…when it comes right down to it, I prefer to be alone.)
I also think that I need to up my dosage of Seroquel to at least 50 mg/night, from the 25 mg I’m taking now. Sleep has been far more disturbed of late and I think tolerance of the drug is to blame.
My hair is getting long again. I had a trim a couple of weeks ago before the wedding and brought the overall length back up to the shoulders. Now the ponytail is back past them again but far more even. (On Sunday, Anne even braided it for the Java Hut — that was weird.) I do like it though, so I think it’ll stay around.
Next week I’m featuring in Baltimore and Delaware on Monday and Tuesday respectively. C’mon out and say hello. If all goes well, I may have a new chapbook by then too…
I’m thinking of actually developing two chapbooks soon: a “greatest hits” of the last ten years and a new one consisting of some of the things I’ve done in the two years since “Mano Poderosa” came out. That’s a lot of poems, so it wouldn’t be comprehensive; definitely things like “Geodes,” “As Slow as Possible,” “Cindy Moses,” “Suicide Notes,” “The Frontier,” “Clinical,” “Dialogue,” “Song for Shootings,” and a few others. Considering “Geodes” is such a long poem, that would likely be it.
The big question: can I get them done before next Monday? I doubt it. Maybe just get the new one done, and do the greatest hits when I come back.
Like I said — fatigue is not an option.
An electrolysis practice with an unmowed lawn.
To be fair, I suppose they could be dealing with it by removing each individual grass plant one at a time. That might not be immediately noticeable.
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Also, a sign for “Big Beaver Stump Grinding” brought so many levels of association up it was hard to stop.
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I’ll be at poetry tonight — dont’ know if I’ll be bringing the new hotness, but I might. It’s coming, it’s coming…
I had time to kill yesterday during one of my various chores that allowed me to do close to an hour of just free form writing. Haven’t felt that free in a while….it’s still really dark stuff, but I’m a really dark guy of late.
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OK…laundry to fold. But before that, one last thing…
| How to make a chryslerpoet |
| Ingredients: 5 parts friendliness 1 part courage 1 part |
| Method: Blend at a low speed for 30 seconds. Add sadness to taste! Do not overindulge! |
The general consensus among the most script knowledgable here seems to be that the Russian meme is NOT in fact a worm or a password miner. But just in case, if you did it:
— Delete your cookies
— Delete your temporary Internet files
— consider changing your password (not a bad idea from time to time anyway.)
Sorry if this caused any trouble…I just thought it was a pretty interesting meme on the herd mentality, and wanted to see where it ended up.
I’m just here for a few minutes — crazed day today.
On the weird side: anyone see anything odd and slightly disturbing about a pet store that advertises “Bait” on its sign?
Remember me?
Been crazy busy with three days’ worth of classes I’ve been teaching…so today is catch up.
Two things:
1. SPEAK on Wednesday was great. A small turnout but some of the best poetry I’ve heard there, all on the theme of “perspective” — and mad profusion of great covers, too. Thanks to all…more on this later.
2. The new Zero Point Zero column is up — an odd one on one of the spiritual dimensions of being a poet. Love to hear your thoughts — and if you want to comment there, help stimulate some action on the site, that’d be ok too.
I went out and picked up two CDs last night by bands I only knew of by word of mouth.
Modest Mouse, “The Moon and Antarctica”: Damn fine music. Eclectic and intelligent. And yet, another damn car commercial on here! Are car commercials the new medium for musical dissemination? I have never been the same since my beloved Nick Drake showed up on that Volkswagen commercial; you think I’d be used to it by now.
At any rate, think I’ll be going back for the new album in the next day or two.
Sun Kil Moon, “Ghosts of the Great Highway”: I like the Modest Mouse stuff, but I LOVE this album from the guy who was the driving force behind the Red House Painters. Cool, edgy, beautiful — like driving in moonlight, except without the Volkswagen blasting “Pink Moon” in the next lane. Damn.
graduated from high school yesterday and is off to college in the fall.
I met her new boyfriend yesterday for the first time.
He’s a big guy who dresses in black, frequents coffeehouses, and sports a Van Dyke and a ponytail.
I don’t know whether to be proud, amused, or a little creeped out. Probably a little of everything.
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I suspect Reagan died just to give the Republicans a boost.
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SPEAK: on Wednesday, we’ll be working with the theme of “perspective”. I’m very interested to see what comes up.
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Baltimore, Delaware: two weeks till I’m down there!
Ronald Reagan is dead. The first great political nemesis of my personal history…
Although my first political efforts as a teenager were around pushing for Nixon’s resignation and funding the the American Indian Movement, I really have to thank Ronnie for putting me over the edge into a more full on critique of American foreign policy and its incestuous marriage to corporate interests.
It was also under Reagan that I first became truly acquainted with domestic surveillance — first with groups associated with protesting American policy in Central America, then more directly when I was group coordinator for Amnesty International in Worcester and my mail was opened regularly as part of a surveillance campaign aimed at groups working on Eastern European prisoner cases. That bled over into Bush I, too…and eventually led in part to the dissolution of our group and my first breakdown/withdrawal from activism.
I think you are in part what you are because of what you oppose. I suppose I have to thank Ronnie for what I am.
We still live in Reagan’s world, in a lot of ways.
But he’s gone at last. It’s twenty-three years too late, if you ask me.
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Busy as hell today, running about doing errands.
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Jane Cassidy is in Worcester this week! Go see her at the Hut Sunday night. I will be attending my niece’s high school graduation/family dinner, so I won’t be there.
I’d say I was bummed, and I am, but only slightly…I’ve been so looking forward to her graduation, I can’t pretend otherwise.
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I’m struck by the seeming lack of commentary on the race column on the Gotpoetry site this week. Two comments, although a lot of hits. Where is everyone?
It is possible that everyone burned themselves out on the earlier question, I suppose.
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OK…away with me…
I resisted doing one of these because I like to think of myself as older, more mature, less susceptible to trends.
I decided to do one because I’m interested in being part of of new things, experimenting, etc.
I have it on good authority that the kanji characters in the background of this icon render a quote by Barbara Adler in translation: “Fucking sheep.”
This is weird, eh?
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In the country of storytellers,
there is nothing inconceivable
unless it cannot be vocalized.
You are not born until you emerge
from the mouth of another.
In the country of storytellers
love is a pawnshop full
with things cast off by dire necessity
waiting to be redeemed by the next
needy person.
In the country of storytellers
the dissident reflex exists
only for a minute at time
before being re-absorbed like a bubble
in melting chocolate.
In the country of storytellers
we sleep with our hands
over our ears because the air is so full
of lint,
pencaps, tongues.
In the country of storytellers
a ghost is just a story
without a teller and even though
the country is enormous, it is still
lousy with ghosts.
In the country of storytellers
Death is a pair of lips
that kiss you into a box
until you become
pornographic to others.
In the country of storytellers,
there is little room for all of us
around the great tower in the
center of things and
there’s no hope that it will ever fall.
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I think it’ll eventually be weirder.
Synchronicity alert: a co-worker just passed me a brochure about a storytelling workshop.
Dark Matter 