February reads

Matthew Thorburn's Subject to Change moves naturally (even in its more formal moments) and is frankly sensuous in a really appealing way. (And if I ever did edit an anthology of food poems, M would surely make that assortment.) M was a year ahead of me at the New School so it's the first book by a classmate I've had the chance to read, which added another level of pleasure to the experience. After reading Cynthia Sailers & Chris Stroffolino (and thinking back to Noah Eli Gordon's The Frequencies), I am telling everybody about James Meete's Tougher Disguises Press. This shit is hot, yo (both the poets and the design). I can hardly wait for Stephanie Young's. The revelations this month were (probably obviously) Pound and Stein. I've read lots by each, but neither of these. Not sure why I wasn't assigned ABC of Reading instead of a Blahton Anthology for the fortieth time at any point in any class. And I somehow skipped in when "on my serious Pound kick" as an undergraduate. I think what happened is after reading the Humphrey Carpenter bio and so much of the poetry I just got kind of sick of Pound. Pound saturation. And he can still annoy me, but I tended to read his bluster this time around as somewhat amusing and thus was able to appreciate the soundess of (most) of the didacticism. After reading The World Is Round: Dear Gertrude Stein, I love you. As ever, Shanna.

Where is this promised snow?

Come on, snow!

Happy birthday...

to Dan. Leap-year baby, last year he turned 9!

Yep

Me too.

Note to self:

All publishing is self-publishing.

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair*

[Original post removed for depuzzling.]

What I mean is, I am a reader of my own poems. And so are you, dear reader. But we will probably never read them the same way. This is my failing, not yours, if it is a failing. As an experiment, I try to become more like you. I will never be like you.

When I play my reader role I am also playing my writer role, whether I am reading me or you.

I am always playing my reader/writer/editor role, whether I am reading me or you. It is one role.

Reader sez: Look what that poem did. I like or don't like that. How did the writer get that poem to do that?

Writer sez: Look what that poem did. I like or don't like that. How did that poem do that? Did I do that? Can I do it again?

Editor sez: Look what that poem did. I know how the writer got the poem to do that. See how that poem could do that better? Look what else that poem can do if the writer does it this way. These are the poem's own terms and here is how the writer can best achieve success within those terms.

Critic sez: Look what that poem did. I like or don't like that. How does this poem compare to other poems by this poet or other poets? In what ways does it succeed or fail compared to those other poems? What is the context for this poem? Does this poem succeed according to the terms its context expects of it?

But let's hush the critic for now.

*Evolving possibly disappearing post.

Two interviews...

well worth reading:

Gabriel Gudding by Ray Bianchi. "I believe in the efficacy of rebellious joy and kindness in the face of pastors and police. This is not a wussy belief."

Nick Piombino by Tom Beckett. "I had even considered becoming a priest when I grew up! I appreciated poetry and psychoanalysis because I needed ways to think seriously about life that were not so dogmatic, and so circumscribed by local custom and belief, yet still offered an experience of depth and intensity similar to the soaring, lyrical feelings I had experienced in my religious practices." (I creatively misread one of Nick's remarks just before that, inserting a word that transformed him into a pugilist: "I remember that, like so many children, when I was a pre-teen >boxer< I became preoccupied with Egyptian archeology;")

Before & after...or almost*

1
We the Blind Need Pushing
Good-Cooking Kitchen
Under This Umbrella Is Another Umbrella
Cherry
Post-Texas Expressive Heat
Li'l Little Undergraduate Disaster
Just Flew Back
Will That Be All, Mrs. Kickboxer?
Contrast Girls
I Am Not Related to Any of You Yet
Contraposto
Scholars of the Twang
Dear Volunteers,
Tumble in November
Hooey Subverted Again
Slashy Speakers, Nervy Endings
Puzzle
Crossword
Clues Across
Clues Down [no new title presenting itself as of yet]
2
Last Paragraph
Map of the City
Thank Y'all for Appreciating My Animals
It's the Humidity
Laundry [possibly moving up in order]
Guided Tour of the South
Ruby'd Never
Sweet Tater Pie
A White House
Non-Ultra Joy
The Migrants
Murmur
Fusion Lingo
Self-Help
Weird Cure
The Woman from the Public
Avalanche [most readers want to keep. waffling.]
3
Mouth Made Out of Trees
My Huge Napoleon
I only smile at girls I like.
Elegy for a Fictional Strongman
Thick As, Um, Thieves Big Thicket [same poem, new title]
Those Days of Pomp & Vigor
A Latin Atlas
Asterisk Because
Voluntary Cinderella
Erasmus Subscribes to the Fortean Times
Miss Epistolary
Homeslice The Local [same poem, new title]
4
Knowing & Saying Are Two Different Things
Terroir
Unlikely Dogtown Francis
Scrimmage
Ecstasy for Guy Lombardo
Stay Seated, Buckled & Safe
High Bluffing
Hooray for the Differently Sane
Uberdesigned Happy Juice
Even a Zoo
In half-asleep love
I Declare a Rose
Fortieth
Subjects [considering reversing the order of these final three]

That's 49 poems, down from 62. So I've cut a lucky 13. There are two is one still teetering, not indicated here. And a couple of line edits (more resistant to those--are they more intimate?). Interesting to note that the second numbered section (well, originally it was numbered, I've cut the section breaks and numbers now too) survived the best. They're the oldest poems in the book, so I guess that just means this sifting process has already mostly naturally happened with those.

Admitting the puzzle is my clever badge. Hi. I'm clever. Agree with my super advisors that "Clues Down" can stand alone, but feel the numbers and special formatting also have to go. Otherwise it just seems gimmicky to me. So that's now straight prose. No new title presenting itself, better stick with current root-ripped one than slap on one I'll regret, I think. (Happily, I note that all the prose bucked the cutting instincts. Bodes well for the next project, I think?)

Still have a few bestest readers left to weigh in. Greatly helped by all the input--this is impossible for me to do by myself. Go ahead and make this your mantra: "I am not my own best reader. I am not my own best editor." Not a new lesson, but still bears frequent repeating. There are all kinds of messy connective tissues, scaffolding, ghost poems--the poems I want these to be vs. the poems they are. With these cuts Down Spooky is a better book. But this final shuffle and shave is the hardest part. (I'm with Harry. The writing itself is the party. The rest is like a lingering hangover--you remember what came before fondly and will probably do it again, but wish you could sleep through the aftereffects.)

I'm putting all this up here, because I think it might be interesting to people who are not me. People who will be doing the same thing soon, later, someday.

*Evolving post.

Writing Music

The Freqs come out in the afternoon: Frequency with UES today!

Shafer sez:

"Fishes,

At the shallow end of the wide Manhattan Sea tomorrow will be a very special Frequency. Please note that it will be a SATURDAY Frequency.

This is a special Frequency because it is an Unpleasant Event Schedule Frequency, curated by Daniel Nester, and the readers are very attractive and some of them are from out of town.

These are: Leonard Gontarek (from Philadelphia), Amy King (from Williamsburg), and Tracey Knapp (from Boston).

Some links below will take you to more about these fine creatures.

So that will be tomorrow, Saturday, February 25th, at 2:30 PM at the Four-Faced Liar, 165 West 4th Street, New York, NY; 212-366-0608.

Much Love,
Shafer"

Spooky loses the love handles.

Final final final edits are in progress, or will be as soon as I shake the freelance desk this evening and the production meeting tomorrow and the job interview on Friday and oh my.

Admittedly, this ain't all fun and games, but I am excited to see what the new slenderized Spooky will look like when we're through. And then I can get back to booking the Knox-Compton-Pafunda flimflam femme fiesta tour.

And for those Spookies who don't make it, poor darlings, they will always be spookies to me.

Before & after photos? Do you crave the carnage, you rubberneckers?

Thanks to you, you, you, you, you, and you. Yous know who yous is.

Some publishing secrets

1) Don't dish out attitude to your editor, publicist, receptionist, production manager, interns, webmaster, janitor, or publisher. You are not the Lord's gift to the world of letters. No you're not. And for heaven's sake, don't argue with the copyeditor about points of grammar and puctuation--she's already cut you slack for "style." Everybody else's job is to make you look good. Your job seems to be what, making yourself look like an ass?

2) On acknowledgments: it is better to thank more people than require it than to leave out someone who really deserves it. When in doubt, ask your editor for the names of everybody who has worked or will be working on your book. Do you people think we do this for money?

3) Even a small press has big ears. If you badmouth your press, editor, publisher, production manager, book designer, janitor, intern, or publicist, it will get back to her. She will still work on your book. But she won't enjoy it. And the people she's trying to convince to buy it? They'll be able to tell.

4) Do be honest when you are asked for your opinion by your editor, publisher, publicist, production manager, book designer, etc. It's your book, article, poem, chapbook, headshot, widget. But before expressing it, please first refresh yourself with secret #1.

What To Say, an Aria

by Matthew Thorburn

Should I mention the German students passing
a joint in the john, how plentiful the wine,
red and white, how my cup runneth over
onto my pant leg? Should I say a block off
Woodward as the snow swirled down I walked up
two flights with B.W. out of the simple need
to while away the night with people I hardly knew?
That my reserve was as gooey as the brie,
still soft in the center, with a scattering of almonds
and raspberries (where did they find raspberries
in January?) tart as dark sparks on my tongue?
Shall I confess this Italian woman, her cheeks rosy
with wine, her accent country-thick, has my heart
as soon as she says bruschetta? That the olives tasted,
well, like olives, the pits I spit discreetly in a napkin?
Should I make it clear that music isn't the food of love,
food is? Dried cherries and pine nuts, a crumbly
sliver of Roquefort on a sweet, biscuity cracker?
Say I overheard someone say, "What we're talking about
are apples and oranges; we haven't made a fruit salad
of it yet"? Describe how I stood in the doorway, half in
and half out of the room, reminiscing with B.W.
about New York mornings? Coffee light, egg on a roll,
the cool darkness of the avenues in the early a.m.?
Should I tell you I love NYC in June, though I'll pass
on that Gershwin tune? (I prefer Byrd, Billy Strayhorn?)
Say I saw Talitha putting together frames
at a gallery in Birmingham? That Natasha is back
from Madagascar, living in New Mexico, doing what
I don't know? Or mention casually how we--
Theresa and me--decided to be "just
friends"? (She decided? I agreed?) Say to you now
what I wanted to say to her then? You shouldn't
order a martini if you only like the olive? My heart
is a pocket watch in need of winding? Can I
go round the room till I find that woman I'd like
to love, try the only two Italian words I know?
It's not too late--is it?

From Subject to Change, linked up in the reading list at right.

The Somerville Gates

Heh heh.

Hunter S. Thompson, 1939-2005

Story here.

Blogroll updates

Sadly, a few folks who have not posted in months have been cleared from the blogroll. Others I cannot yet bear to part with have been struck through but not removed. Like sports heroes' retired jerseys, I'll keep their links displayed in tribute. Hopefully one or more will pull a Jordan.

But on the upside, a handful of new additions! Welcome!

UPDATE: Anthony Robinson's got a new gig--Poetry Dailier! (And shucks, what a nice suprise to be firstest. Thx.)

If you missed Charles Jensen's poems...

over at No Tell Motel this week, go there right now.

UPDATE: New poet up now (Monday), so I switched this to CJ's archive link.

Ok, I'll play too.

Bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in, and italicize the state you're in now...(from everybody):

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C.

ND, SD, KS, and MI were MO were just pass-throughs, though.

Would you take this class?

D.I.Y. Poetry Publishing: Chapbooks, Zines, Webzines & Blogs

Course description: This class will explore creative, inexpensive (even free) alternative routes to poetry publishing for do-it-yourselfers. The first part of the course will focus on readings in these innovative genres: we'll read and discuss some recent poetry chapbooks, examine the approaches and niches of various themed zines and webzines, and survey the growing poetry "blogosphere." The second half of the class will emphasize mastering the tools students will need to create a class project either in the form of a group chapbook, a group poetry blog, or both. Guest speakers (or online guests) will include prominent bloggers, webzine editors, and chapbook publishers. As a final step, we'll talk about setting up a personal promotional email list, publicity, sales, consignment marketing to local bookstores, and setting up your own online store with PayPal. There's no reason why the "first book" has to be your first step to publishing your poems (or others' poems you love). If you can't find a magazine or book publisher that jives with your poetry--or even if you can--after this class you'll have no excuse to keep it to yourself. You can do it yourself!

Instructor bio: Shanna Compton is the Associate Publisher (and former Publicity Director) of Soft Skull Press and the editor of LIT at New School University. She has self-published three chapbooks: Opal Memos Nonchalant, Big Confetti, and Down Spooky, all of which sold through multiple editions for a total of more than 1000 copies. Her third chapbook Down Spooky was expanded into a full-length collection and is forthcoming from Winnow Press in September 2005 as the winner of the Winnow Open Poetry Award. She has curated and hosted both the Frequency Series at Shortwave and the Soft Skull Sneak Peek Series at the Bowery Poetry Club. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2005, Gastronomica, McSweeney's, Verse, BOOG City, and dozens of others magazines and webzines. She is a self-taught DIY web designer and poetry blogger, and recently edited an anthology of personal essays on video games called GAMERS: Writers, Artists & Programmers on the Pleasures of Pixels. Visit her online at http://www.shannacompton.com/blog.html.


..because I'm pitching it around. I think I would enjoy it more than a straight workshop, not least because it would require heavy use of the saddler stapler!!

Along the same lines as yesterday's ha-ha headline:

This just in from the husband. Thanks, honey.

AWP Indie Press Party

Indie Press Cocktail Party with
Soft Skull Press, Arsenal Pulp,
Fiction Collective 2 & Winnow Press
Thursday, March 31
6-8 p.m.
Lamplighter Pub
at the Dominion Hotel
(in historic Gastown, 3 minute cab ride, 10 minute walk from Fairmont Hotel and Hyatt Regency)
210 Abbott Street
Vancouver
604-681-6666

The Dominion is a historic building and the second-oldest hotel in Vancouver. The Lamplighter is billed as the oldest pub in the city. It's a ten-minute walk from the conference hotels. So see you there, yes?

Been trying to post all day

...but Blogger ain't having it.

Two quick things from my afternoon slump:

1) Go Reb!

2) Funniest headline ever.

Just did a fun interview

...with Jane Pinckard, editor-in-chief of Game Girl Advance. If you're a gamer and you haven't seen the site, check it out. (A review of Gamers and the interview to come. I'll let ya know, natch.)

From ABC of Reading

"You can spot the bad critic when he starts by discussing the poet, not the poem."

And..

"Incredible as it now seems, the bad critics of Keats' time found his writing 'obscure,' which meant that they couldn't understand WHY Keats wrote."

And...

"If you wanted to know something about an automobile, would you go to a man who had made one and driven it, or to a man who had merely heard about it?"

And...

"Even if the general statement of an ignorant man is 'true,' it leaves his mouth or pen without any great validity. He doesn't KNOW what he is saying."

Reading list out of whack

...needs an update due to a surpisingly fruitful trip to an antique store this weekend, where I picked up:

* a hardcover clothbound with jacket facsimilie edition of The World Is Round by Gertrude Stein, illustrated by Clement Hurd (of Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny fame. Read this twice, plus the afterword by Hurd's wife. Amazing stuff. This was one of Hurd's first (or first?) assignments at a children's book illustrator, and he was hired to turn some of the drawings into nursery rugs and wallpaper by two New York companies after the release of the book. Stein was paid royalties on the sales of these, since they were her characters. The classic line "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" occupies the pivotal place in this book, written for a neighbor girl named Rose. Stein wrote another book for children after this, but the publisher eventually turned it down. Alas. Not sure if this fac is still in print, but it's well worth seeking out, either for yourself or little ones of your acquaintance. It is a rhyming chiming tale of individuality that is often silly, and just as often serious, tracking the emotional journey of Rose up a mountain with nothing but a blue chair as her companion. ($8.00)

* a New Directions paperbook edition of ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound ($1.15). Am reading this now and cannot put it down because so much of it seems so completely relevant. Select quotations perhaps to come. Struck again by Pound's superlative bluster, simultaneously annoying & entertaining, but aside from the overbearing AUTHOR enjoying the WORDS.

* a New Directions paperbook edition of The Poems of Dylan Thomas (having looked for my other copy in vain for several months; I think I lent it out). ($1.00)

* a New Directions paperbook edition of Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas, which I actually think I have somewhere in a larger volume, but those abstract black-and-white covers are so cool ($.80)

* a hardcover paper-over-board edition of Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil with some kickass two-color linoleum or wood cuts (more info to come; it's at home in my bag)

* and on a whim at the (poetry-poor-but-cookbook-heaven) bookstore, French Women Don't Get Fat, which for all the hype really doesn't contain any big secrets, and can be distilled into one of Julia Child's bon mots re: enjoyment in moderation ("Life itself is the proper binge.") like duh, but admittedly is a charming, breezy read with lots of lovely food-related memories and surprisingly great recipes and even some childrearing advice on the topic of instilling taste and nutrional habits. I justify this purchase by adding this book to our culinary library.

Weekend

Epitome tome to me

This breathtaking brick of a book arrived yesterday. What a gift! What pure perusable pleasure! What an alphabetically arranged who's who! (And of course what an cheek-pinking honor to see three of my spookies gracing pages 118-20!)



The minimalist black-on-white cover hints at supermarket generic packaging, not as in plain or off-brand but as in epitome or exemplar.



I know what I'm packing to read this weekend.



Get yours now. 250 poets, plus a complete index of Verse reviews and interviews. Wow.

Media-free birthday/early Valentine's Day weekend

And on a boat, no less. Because I am queen of all I survey, but sick of looking at it.

Only going to say this once.

A version of what might have happened is not what happened.



In case you're looking for me, I'm right here.

Gifted child

A story: So a small village in Spain is preparing to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Don Quixote (one of my all-time faves). They begin by asking local school children to bring in copies from their own families' libraries. One lucky lucky child shows up with what is probably a FIRST EDITION, one of only 18 KNOWN COPIES in EXISTENCE.

Happy birthday to my husband.

He always always always backs me up. And he can kick your ass, if necessary.

Hello, Bizarroland?

Oh good. Not sure I had the right number. See, we've stumbled into your "reality." Would you like it back?

New at UES: It's Carl Annarummo (and a very lovely photo)

Check it.



(Link fixed. Whoops.)

Note to self: Grr Comics

From The Art of the Possible by Kenneth Koch, which you can (and should) get.

And done.

Ordered, typed, corrected, proofed, printed, packed, sent. Whew.



Now, I'm off to make Jim Fobel's Uncle John's Chile Verde.



We have money on the game but our points suck.

Blind painter Esref Armagan

Pretty interesting stuff. (The print article has pictures, but they're not in the web archive, but a Google image search yields several.)

Playlist meme

Okay, fine. Nothing to blog this morning. But fair warning, there are 22,739 tracks in iTunes on this computer (about 62 days worth). So it's highly unlikely this will resemble any actual habits.



1. "Gloaming_Turkey": Weird. This isn't a "real" song. This is a remix of a remix. DJ Shadow's remix of Radiohead's "Gloaming" with the Preznitwit's "50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm" quotation as added by hubby & his brother. Funny though.



2. Frank Zappa, "Metal Man Has Won His Wings" from An Evening with Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. This is actually the song plus a snippet of an interview/commentary from a radio show. I think.



3. Curtis Mayfield, "Radio Spot #1" (also not really a song, damn it) from Superfly (Disc 2).



4. Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Luzifers Tanz: Linke Back, Beide augen, beide Brauen" from Samstag aus Licht (Disc 3). This is getting really ridiculous. It's 17 seconds long.



5. Buffalo Springfield, "Kind Woman" from Retrospective: The Best of Buffalo Springfield. (Much better. This is a damn fine song.)



Well, that was skewed so screwy, I'm gonna expand my list to 10.



6. The Tragically Hip, "Silver Jet" from In Violet Light.



7. Johnny Cash, "Cocaine Blues" from At Folsom Prison. (Now we're talking.)



8. Pavement, "Perfume-v" from Slanted & Enchanted.



9. The Jam, "A-Bomb in Wardour Street" from Direction, Reaction, Creation (Disc 2).



10. The Pixies, "Dead" from Doolittle



Make of that what you will.

Oh Daniel Nester we love you get up

I will do it for you!



Everybody buy Dan's books and send them to him and he will sign them and return them to you with a mixed CD of Queen-related songs like he made for me not because he is selfish and vaingloriously pompous but because his heart is as big as the Empire State and he loves to share the things he loves with you. They are good. You should.



And also you should buy them because after he accepted 4 (4!!) of my poems I sent as a cold submission to La Petite Zine in like 2001 or so I got on the mailing list and before the issue was ever even out I introduced myself to him at an LPZ reading at the Cornelia Street Cafe and then like because he liked my poems and I liked his poems we were like really good friends even though we didn't know each other and I remember being on vacation in the fucking Hamptons when he was on his bike and got hit by a taxi cab and I was worried and like that was weird because I still didn't really know him and then later we published each other in our magazines so what we comment on each others poems alot so what and he got me the job at Soft Skull so what and he practically forced me to do the Frequency Series with him so what and made me sing karaoke and read poems in front of an audience FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE EVER so what and I became his editor for the Queen books even though I didn't even work there when they signed him up so what and he made me a mixed CD to listen to while I worked on them and that was great and also a mellow mix with Coldplay and he laughed so hard when I looked up b*kakki online because I am naive and he put it in a poem and he comes to every single one of my readings and you know he probably goes to yours too if you live within a hundred-mile radius of New York or even in Philly or Boston and even if you've never heard of him if you're a poet he's probably heard of you because he's a voracious reader and is just naturally curious and enthusiastic and even though he has a temper and sometimes goes off half-cocked especially about class issues and politics and sometimes about your general asshole behavior he is a sweetie really deeply a sweetie and he will talk to you for hours on the phone until his ear literally bleeds for real he is pressing the receiver so hard to his head because he's listening with everything he can muster and he likes to talk about what he likes and because because Dan Nester is a bad ass and he loves you and you should love him back.



(Ok, I just choked myself up. Gotta go.)

DIY Love Poetry Pointers from Gabe Gudding!

Just in time for Valentine's Day, the most poetical of holidays. Combat gross commercialism (tho Brand New Insects exempts chocolate, always, from buying bans) and make your sweetie some homemade verses. Ready, set, write!

Whoot! Dare it is.

Lisa Jarnot's definitely on my in-their-30s-poets-madame-and-all-should-read list too. The one I partially posted then as quickly took down.



Pulled out Ring of Fire to read again last week and have nibbled here and there. She made me love a lemur. She's kind of a back-beat Stein, a house-dub Wheeler; her dancing directs the deejay not th'other way around.

You have no idea..

how much I am looking forward to this!

Pls don't be unsettled by the Nazi in the sidebar

I am half-German (but lord forfend!) not that kind...nor any kind of buff. My grandfather & eldest uncle served as interpreters at a POW camp in Texas during WWII so I am just nosing about.

Self-absorbed grammar tip:

If you are unsure about whether it's "I" or "me," kick everybody else out of the sentence.

Saw Bush's Brain

last night and was moved to tears.

I guess it should be "blogchronicity"...

but I don't like the sound or look of that.

Down Spooky, the cover!

Ok...it's settled. And I love it.



A teensy version is in the sidebar. Click here to see the life-size version.

Forgot to blog...

Kinda busy today. I mean, more than usual.



But this morning I got several gorgeous options for my book cover and am thinking about them trying to decide which I like best. I have them taped up in front of me right now at the freelance desk. (I was going to show you, but then I thought a vote if it wasn't decisive might confuse me. But I will certainly show you when we've picked!)



Also...what also? Forgot that too. Oh, except Josh is a tease about Grood Poet #3.



And I wanted to tell Stephanie (whose comments are turned off) that I read books of poems the same way* and I was evengoing to blog about that yesterday or the day before but didn't. AND, I am currently reading your friend's book, because I just came across that epigraph yesterday. How 'bout that?Blogronicity.



More blogronicity: Geof Huth posted last week about John Evans. Remember? Well, this morning, out of the blue, the new coeditor-soon-to-be-editor (yeah, I'm pretty much outta there) of LIT emailed me the cover art he's chosen for the next issue. Guess? Yep, a sunny yellow collage by one J. Evans, complete with ducks. It's gonna look terrific.



File under misc.: Dear fashion designers, next time you create a three-quarter length coat (below the hip, but above the knee) with a zip closure, might I suggest a two-way zipper? Do you think I like wearing my skirt twisted up around my waist to and from the subway? Hmm?



*Hmm. Is this why I can't decide on the final order of Spooky? Likely.