Blogger is still giving me trouble. Happy Hallowe'en. Don't eat razorblades.

When in doubt* . . .

. . . get a haircut.

* Or funk, mood, slump, dip, downcycle, near-exhausted zombie state, in need of a Hallowe'en costume, peoplesick, etc.

Method

Approximately 75% of the time I figure out what I think only after I've written it down.

Also, I'm very unoriginal.

An exercise in rubbernecking

[expired]

Still being (mostly) good with nose to grindstone made of giant book.

& today's major eye-bleeding task was measuring all the spacing in a 20 pp. poem with a fucking ruler.

It's perfect.

Damn it.

Speaking of No Tell Books . . .

Reb & Bruce Covey are reading at the Stain Bar on Friday night for the MiPoesias series hosted by Amy King.

   

Friday, October 27 at 7:00 PM
MiPoesias Reading Series, hosted by Amy King
Bruce Covey, Reb Livingston & Michelle Noteboom
Stain Bar
766 Grand Street
Brooklyn, NY

(L to Grand)

The world is changing

My new favorite blog is WorldChanging, via my other favorite blog Boing Boing.

WorldChanging's 40+ writers cover all kinds of cultural, technological, political, media & design topics, from DIY culture and micro-market long-tail theory, to green architecture and marketing, to new wowees like 3-D printing. YUM!

Of particular interest (at the moment) is a short report on a recent talk by Wired editor and The Long Tail author Chris Anderson called "What Happens When Things Get Free." A summary of their summary, basically: "Scarcity is about paternalism, a decision that an editor knows what's best. Abundance is about egalitarianism. Scarcity is top-down, abundance is bottom-up. Instead of command and control, it's out of control."

Mmm hmm. 'Xactly what DIYers have been arguing-by-doing & what getting-better-all-the-time POD with integrated distro can do for POETRY (and what Blogger & low-cost web hosting have already started flipping). Meaning No Tell Books (for instance) releases four new titles and they're instantly available all over the world, giving them further reach* than even books from the Ron-dubbed Gang of Six. (Yes, that does rock.)

& WorldChanging has just released a book, which is currently ranked in the double digits @ Amazon.

* In terms of number of countries in which the books are available for purchase, via the internet. And yes, of course, the availability of internet access across economic classes in all those countries is a factor in determining what "available" really means. And no, I am not comparing the presses' "support" budgets. Still!

What!?!

Every morning

reading what news

I can stand

my outrage muscle

is tuckered plum out

Happy birthday to my little friend . . .

. . . Shafer Hall.

Yee haw, y'all.

Closer

The cover, I think.

Elsewhere (just in case you missed 'em)

Jennifer Bartlett on Jen Benka, Kate Greenstreet & Adam Clay at the Pierogi Gallery last night, & some thoughts from the margins that are poetry, motherhood & disability here.

Speaking of Kate & Adam, Kate posts some sample poems from Adam's new book The Wash & also interviews Rachel Loden here.

&

I'm gonna try this meditation thing again too, once I've caught up. I have tried to learn a couple of times.

Usually I manage to close my eyes, focus on my breathing, relax & . . . fret.

Worry.

Get into some imaginary conversation.

Or (rarely) write a poem.

Or click an idea that wasn't quite right finally into place.

Or fall asleep.

But what I would really like is blankness. Even a second or two. How quiet!

I am still busy

But I'm being good (mostly) and working hard (mostly).

The leaves in the neighbors' back yard are changing. (I don't have a back yard. Sigh. But at least I can see theirs.)

& I am already getting excited about Thanksgiving. It's a holiday I like. (I also like Halloween, but find it sort of too much in NYC so usually stay in.) But turkey day? Oh, that's all about me in the kitchen for two or three days & Pawpaw's pies. Yum.

Barring some freakish occurrence . . .

. . . all remaining orders & international contributors' copies of A Slice of Cherry Pie are going out today. I'm on my way to the post office right now.

If you've been waiting, um, a month, I apologize!

I have a couple of trades to go out too, but I can drop those in the box on the corner, so tomorrow!

Now that I'm officially all caught up, lemme remind: there are 28 copies left in the first edition of 100.

My behind (cont'd)

Still, but catching up.

Meanwhile, the DIY blog has a few new things on it. Not as many as it should, but also not none.

Let's hear it for not none!

At last

Someone has invented this device . . .

. . . which can perhaps finally be used for this purpose.

We interrupt this program . . .

. . . to bring you BUSY AS HELL.

I could tell you all about my adventures rewriting/restructuring the customer service pages of the department store website I work for, but something tells me you won't care.

I am behind in practically every area.

Yesterday, I made a list of everything I have to do this week and it filled three notebook pages.

I've been eating power bars instead of meals.

On Sunday, getting ready for a wedding, I shaved only my shins.

You get the picture.

Reading is fun (da) (mental)

Yesterday the reading. At an afternoon. A bright trip from Brooklyn with Maureen who caught a train & the strong silent husband. Gary said I am like mini golf all the way. I pretended to be 1895. I played at being a marm, except I drank beer. Nada sang her introduction "Me & My Michael Magee." Michael's poems were hilaritastic. I thought to myself (again) absurdity is realism--&--twenty dollars for a snatch-licking frog is cheap. Michael said "this is a fascist fairytale" & everyone agreed. He seems to really speak Spanish because he puts his tongue out in todo. Everyone was very "presidential."

On good authority, "[she] who touches this book touches [Michael's] ass."

& also he publishes Katie Degentesh's The Anger Scale, which is "Not like a wimpy girl who always gets her partner to save her / with $300 designer cowboy boots."

Both ace the "David Hasselhoff Cutlass Sierra" & "point your camera at the sun."

More on these later.

Timing is everything

Hey, guess whose temporarily out-of-stock book is pick o' the week?

That makes me laugh.

Really. (But thanks.)

Come throw tomatoes

TOMORROW, Saturday, October 14 at 4:00 for the Segue Series in NYC

Shanna Compton (not flarf) & Michael Magee (flarf)

Segue Series
Hosted by Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery
(between Houston & Bleecker)

I'm expecting a riot, so don't disappoint me.

Also, Maureen's coming to town TONIGHT and is reading at the Poetry Project:

Dirty Movies Late at Night: Mike Hauser, Maureen Thorson & The Trusty Knife
Friday, 10:30 pm

Rust Buckle and various simpaticos from disparate America celebrate the release of a new chapbook by Mike Hauser. Mike Hauser lives in Milwaukee. He posts his poems to dodo:(hubbahubbain78.blogspot.com). He publishes the magazine Dodo Bird on a very inconsistent basis. He still has copies of that, and of the chapbook Dirty Movies Late at Night (Rust Buckle), he can give you. Maureen Thorson is the author of two chapbooks, Novelty Act (Ugly Duckling Presse) and the forthcoming Mayport (Poetry Society of America). She lives in Washington, D.C., where she runs Big Game Books, the tiniest press in the world. Zack Pieper & The Trusty Knife are a band of basement/bathroom/garage/attic songsters from Milwaukee, WI who perform an array of eclectic rock & roll material & will be presenting their low-tech folk-rot album Sad Contraptions Unrehearsed. Dustin Williamson is the co-curator of this event. He edits the Rust Buckle magazine and chapbook series. He is the author of the chapbooks Heavy Panda (Goodbye Better), Gorilla Dust (forthcoming from Open 24 Hour Press), and Power Lunch, a collaboration with the poet Gina Myers. B.Y.O.D.M.

Note it's BYODM.

Maybe trying to be empathetic (really the thing I value most and have had the most human hope for), kind, helpful, generous, friendly, etc. is actually a weak position, enabling for people who are not.

I keep getting my ass kicked no matter how much I try to keep it out of the way.

Enough.

I know I sound sad. Good.

Because I am sad. & I'm very very tired.

My behind

I'm in a bind.

I'd love to put it behind me.

I have *still* not mailed out all the Cherry Pie orders. But there are stacks.

I have lots of excuses, all of them poor. Except that my Mom was in town all last week.

The behemoth is still not finished and the perpetually tardy perpetuate in their tardiness.

I am going to have to close the doors to this bus & drive away.

I am working extra hours this week. Who knew there were *extra* hours?

& an atmospheric sadness floats over Brooklyn.

You're holding the string. Let go.

As it rises it glints.

It disappears.

Note to self:

Commonality vs. specialness.

Saturday Tomorrow in Baltimore at 4:00 PM

I'll be reading with CAConrad & Buck Downs at Michael Ball's i.e. series.

Clayton & Co. Fine Books
317 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
419-752-6800

& that will be fun.

Update: Also, don't forget about Conrad's Deviance 4 U living-with-your-book project. He's spent the day with a few more books since last I checked in. Eileen's copy went to Chavez's speech at the UN, for instance.

'Nother update: I think there will be special broadsides of a poem by each of us, and Buck will bring his new book and Conrad will have copies of his book too.

Go Tell No Tell Motel

Oh, happy. Here are the first 4 shiny new books from our favorite discreet establishment.

Congrats to Reb & to the authors!

On strategic overstatement as modus operandi

So sometimes saying something is "best of the year so far" or "surely the most ambitious" or "better than any other to my mind" or "not since Some Famous Guy" is a symptom of extreme excitement.

And sometimes it might be an intentional provocation, meant to stir discussion.

And sometimes it might be an attempt to offset the natural filtering/sedimentation process of a plunked statement's erosion over time. As if by overstating, the nugget of meaning that will be left is more likely to be left than to fritter away entirely, if first wrapped in an exaggerated husk.

One of the drawbacks of strategic overstatment could be saying something in such a way that the end-nugget is not at all what you intended. Alas, I believe that might be the case here.

Yes, plenty.