(Almost) Drunk by Noon

Picked up the final cover files from the (genius) designer Mr. Charles B. Orr today at lunch and OH YES IT ROCKS.

Just gotta put on the spine text and the back cover Testimonials of Awesomeness.

Jen is going over the proofs again, checking the last round of corrections.

Not much longer now. It might even been a little early, and that, my friends, is a first.

To make up for it, For Girls may be a little bit late. But that's ok. What am I gonna do, fire myself? Nah.

Still booking readings for fall, and hey, we'll also come out to see you in the spring. So holler with a date or two and we'll see if it can work (for one, both, or either of us).

& speaking of fall books...

...Reb's posted the covers for the forthcoming No Tell Books titles. Lookie.

A very good deal

The Weekly Box: Week Eleven

Buckling, as in down. Working on the fall books, including my own, realizing that September is just a week away.

Everything else has been put on hold.

Except the Jersey tomatoes. Thursday I got yet another load of them in this week's box oh cherry-grape-heirloom-beefsteak-zebras-and-yellows, along with some basil so fresh it looks fake, some fat jalapenos (I chose the hottest ones, with the white crackling), cilantro, more garlic, red and white baby onions, a gorgeous bunch of leeks, more chubby infantile potatoes, more bell peppers, two purple-and-white striped eggplants, chard with rainbow stems, and another watermelon. The gazpacho from last week is almost gone, so I may make another batch, maybe with the green and yellow tomatoes this time, and I'll also use the jalapenos, garlic, onions, cilantro and more tomatoes to make fresh salsa (really a pico de gallo the way I do it, hand-chopped, not with a blender or processor). The new neighbors will be gifted with some of that. Maybe a leek and potato soup too, which I can freeze if it's too warm to eat it, or serve slightly chilled, vichyssoise-style.

I've *got* to take my camera lens in for repair. (It's the iris blades that are stuck, and I'm afraid to open it and try to fix it myself.)

I know I owe you (and you and you and you and you and) an answer/email/poem/book/call/visit. I'll be back as soon as I can.

The Future

On poetic disgust

"When the reader encounters an image that disgusts her, disgust becomes more than a child-like reaction to feces or vomit or blood, more an odd expression of empathy with one who suffers. Empathy as disgust (or is it the other way around?) may seem quite a stretch[...]. Better put: empathy after disgust, as empathy fills the void disgust leaves behind. If the poem forces us to confront rotting meat, then after an interval, we empathize with the character forced to eat it."

The Weekly Box: Week Ten

The heirloom tomato harvest. Ten pounds of spotted greens, bumpy pinks, blushing yellows, coral oranges & bitty grape-tomato bites. Also bell peppers in almost as many colors. Bunches of basil & cilantro, too, & onions, garlic, yes, gazpacho. Long curvaceous eggplants to go with the more matronly ones from last week & last week's zucchini, we'll also have some ratatouille (with feta [cashew] cheese). Two pounds of potatoes too, the smallest I could choose, bright yellow inside for smashing with some of the herbs & garlic. I forgot to tell you about melon week, two weeks ago now: a black melon that opened to a seedless deep punch pink, a veiny musk melon (they're not really cantaloupes) I could smell every time I opened the back door to the kitchen, a zigzagged watermelon with golden innards, & oh the juice from all collected into a bowl & made into spritzers with mint.

(Camera still broken. My phonecam will have to do.)

*[This post has been modified because I have since gone vegan.]

More Summer reading at the DIY blog

FRESH LINKS

Also coming soon: some mini reviews of this year's crop of Dusie Kollektiv chaps & even more announcements from the presses.

Scurrilous Toy, a Dusie Kollektiv chapbook/e-book
Cover painting: Elizabeth Zechel

Why wait

Oh, better!

Been avoiding the book (my book)

The last time I looked at it I was out of temper
& found it excruciating to witness every word
The pages embarassed me

But today--miraculous!--it's good again

& so, after all, is all

What I would show you if my camera were not still broken:

One of the test copies of A Gringo Like Me I got in the mail yesterday. (The other is on its way to El Knox for her approval.)

A few things to fix (the bloof bee logo doesn't pop enough on the spine, for instance, because of the textured background on this particular cover, and a font needs to be changed in one place inside), but otherwise I think they look blooftastic. I expect it to be available for sale within the week (which means I should really get cracking on that webstore).

Or, you could look it up

A history of moderation systems for online forums.

The documented psychological effect that makes such precautions necessary.

Frequency tomorrow

I'm probably going to miss this, but if you're in NYC...

The Frequency Reading Series presents
Saturday, August 11th, 2PM

Bruce Covey, Gina Myers & Meghan Punschke

The Four-Faced Liar
165 West 4th Street
West Village, Manhattan

Two Magicians, er, make that three

So I'm still reading this (behemoth) novel I started on vacation (though I'll probably finish it this evening): Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It's set mostly in England, in the mid 1800s and the two title characters are practical (as opposed to theoretical or academic) magicians.

They may as well be poets. (In fact, Clarke does set them up as literary rivals, squabbling over articles and headlines, commissions and laurels, and hoarding important rare books.) While they both hope to restore English Magic to its former glory and popularity, they are very much at odds about how to do that. Norrell is traditional and conservative, and also happens to be controlling, hypocritical, shrill, and extremely arrogant, willingly hurting others for his own gain. Strange takes a more experimental approach to magic, and is portrayed as a better, though still flawed, fellow: he's heroic in wartime, socially charming, well dressed, a generous mentor and teacher, etc. He also happens to be an arrogant prick, but his abuse of others tends to take the form of neglect rather than malice. As Strange (who's been taught/apprenticed by Norrell) gains in skill and reputation, the inevitable rebellion and break-up occurs right on schedule, and he publishes a hotly anticipated book, overturning all of his old teacher's opinions. The elder magician suppresses it (making copies disappear, enchanting them so they appear blank, and finally buying and destroying all the remaining stock), naturally. Norrell takes on no more pupils. Strange takes on several. Because the theoretical magicians and public at large are confused: when there are only *two* magicians in England, and they do not agree, how can we know which person is correct?!

I also read this in Maine & found it to be wholly awesome. And I started a certain 7 vol. kidult series too, finally. Bloom's remark that it's not really reading or dumbed-down is fucking retarded. (So far I still like P. Pullman better, but I've got 6 more to go.)

Where I Am Not Going

To Portugal though I'd really like to, to be a star, to Hell, to be a taco next Halloween, to hug that girl like crazy, to get across to your neck of the woods so I can hold a reflector for you on one of those shoots, to cut someones balls off at microsoft, to lose it!!!!!!!, to keep up the good work, to tell you a secret (I just had to download this bad boy), to f---ing kill Google, to make it up there this time!, to rip this damn computer apart and look for the gremlins, to win big so big it's burning a hole right through me, to try every last one this time, to snap on this heifer at work, to eat this entire gallon of Blue Bell rocky road (prefer Vanilla), to read this before I die, bridezilla on some eBay seller ass in about two seconds, to bed early and sober, to give birth to a kitten if my oldest boy ever says anything like this to me I damn near fell over one evening, to cry, to be one of those ppl who turns 30 and has a midlife crisis, to end up being the 300lbs vegan if I'm not careful, to puke, to run 9 miles in a few days, to get angry if I see something like it, to bite you hard and taste your tinny blood if you don't stop the self-defeating lies you've been repeating since the day you brought me, for Lasik once I turn 21 I hate putting on spectacles, to clobber him with my Floppy Bat, to simply have them declawed, to see one more lifesize hip-wiggling plastic santa, to start a Bitches Club and it's not going to be for women only, to marry Talina Atfield, to just create a rule to bounce emails regarding Ubuntu, to jump into the line grab a book and start SPOILING ALL OF YOU IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP ABOUT THE STUPID BOY WHO LIVED, to jump in front of a bus, and I am so not going there.

Not much to say...

...apparently. Been busy catching up since I got back.

And catching up I have been, because I just uploaded and ordered test copies of A Gringo Like Me second edition. Rawk. Now it's on to correcting the proofs for Drunk by Noon. Then I'll be sending my MS For Girls out to my editorial board (i.e. some of you lovely people) for comments. Moving along nicely, yes. (Uh, except I still haven't done my Dusie chapbook. I decided I disliked the poems I'd written for it rather intensely, so I'll have to come up with something else. I don't like being late, but I really just can't put those poems out; they will not do.)

One notable happening to report from my vacation in Maine last week: one day out in the kayaks in the bay, a pair of harbor porpoises hung out with us for nearly 10 minutes, swimming all around and under the boats. We'd seen them in the distance earlier in the day, on the way out to an island, but I didn't expect them to get close. Like the harbor seals, they're usually pretty wary. On the way back in to the falls, they surfaced behind me, and I heard them before I saw them, puffing air as they arced. (They are also called "puffing pigs" or "snuffers" because of this noise. And they loooooooove herring.) Gray with a bluish tint and white sides and belly and a small triangular dorsal fin. I could have touched them they were so close, but I thought better of it. Obviously I didn't have a camera in the boat with me, but they look like this. They must have been younger ones, because they were only about 4 or 4.5 feet long, and I read they get up to six. Anyway, it was "special."

Chicken Bucket International

Note: The participants are not actors, & have not been compensated by Bloof Books or Jennifer L. Knox in any fashion. Also, you must have a Facebook account to view the group's pages.

While I'm on the subject, A Gringo Like Me.2 should be uploading this weekend and hopefully will be ready for purchase in the next week or so. (Meant to finish it up before I went away, but was afraid I'd make a mistake with the resized cover if I rushed.)

Tree as litblog?