What are you doing this evening?

I'm reading at the Turf Club tonight with the cool folks of the Riot Act Reading Series, and then we'll all listen to Dreamland Faces on accordian and saw.

I am pulling together a bunch of poems that haven't seen the outside of my office yet. It's scary. Good scary. But scary.

Saturdaaaaaaaaay

PESTO! I love farmers' market season. This afternoon I listened to M. Ward and made pesto. Ahhhh.... It's poor man's pesto where you substitute walnuts for pine nuts, but it's not too bad. Last week I made cilantro/pumpkin seed/lemon pesto. 'Twas lovely.

It's a quiet day for me. A is socializing and P is gigging. It's good. I'm so tired of listening to myself talk by the end of the teaching week.

After I'm done writing this evening, I get to watch Rashomon. I'm psyched half because I really don't know enough about Kurosawa and half because Milosz referenced the film a couple times in his letters to Thomas Merton.

If it's a REALLY productive writing evening, I will also treat myself to the last episode of the first season of Wonder Woman.

In other news, my yard is an abomination. Everything is singed and sad except the weeds which are happy and out of hand. Help has been enlisted for tomorrow.

It helps to commiserate with the wind

Today has been kind of rough going, but then a stumble across this gem from Amy King's blog made things so much brighter!

Technical Help, S'il Vous Plait

I took myself on one of my favorite outings today: through St. Anthony Main, the Stone Arch bridge over the Mississippi, and Mill Ruins Park.

Then I tried to learn flickr. There's a swanky little photo badge down on my sidebar of the whole experience.

BUT, I have seen some folks post slideshows of photos in posts. How do y'all manage that? Please advise.

It seems like a handy skill to learn before the new Imaginary Press season begins!

What I did on my summer vacation

Here's me lounging around glutting on entire books while other members of my family did active summer lake things. Later, I did some active summer lake things, too.

My friend who lives in Seattle was just a few lakes over visiting her family, so we met in Detroit Lakes for lunch at this restaurant called Zorbaz that replaces everything uzually zpelled with an "s" with a "z". One of the waitresses wore a t-shirt that read "thirzt nurze". I'm freaking zeriouz.

We were going to meet at a place called the Lakeside Tavern, but we couldn't get in because the band Warrant was setting up. Warrant:

Here's the famous Frazee turkey in sad shape. Somebody hates fiberglass statuary. Or turkeys.


And the ______________ loon. I forget which town. Do you know?

When one leaves the city for the north country, there's the interesting and somewhat pastoral: Amish folks selling handmade lawn furniture in Dairy Queen parking lots, everybody waving at everybody else when they pass, the occassional llama farm. Then there's the creepy undercurrent of anti-choice billboards littering the highway sides and extra seedy "gentlemen's" clubs just outside the small city limits.

A couple years ago my niece snapped a photo of a beauty salon's sign which read "Free Mullet Removal. Buzz Cuts Five Bucks." This trip, we ate in a diner with a sign which read, "She cleans the house, why not the fish??"

But there was some very decent family time to be had. And I plowed through Egger's "Heartbreaking Tale..." and most of "The Noise of Time".

And now I am home.

Even if you are not a fan of jazz I hope you will watch a chunk of her solo!

Here is a clip of the 15 year old sax player, Grace Kelly, who my pal Davis and I went to hear play tonight with Frank Morgan and Irv Williams and Peter Schimke. Holy cats.

Holy cats. Holy cats to the whole night.

Some Gratitude

Many thanks to Chris Tonelli and Open Letters for this very thoughtful review of Zach Schomburg's and my books!