Bemidji!

According to the VISIT BEMIDJI website, Eastman Kodak recognizes these two guys as the most photographed landmarks in the U.S. It did not mention what is the first most. But who cares? I'm going to see these guys for the first time in I-don't-know-how-many decades on August first when I head up to Bemidji to read with Erin Lynn Marsh! (More info over on that sidebar to your right.)

I was born in Bemidji, and though we moved when I was seven years old, I have all sorts of formative memories. I expect the trip to be a lot of fun and to wig me the hell out at alternating invervals.

Luckily, I am traveling with my sister. We can wig out together, or support our separate wigging.

Music and a Movie for the Holiday

Patriot Act -- Muja Messiah ft. I-Self Devine



Heavy Metal in Baghdad

Mini-Tour, part four

Well, technically the joint tour is over at this point. Rauan's back to Chicago to head to St. Louis the next day, and I am back to Chicago to hang out for a couple days. My chronology may be off, but here are some highlights:


A and K and I went on a super touristy speedboat ride at Navy Pier called the Seadog Extreme!!! I thought it was going to be perhaps excruciating, but once we got past the no-wake area and the nineteen year old captain blasted Welcome to the Jungle, cranked the motor to 40 knots and started whipping shitties in Lake Michigan, well, everything was ridiculously all right to me. (I think they said 40 knots. I am just tossing that term around. Also, I do not know a less offensive term for spinning a vehicle around really fast. I am open to suggestion.)


One morning I went to the zoo with J and M. Oh man! I liked monkeys before, but now that I have spent time with the world's most serious monkey enthusiast, I LOVE them.

I forget what this guy is called. He's like a megabunny.

This is Solomon and Lucille. I feel I can use their real names and it won't threaten their blogger privacy.

Blondie was playing at the zoo that evening, but instead, Kate and I went to see House of Brunettes!

Here's the view from the bar at the top of the Hancock building. It was packed up there; we didn't stay.

I went through a couple emergency comfort moments. Luckily, we had decided to hit the Red Apple for dinner one evening so we could restore ourselves on some pierogi and sweet and sour cabbage. ...Okay, and some sausage. I am fairly nearly vegetarian in my day-to-day life, but I admit another name for our tour could have been the Carnivorous Pole Tour.

One day this woman will teach me to shop.

But in the mean time, I shop for geegaws and chachkis. There is nothing I require more than a trip through a junk shop when my mind is on overload. Something about sorting the endless detritus is so calming to me.

Pretty Chicago.

The end.

Mini Tour, Part Three

Next, Rauan and I traveled to Cincinnati. Having completely romanticized this town for months, I was a little nervous on the ride down, but we kept ourselves busy by starting some collaborative poems.

Here Michael and Rauan dive right into the debate:

Here are Kristi and Amy setting up:

Michael, Amy, and Kristi were our gracious, generous hosts.

Here is some pre-reading kitchen chat:

Then the good gathering:

And our wonderful co-reader, Ruth Dickey:

I think I've posted enough photos of what Rauan and I look like reading. What I wish I could have captured were the lightning bugs which were by the hundreds lighting up all over the yard during the reading! It was only the second time I'd ever seen them!

We stayed up late!

To sum up, Cincinnati was even more glamorous than I had imagined. I cannot wait for another excuse to visit. Maybe even to stay more than 19 hours.

I guess the next post will be my last Mini Tour post. But my part of the readings are done and my mini-vacation started some time between the last two photographs above, so the remaining pictures will be miscellaneous puppy, skyscraper, and adorable toddler shots. Just sayin'.

Midwest Tour, Part Two

Some Possible Tour Names:*

The Eagle or Crow Tour**
Do Not Sit on the Monument Tour
The No Spitting Tour
The Baby Bird Tour
So Loud It'll Wake the Dead! Tour
The Hare and Noodle Tour
The Dalai Lama Hoppin' Mad Goose Tour
The Three Million Candle Tour
The Cheese and Wind Tour***
The Puritan Doves Tour
Is The Score 0-0? Tour
The Second Cousins Tour



June 23rd: K, A, M, and I had some pre-reading tapas at People in Wicker Park before heading to:

Afterwards at Rodan:

Blurry guys. For some reason I refuse to use the flash on my camera.

*Now that a few days have passed, it's clear that some of these tour names may have only been funny in context of random tour sitings and on-bus discussions. We are probably open to suggestions.

**This is a highly flawed game we tried to perfect which involves deciding if a person is an eagle or a crow. I like it because the birds are such false opposites, like you might find on a professional development quiz you might take at work (Are you always upbeat or have you once been angry?) or a bloggy quiz that tells you what spice you are (Do you like jabanero peppers or chalk?) Rauan and I, by the way, are both crows, but we feel differently about being so.

***Wisconsin has a lot of cheese, and Chicago is windy...

Midwest Mini-Tour, Part One

Rauan Klassnik and I joined forces for a few days to tour parts of the midwest in support of our Black Ocean books. It was great! I'll be posting about that week in pieces over the course of this week.
June 21st. Here is Rauan as we are about to reboard our first Megabus en route to Madison for our reading at Avol's Books.


Rauan peruses my new manny, Ghost Fargo.

June 22nd. Over coffee before our Avol's reading, I try to warm up to the idea of being in some of the trip photos too by including my shoe in this shot. Rauan looks collected, ready to knock 'em dead.

Rauan of Holy Land chats with Ron of Avol's.


Our first reading done!

Aside from the reading, checking out the neighborhood around the capitol building and the occassional bite to eat, Rauan spent most of his time in his room watching Animal Cops, and because we don't have cable at home, I glutted on light-ish movies, the best of which was Bend it Like Beckham. I watched this just in time to get excited about the Spain/Italy and Spain/Russia matches. Between the movie and some explanations from Rauan who is a big soccer fan, I am pretty much a soccer expert now (says the girl who can't figure out which team is which when they switch uniform colors...).

Tomorrow I'll post about the first parts of Chicago and some of our possible tour titles...

Talking Image Connection at the Soap Factory...

...was so fun!