Is this thing on?

Oh, dear. I'm sure I have bored what two readers I ever had enough that you might never return to see if I update every month now or what.

There hasn't been much to report. It's been winter here forever. Or "Gee, I'm really swamped at work." Buzz, buzz...

BUT yesterday was warm and sunny enough to go for a stroll, and so I did one of my favorite warm weather activities: I hit up my teeny branch library for whatever gems might be hiding there. So:

Did you know that David Lynch wrote a book on meditation and consciousness???

AND

Did you know there exists a 1986 rock documentary called Heavy Metal Parking Lot???

Oh man, I can't wait. I sort of feel myself changing into a different person just in anticipation of these two pieces of media.

Something New...

Or Else What Asked the Flame, a collaboration between Mathias Svalina and me, is freshly available as a downloadable E-Chap through Scantily Clad Press. Thank you, Mr. Andrew Lundwall.

Vague Pronoun Intentional

Here's a painting by my friend, the Duluth painter Jack Walsh. I feel exactly like this image today. I don't know how or why, but I think it's good and bad to feel this way. That's why I like it so much.



I'm not even going to ask Jack what the title of it is. I think we should make one up. Any ideas?

AWP NY

Allison Titus and Joshua Poteat hold down the Black Ocean table.

This machine broke a few hearts and fulfilled a few dreams. Mostly the dream was gumballs, but a couple folks got a free Black Ocean book. Nobody really died.


Facing camera left to right: Janaka Stucky, Paige Ackerson-Kiely, DJ Dolack
In mirror left to right: Allison Titus, Heather Overby, me, Joshua Poteat



Rauan Klassnik and Janaka Stucky are thrilled about Holy Land. Me, too.


On our way to the Steal This Reading reading

Susan McCarty at the "Steal This Reading" afterparty.

on our way to the Starcherone reading at KGB bar

I saw Charles Simic and James Tate and John Ashbery and Russell Edson all sitting at the same table, and then I got to participate in a standing ovation for Russell Edson. It was, to say the least, one of my top three favorite standing ovations of all time.

I went to panels. I heard Li-Young Lee and the Copper Canyon poets readings on site and the Steal this Reading poets and the Starcherone authors at a couple Brooklyn sites. I saw scads of old friends and some folks I'm more recently fond of.

Plus I scored:
Go Home and Go to Bed! Mary Ruefle's new comic from Pilot
Realm Sixty-Four Kristi Maxwell
Holy Land Rauan Klassnik
Quinnehtukqut Joshua Harmon
The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You Frank Stanford
The Little Book of Guesses John Gallaher
My Soviet Union Michael Dumanis
American Music Chris Martin (Actually, I bought this a couple weeks back at Elliot Bay Book Co in Seattle, but it's awesome and I'da bought it at AWP if I hadn't)

I left for my 4:30 AM airport shuttle exhausted, overwhelmed and completely (slap)happy.

Three Weeks!

That's a long time to go between entries. What have I been doing?

1. I had a birthday. Here:



is the birthday paella that I shared with some friends.

2. P and I went to this exhibit.

3. We missed this Frida Kahlo exhibit, so we saw

4. Juno instead. And, I don't know what everybody was talking about it being so cute; I mean, it was of course, but it also fundamentally messed me up for the rest of the night. On top of which mess I was in, I also had to worry about this: if I am the only one I know of who was fundamentally messed up by it, does that mean that on the great depth continuum of films...wherein someone like Herzog or a harrowing documentarian are on one end, and, say, the American Pie genre is on the other, am I only Fox Searchlights deep?
It doesn't matter. And I'm not. But I put myself through the ringer about it for a good chunk of a night.

5. Decided I couldn't live without this CD anymore. Here's a little clip:



6. Took A:


to Seattle:


to visit friends:


and look at food:


since he's considering chef-hood. It was a fantastic trip. Short yet fantastic. We were power tourists. Experience Music Project, Sci-Fi Museum, Aquarium, Pike Street Market, Space Needle, and so on. We did it.

Thus concludes the highlights of my show and tell post...

Muddy Farm -- Singular

I have only one friend who farms. Luckily, that friend is ALSO a writer. Even luckier, he's begun blogging all about setting up his new farm here.

I don't know anything about farming, so I plan to abuse his comments box with all sorts of questions and see if he will humor me.

So Very Handsome!

The first issue contains work by:

Lily Brown, Sommer Browning, Paula Cisewski, Adam Clay, John Colburn, Jeff Downey, Julie Doxsee, Sarah Fox, Kate Greenstreet, Sarah Goldstein, Joshua Harmon, Annaliese Jakimides, Rauan Klassnik, Gabriella Klein Lindsey, Greg Koehler, Marcia LeBeau, Michael Macklin, Adam Peterson, Joshua Poteat, Mary Ruefle, Tomaz Salamun, Marisa Siegel, Brandon Shimoda, Peter Jay Shippy, Mathias Svalina, Jocko Weyland, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Barbara Yien and Jake Adam York

You can get your very own copy here.