So in an effort to actually get up to speed on contemporary poetics criticism a friend and I have been reading some articles with very long names, and the one we last read was Chris Nealon's "Camp Messianism, or, the Hopes of Poetry in Late-Late Capitalism" (thanks to Wiloe, am working on making your t-shirt). Anyway, it was actually very ( Read more... )

Hi well I haven't written anything public in forever. I don't even know what to write about, there is such an immense backlog. Instead want to know what I'm listening to?

La Roux, "Tigerlily" :

Click to view

and "I'm Not Your Toy" :  www.youtube.com/watch

The Gossip's "Music For Men" album (I love Beth Ditto):

Click to view

Gram Rabbit :

Click to view

Click to view

Veracruz

by George Stanley

In Veracruz, city of breezes & sailors & loud birds,
an old man, I walked the Malecón by the sea,

and I thought of my father, who when a young man
had walked the Malecón in Havana, dreaming of Brazil,

and I wished he had gone to Brazil
& learned magic,

and I wished my father had come back to San Francisco
armed with ( Read more... )

What small things delight you in your everyday life, practical or impractical? Odd things that others might not guess? I mean not beloved experiences which come seldom, but regularly-occurring balms to your ennui and jolts to your spirit?

Here are some of mine:

-parallel parking successfully, especially in small spaces - extra joy if some passerby ( Read more... )

Man, it would suck to be dead Rudyard Kipling and have corrupt embattled solipsistic liars go around quoting your verses. Not that he never ever asked for it by being an imperialist didactic bastard every now and again.

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Leech, my son!

Of Elizabeth Alexander, who will ( Read more... )

So I had a fun patronizing rejection letter from a pretty big literary magazine. The odd (and very encouraging!) thing was that the editor wrote a LOT - on each of the three poems I sent and also a separate short hand-written letter. Unfortunately a lot of this was advice to "try and read your poem out loud" and rants about MFA programs and lots of ( Read more... )

Frost giant Bill O'Reilly just called himself an anarchist on "The Daily Show." Subsequently I got a distressing/amusing mental image of him singing "Anarchy in the U.K." off-key, in leather and buttons. Presupposing one can actually take his chameleonic desperate self-identification seriously (one can't really of course) would that mean he is an ( Read more... )

I've an overwhelming desire to rewatch "My So-Called Life" and read certain Chinese poets. It's always clear when I start reaching for the Tu Fu and have got the Liz Phair on loop that I'm in the mood for a certain kind of pain. What's up? Is it just shark week or? Credit defaulting on yo speculative ass ya money-willer wizard? Haha I have no ( Read more... )

Went kayaking with crestedpenguin and saw a bunch of 4-6 foot leopard sharks in the shallows right underneath us, and garibaldi & sea lions. The sharks seemed very gentle and rather charming. We went in a narrow cave that was bigger on the inside than on the outside (a paradox cave; apparently paradoxes have strong tides too inside). The light was ( Read more... )

my brother (recent grad) & I still unemployed in this city. am thinking of going for blue collar work now. at least weeding and cooking is satisfying cause you can see it

debate and related thoughts:

- I talked to my Dad on the phone yesterday and he says "there is something I used to tell you about jobs - I don't know if you remember" (I of course ( Read more... )