email from my brother this a.m.:

Greetings--
Below is the flight and hotel info for our upcoming Aruba trip. Bask in its glory and feel the unrequited Carribean bliss. Wallow in your domestic, provincial surroundings as we recline on white sands and clear water for as far as the eye can see. Attempt--and fail--to vicariously experience the unrelenting rest and relaxation that will commence all too soon. Contain your seething jealousy and desire to be as we are and go where we go, refraining from physical violence or other destructive outlets. Instead wear masks of polite and tactful encouragement, feigning altruistic happiness while secretly longing to wring our oiled, tanned, & well-massaged necks.

My emailed response to my brother this a.m.:

Enjoy! And may you be unable to get the Beach Boys' "Kokomo" out of your head the entire time you're in Aruba, Jamaica, ooooooh I wanna take ya, especially during sexual relations, to Bermuda, Bahamas, or should I say, during those times that might have been exquisite for having, Come on pretty mama, sexual Key Largo relations, but will not be, Montego, because you will not Baby why don't we go, be able down to perform with all those Kokomo Beach Boys crooning as if into your very skull and soul.

I can bring home the bacon...

...sketch it up in the panel.

Yikes. A 1938 letter from Disney rejecting Mary Ford's application to their animators' school reads: Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men. For this reason girls are not considered for the training school. (via BoingBoing)

I just love the logic: "Women do not..." [Why?] "...because that work is performed entirely by young men."

One also wonders what the cut-off age for "young men" was. "Yo, Gramps, keep yer hand steady, looks like yer Mickey's crumpin'!"

Library Hack: lit mags, free

Lifehacker ran a post on "library hacks" a while back. Here's my own hack for the poetry-reading, no-longer-have-access-to-academic-libraries crowd: find out if your public library subscribes to Academic Search Premier, a database containing the full text of tons of academic journals...and lit journals. Yes--you can be mildly disgusted by the current issue of Poetry for free without having to skim it surreptitiously at Barnes & Noble!

In Academic Search Premier, click on "Publications" to search for a journal. If it's there (and offers more than just the bibliographic records, which many mags do), click on the journal's name and presto--the full text of every issue, often going back years. American Poetry Review, The Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Chicago Review, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, etc., are all available in full text. It's also a good way to check out a journal's bent over time if you're looking for places to submit. If only it had the full text of Pleiades, or The Canary, or...

Ed Dorn

I've been a restless reader lately: the new Chabon comes in on reserve for me, I want the new McEwan instead. I check out 30 library books, end up rereading something from my own shelves. The one book I've been successful at returning to (as opposed to reading a piece of, then dropping) amidst all this is Edward Dorn's Way More West: New and Selected Poems. Anyone who has been in a marching band--or hell, attended a parade--might actually need Dorn's "Sousa" [selections]:

Great brass bell of austerity
and the ghosts of old picnickers
ambling under the box-elder when the sobriety
was the drunkeness. John,

you child, you drumhead, there is no silence
you can't decapitate...

Your soft high flute and brass
remind me of a lost celebration I can't
quite remember,
in which I volunteered as conqueror...

I sing Sousa.
The desire to disentegrate the Earth
is eccentric...

Then, on the next page, this:

Like a Message on Sunday

Sits
the forlorn plumber
by the river
with his daughter
staring at the water
then, at her
his daughter closely.

Once World, he came
to our house to fix the stove
and couldn't
oh, we were arrogant and talked
about him in the next room, doesn't
a man know what he is doing?

Can't it be done right,
World of iron thorns.
Now they sit by the meagre river
by the water...stare
into that plumber
so that I can see a daughter in the water
she thin and silent,
he, wearing a baseball cap
in a celebrating town this summer season
may they live on

on, may their failure be kindly, and come
in small pieces.

That I keep returning to Way More West means I'm on page 23.
I want to keep reading.

eye licorice allsorts

Images I've bookmarked in the last few weeks--


"Elephant With Exploding Dust" (from Nick Brandt's On This Earth)

"AT-AT the Playground" by Casey Weldon (more Weldon paintings) (via Neatorama)

photos of shattering statues by Martin Klimas (via kottke)

Laura Levine's bird paintings

posters for American movies made by a theatre in Minsk, Belarus (this is Scooby-Doo)

Mark Jenkins: Street Installations (scroll for giraffe and similar installations)



Jialiang Gao's photograph of a terraced planting area in Yunnan province, China (via Neatorama)

(also pretty madly in love with Grace Weston's photographs [flash slideshow]--via Neatorama)

One Sentence

Sentences kick paragraphs' asses.

I remember reading Stein's How To Write--"a sentence is not emotional a paragraph is"--and disagreeing more than I usually do with her, not least because one of the most evocative sentences I've ever read was hers, when describing the interior of a house in "The Good Anna": And everywhere were little things that break.

Another favorite, from Vonnegut: Like so many Americans, she was trying to cobble together a life from things she had found in gift shops.

Yesterday, I stumbled on One Sentence, a blog that features "true stories, told in one sentence" (each from a different author). While some read like PostSecrets without the art ("He threw the condom out the car door when we were finished over a year ago, but I still feel guilty that I didn't stop him from littering"--can't you just see the postcard?), others are interesting as sentences-in-themselves:

The man's face was so badly decomposed that the cop asked me, "Well, does this look like something he would have done with his hair?"

I sat by a peat fire in Ireland and picked fat ticks off an orange cat with heated tweezers for three hours while reading Joyce. (ok, stopped believing at "Joyce"--but still fun)

It's the emptiest feeling in the world when you know your friends are out having fun, and you are at your dining room table, weeping and scrapbooking. (the "scrapbooking" seals it for me)

I was closing a cereal box one night when I became very aware of my height.

So I told her "When you go to college try to send me a letter."

I realized it was Sunday when I drove up to Chick-fil-a and it was closed.

Worth adding to your feeds, I think.

challenge

Nina Katchadourian exhibits a great way to stack your books. Given the time, it'd be fun to do this before having guests of the kind that go straight to your bookshelves over (I'm one such guest). Can't wait to get home and see what my shelves yield. And yours?

Best library outreach I've seen in a while: smack in the middle of the Midtown Farmer's Market last week in Minneapolis, East Lake Library (located about 10 blocks from the market--a Minneapolis, not Hennepin County, library) was holding a storytime and will weekly. Clearly posted was info about other storytimes and summer offerings available at the branch. Bravissimo!

how would you kiss you?

Via Kottke, a Photoshopped series of people kissing themselves. What's fascinating are not the images so much as seeing how people chose to approach themselves: some erotically, some tenderly, some shyly, some matter-of-factly. There's a whiff of "consciousness raising exercise" here, and I think how much easier (and more natural-feeling) it would be to pose slapping myself or shaking myself by the shoulders. There are 27 photos in the series--take a look.

I love these...

--underwater sculpture by Jason Taylor: gallery (many more, some I like even better)

What a great coffee-table (and identity studies) book idea: Alter Ego: Avatars and Their Creators, by Robbie Cooper (via BoingBoing).

More images from the book:
Gallery One
Gallery Two

Brilliant! A small grocery store in Emo, Ontario is beating the prices of a nearby Wal-Mart by buying bulk items at Sam's Club [owned by Wal-Mart, and on the US border, like Emo], then selling them for lower-than-Wal-Mart (but higher than Sam's Club) prices. Signs on their shelves advertise that their prices are lower than Wal-Mart's.

"It's been good business," says Cloverleaf Grocery co-owner Dan Loney, "Our sales are way up since Wal-Mart came."

"5 books of poetry that haven't really been hugely in the spotlight but that you highly recommend" cont.

4. Lara Glenum's The Hounds of No (Action Books, 2005)

The news that there's an excellent-looking new issue of ACTION YES out that includes Glenum's AWP panel paper "Notes on Women & the Grotesque" (haven't gotten to read it yet) reminded me that I wanted to add The Hounds of No to my list.

I first encountered Glenum's work in POM2 and I absolutely flipped for it. I ended up writing a poem for POM2 that incorporated phrases from her piece. Expressions like "one of our finest poets" or "among the best of her generation" make me puke, but...Hounds is an important book. And brilliant and meaty and bloody and only ten dollars--!

Here's a poem from the book, previously published in DIAGRAM:

"Medea and the Snow-Angels"

epigraphs

I opened up Gail Godwin's 2006 novel Queen of the Underworld--a "scantily-clad autobiographical novel set in 1950s Miami," according to Publisher's Weekly--to find this epigraph:

Caminante, no hay camino.
Se hace camino al andar.
--Antonio Machado

which I recognized as the epigraph to another book, Carolyn Forche's 1976 Gathering the Tribes. A list of books or poems that share the same epigraph might be fascinating. Anyone know off-hand of any others?

"5 books of poetry"--#3

Catherine Wagner's Macular Hole (Fence Books, 2004). Here are one and a half poems for a sample--first, the half (the second half of the poem's formatting is beyond my capabilities):

I walked in the house
--Catherine Wagner

I walked in the house
on the flat aspect of the wood
I took rectangular instruction of the wood

when I walked I turned at the wall
and on the flat I moved steadily

unimpeded, not tumbling, climbing, or short of breath.
I walked in ease on the flat.

Something electric charged into our account
and zinged out of it, pre-instructed

and paid for the house. I felt
house on my heel then instep and toe.
I had a bad foot and I paid
to get it fixed so I could walk here.
I paid for the house and I paid for the
foot that touches it. I paid to be
directed rectangularly and down a hall.
I curved my body to direct
my waste through a hole. I am helped
and paying for it.

[next poem]

Kill so we feel safe and comfortable
--Catherine Wagner

This is called Mississippi mash, this kind of kick--leg up,
foot smashed against both sides opponent's head,
or spinneret, foot comes round your body
turning backward fast, and hooks 'em.
Squeezed tight between my legs
so we feel safe and comfortable.
Who's my fucker? Who will be my special fucker?

"5 books of poetry" cont.--

2. Kaia Sand's Interval (Edge, 2004). Edge is Rod Smith's press, and I like it. They also published Heather Fuller's perhaps this is a rescue fantasy (if I had it, I'd probably put it on this list, too--"Sudden Clutter" from that book is one of my favorite poems)

Madrigal for Jules
--Kaia Sand

Who are the egrets we eyed
as we feel searchingly
as we reveal

or who is the egret we mark
as we overturn pages
as we learn

how bookcliff's wonder to be fierce
now we lip salute without loss
gesture struck as we are

as red bougainvillea is kisses
of you [operatic bellows]
and redwood stout redwood sorrow

---

What is the bookcliff you climbed
as you forage for food
as you store

or what is the bookcliff you left
as you corral the simple
as you touch

how anthelion's seabright to be heard
now you pledge without restraint
aromatic lovely as you are

as a hand becomes a pocket
of you [harvest touch]
and sunflower strong sunflower equinox

--

When is the seabright we grace
as we daylight briskly
as we tithe

or when is the seabright we bash
as we river our worries
as we eclipse

how Utah's three gossips to be seen
now we candle without petals
barren stunned as we are

as the palimpsest is constructed
of you [farpost caress]
and ashen glovebox ashen beaches

--

Where are the three gossips they became
as they sigh for you
as they sacrifice

or where are the three gossips they burn
as they shed dominion
as they erode

how cave's mountain to be found
now it's luminous without sunlight
hidden faces as they are

as a candle wills a match
of you [voice of sun]
and trillium tongue trillium open

--

Why is the mountain we see
as we abacus click
as we arrive

or why is the mountain beyond
as we believe each other
as we disbelieve

how marsh's egrets depart
now we promenade without a stumble
certain as we are

as mesas are an arm's length
of you [aspen quivering]
and sidereal year sidereal awe

There's a "5 books of poetry that haven't really been hugely in the spotlight but that you highly recommend" thing going around. I'll post my 5 over the next day or so, with a representative poem from each. Here's one for tonight:

1. Kathleen Ossip's The Search Engine (APR, 2002)
Here's one asskicking poem--go on, send it to Ma on Mother's Day:

My 20th Century
--Kathleen Ossip

We are having tea and
dobosh torte, my mother
and I, dressed in hobble
skirts and buttoned boots,
in Peacock Alley of the
old Waldorf (She thrives on
luxury.) Hey, Ma, I say,
this Sigmund Freud says neuroses
arise from repressed sexual
fantasies! She clatters her cup
in a kind of trance.

We're having tea and Ritz
crackers, my mother and I,
dressed in chemises, shingled and
bobbed, in the sitting room
of my first apartment. (She's
a little jealous.) Hey,
Ma, I say, Susan Anthony
won! We're getting the vote!
She moves like a brown
bird on a brown branch.

We're having tea--the sugar
is rationed--my mother and
I, wearing trousers and snoods,
in a soldier's canteen. (I'm
her supervisor.) Hey, Ma, I
say, have you seen that
movie about Scarlett O'Hara, the
heroine who proves, once and
for all, that a woman
can be hard as nails
yet loved by millions? She
hefts a widget, not too friendly.

We're having drinks in the
Sputnik Lounge, in daydresses and
ballerina slippers. (She's dating a
pilot.) Hey, Ma, I say,
y'know Rock Hudson, that
actor you like? Well, I just
read in Tittle-Tattle... She
hits a high note like
a wigged castrato.

We're taking spoonfuls of blue-
green algae in the solarium
of the nursing home (I'm
getting tired; her joints are
sprightly.) We're dressed in
leopardskin aerobicwear. Hey,
Ma, I say, there's this
guy who says all religions
derive from a shared mythology.
What do you think? She
swivels and rides
away on her trike.

I'm eating bread and water
alone, naked as the day
I was born. Hey, Ma,
I say, though she's not
around, you won't believe this.
Physicists say that in
addition to a yes and a
no, the universe contains a maybe.
Off in the distance, under the stars,
she moves like a platypus,
neither here nor there.

We do, doodily do, doodily do, doodily do
what we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must,
muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,
until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (died last night, at age 84)

Reference Question of the Week (to date)

Man: I've been doing some genealogical research, and I found out there was a DIVORCE [shudders] in my family! It was the husband who registered the complaint, but I can't tell what it was for...can you find me a list of the grounds for divorce in 1810 in [state name]?

Me: [looking them up] Uh, adultery...

Man: Oh [looking worried]...I can't imagine she would have done that. No, I don't think so. [Remember, this is not someone he's ever met]

Me: Drunkenness for a period of one year...

Man: No. No, I can't imagine.

Me: Impotence...

Man: But we're talking about a woman.

Me: Says here that, in legal terms, "impotence" can apply to a man or a woman.

Man: Huh.

Me: ...and "felony cruelty."

Man: [looking relieved] I bet that's it! She was CRUEL! [leaves happy]

full circle

Easter 2006--our first holiday together as a family.