equinoctial

some things about portland

2008-10-02T14:07:00.002-04:00

In the coffee shop in which I sit and type, a girl in a Vanilla Ice backpack is inquiring about the price of soup. It's clear she has some money issues. The barista is directing her to a local apple tree. They've spent several minutes now, discussing the quality of that tree's fruit.
There is a small red tricycle locked to the bike rack outside the Tin Shed.
As noted on facebook, observed: two men in utilikilts, strangers encountering each other across a busy street, giving each other a thumb's up for their clothing choice.
There is an initiative to replace some parking spots with bike parking. Laurel explains the theory thus: look how many more customers you can cram into one car's worth of space!
Two pierced girls discuss pirates at the coffee shop on Mississippi. I roll my eyes, thinking they are part of this stupid punk rock pirate trend, only to realize they are discussing Somali pirates.
There are traffic signs on the major bike routes around the city. They tell you how to get from one place to another, and also how many minutes it will take you to bike there.
My local library is in the same building as Whole Foods.
Older people whiz by you on hiking trails. Younger people knit on them.
Houses are so personalized that I always know exactly where I am not by the streets but by the houses: the baby pink and baby blue one with the gargoyle, the one with the round upper level porch like a crow's nest, the one with the window in the fence (discovered last night), the one with the tiny palms at regular intervals, the one with the massive acrylic/oil portraits hanging on the outside, the one with the red neon heart visible through the window, the one with the rhubarb garden out front, the tall one on the hill that was two houses stacked on on the other, the one with the giant stuffed animal on the porch, and ours with its rosemary bushes and columnar apples and sign that says Salut.

yeah ok i dropped off the planet. but i'm back with muppets.

2008-09-26T12:04:00.004-04:00

safe arrival

2008-08-14T18:42:00.003-04:00

We went out of range of electricity, so I haven't blogged the rest of the trip yet. I will soon, but for now, suffice it to say that I made it safe into the city of roses. My housemates painted my room with a beautiful art deco pattern and flowers. There were fresh flowers from my neighbors in a vase on the floor. Walking to the coffee shop today I passed plums and lavender. My car smells like sage. There are rumors of fig and olive trees in my yard. My old furniture is still in use, and the pizza box collage I made at the Providence Children's Museum is still gracing the wall. I'm home.

the buffalo bill roundup

2008-08-10T09:09:00.012-04:00

We think we saw every main street in Kansas yesterday, almost. Although the rain prevented us from running around in the tallgrass prairie, we did manage to see a lot of flat land. First stop on the Santa Fe Trail was Cassoday, Kansas, population 131. We avoided the stares of people and even cows who knew we weren't from around these parts. We heard a story about Columbia students taking a greyhound down to Cottonwood Falls, an event which was so momentous that a local newspaper wrote a story about it. Then we ate at a Mennonite restaurant in Hillsdale, Kansas - brisket! sauerkraut! peanut butter pie! Finally, we ended up at the Boot Hill B&B in Dodge City, which in its heyday was part of what my mother always termed Bloody Kansas, and which the brochure tells us was once termed "Buffalo Capitol of the World," "Queen of the Cowtowns," and the "Wickedest Little City in America." We're visiting on a Sunday, of course.

tallgrass prairie beckons

2008-08-09T12:12:00.009-04:00

10:16 at the beacon, ny train; irritating hershey, pennsylvania with its chocolate tourist trap; hamburger inn in delaware, ohio; champagne and blackberry pie in bloomington's bryant park; the world's largest ketchup bottle in collinsville, illinois; malteds at crown candy kitchen and a tour of a striated, gentrifying neighborhood in st. louis, missouri; sweet indie rock in lawrence, ks. one dissed "lemonade stand" (coke in cans) and one reluctantly patronized "lemonade stand" (watermelon kool-aid). one shipped suitcase. many cups of coffee. part of the devil's dictionary. part of a geographical history of the west circa 1908. lots of icelandic punk.

photos in reverse chronological order.

indiana farewell

2008-08-08T00:21:00.003-04:00

leaving bloomington for the last time tomorrow morning. blackberry pie in bryant park with dear friends and champagne from my cousin on the occasion of finishing my thesis. i'm very sad to leave here. i don't have a home here anymore. the dear house with the green porch swing has a basketball hoop in the driveway. restaurants have closed. dunkin donuts has opened. boxcar books has moved. but the crickets are still out in the twilight. next stop, kansas.

p.s.

2008-08-05T18:20:00.001-04:00

I owe lots of letters and edits and such right now. I'll be in touch soon. I swear.

stay tuned

2008-08-05T18:14:00.002-04:00

Now that I'm out of the communications black hole that is The Putney School Summer Programs, I'm going to start posting again. And what better way than to document the great Cross Country journey of 2008! My cousin and I are driving west to my new home in Portland and we're stopping in Bloomington for one last hurrah, in Dodge City to dig up the bones of gunslingers (the same bones the boys used to dig up and shake at my grandma), in Grand Teton to hike and wherever else we feel like stopping.

The road beckons!

vanessa says i should post

2008-07-19T10:16:00.003-04:00

And well I should. It's hard to update from Putney, however, because when I'm not teaching I'm lesson planning and when I'm not lesson planning I'm writing evaluations and when I'm not writing evaluations I'm staffing a contradance and when I'm not staffing a contradance I'm playing badminton and when I'm not playing badminton I'm paddling around in swimming holes and when I'm not paddling around in swimming holes I'm watching odd animations and when I'm not watching odd animations I'm getting my students' anthology ready and when I'm not getting my students' anthology ready I'm hiking in the woods and when I'm not hiking in the woods I'm drinking coffee at the co-op and when I'm not drinking coffee at the co-op I'm spraining my wrist playing volleyball and when I'm not playing volleyball I'm demonstrating flamenco dances and when I'm not demonstrating flamenco dances I'm demonstrating castanets and when I'm not demonstrating castanets I'm reading at faculty performances and when I'm not reading at faculty performances I'm watching fireflies and when I'm not watching fireflies I'm eating barbecue from a schoolbus and when I'm not eating barbecue from a schoolbus I'm doing Nathanial Katz yoga and when I'm not doing Nathanial Katz yoga I'm taking pictures of the mountains and when I'm not taking pictures of the mountains I'm petting the newborn calves and when I'm not petting the newborn calves I'm having arguments about genre fiction and when I'm not having arguments about genre fiction I'm making accordion books and when I'm not making accordion books I'm singing tumbala laika and when I'm not singing tumbala laika I'm on the phone with the darling loving giving friends who are helping move my earthly belongings cross country and when I'm not on the phone with the darling loving giving friends I'm weeding and when I'm not weeding I'm applying for jobs and when I'm not applying for jobs I'm trying to get into the ceramics studio and when I'm not trying to get into the ceramics studio I'm driving to Montpelier to eat strawberries with old friends and when I'm not eating strawberries I'm writing letters and when I'm not writing letters, and these are slender moments, I'm reading. So there you have it.

But I'll try to post some writings I've done, some little writings, and some entertaining little things to watch. Here's one. Warning, it's disturbing, highly but I find it incredibly beautiful:

boston originally, bloomington most recently, portland eventually

2008-06-14T21:27:00.005-04:00

My mother and I decided to take a spontaneous vacation to Key West to bond, since we're both in liminal spaces - me between graduate school and life after graduate school, Mom between college presidents and close to retirement. It's been the best vacation I've had in ages - the perfect combination of activity and relaxation, doing what we feel like when we feel like it, and serendipitous discoveries. I haven't seen any geckos, but the big surprise for me was how many wild roosters hang out all over this island. Also, I've seen a number of chihuahuas running loose, and I have a theory that the gay men who come visit here lose them and now they run wild in packs, getting ready to challenge the cats at the Hemingway house to a gang war dance-off.

Today was a momentous day. I:

Saw Hemingway's typewriter and toilet.
Petted one of Hemingway's cats.
Ate conch fritters.
Narrowly escaped getting chomped on by a shark in the ocean (for reals!).
Watched 3 weddings happen simultaneously on the beach.
Went to the Southernmost Dairy Queen.
Saw a giant rainbow rooster float at the Pride Parade.
Waved to Cuba.
Took pictures of the zero mileage maker of Route 1 (a road that has deep childhood meaning for me).
Got caught in several rain storms.
Watched my freckles surface.
Watched a manatee-dolphin-shark frolic in the waves.
Ate Cuban bread for breakfast.
Read some of Junot Diaz's latest, finally, which is awesome so far.

There was a lot more, but I can't remember now. Tomorrow we're going kayaking and hopefully we'll see sting rays and egrets. We'll be making our way back tomorrow night. I'm hoping for one last ocean swim. I left my phone in Connecticut, so if you've been trying me, sorry. Then it's Vermont on Thursday and Portland after that.

Really, I recommend everyone go to the warm ocean after moving. I did yoga in the warm water and my sore muscles feel much better. Pictures when I get back!

dilly dilly

2008-06-05T20:32:00.003-04:00

I was googling Bloomington to try to find more pictures of the flood-ravaged downtown (water up to folks' knees!) or information on tomorrow's predicted severe whether when I came across this news story. Somehow it seems to perfectly encapsulate one aspect of Bloomington to me.

small town part II

2008-06-02T10:29:00.003-04:00

There's a sweet little cafe in town, Neannie's, where I like to go for brunch on occasion. It's in my neighborhood, not "downtown" like most of the other restaurants, and thus attracts a decidedly older, more local crowd than the undergrads who frequent many of the other spots. Sadly, shortly after the new (young!) owner bought the business, her landlord decided not to renew her lease, hoping for more money from an office. Nearly every time I go I get the Mediterranean quiche; although I'm not the hugest quiche fan, the spinach and kalamata olives in this quiche are surprisingly delightful. Seriously, it's easier to find good Tibetan food in Indiana than good Italian or Greek. So I ate at Neannie's yesterday and as I was ordering, I lamented to the owner/server that I had unknowingly eaten my last of her delightful quiches. She promptly ran into the back and gave me the recipe. Her recipe. On an index card. With her handwriting. Torn out of a recipe box. What a nice thing to do for a relative stranger! It made my day. I can only hope she has it memorized and not that she's never going to make it again.

another boring romantic that's me

2008-05-31T14:27:00.004-04:00

I never thought I would live in a town as small as this. As I was walking to the Farmer's Market this morning, Sonya and Mike drove past and picked me up in their little car. We shared a brief chat until they dropped me off across from the wildflowers of the market. Inside, I ran into Michael playing upright bass, Danny buying strawberries, and my thesis director all wild-haired and summery. On the way home, I ran into my hair stylist, taking down the "no parking" signs he'd made out of poster-board and stuck up in his windows to ward off the Farmer's Market crowd. He used to cut hair for John Cougar Mellencamp and his model wife (who live in this small town), and now he cuts mine. Cheap and amazing. Yesterday I turned on WFHB, Bloomington community radio, and who should be the DJ but the director of the Creative Writing program. I recognized her by her voice. She played the new Portishead. Whenever I do anything outside, such as holding class by the art museum's red doughnut sculpture, or tacking up signs for a yard sale, multiple people call me later to say that they saw me. The local bar really is the proverbial place where everybody knows your name.

It gets cloying at times, and I'm definitely ready to move on. Still, I'm so grateful, now that it's ending, to have known what this life is like. The kind of self you inhabit in a small town is as real, but in an inverted way, from that you inhabit in the anonymity of a big city. In the latter, I feel isolated from the buzz and thrust, and therefore myself in a solitary, observant way. In the former, you are forced into being yourself, because you are always apt to run into someone when you least feel like performing. The trade-off is that, since you get those sides of others too, there's only so much resentment you can feel about being caught in your dirtiest shirt or weeping in public.

And when you begin to notice that half-chewed corn husks or cloth flowers begin to appear regularly on your porch and lawn, you can't help but imagine that the person leaving them is well aware exactly for whom they are intended.

though i said i'd go before us and show the way back home

2008-05-25T18:09:00.004-04:00

Vanessa is leaving tomorrow morning. I've been cleaning all weekend, except for a few hours late night during which we had a spectacular meal at Restaurant Tallent, the local haute cuisine slow food organic food restaurant. Pictures of our meals as soon as I dump my camera's contents into my computer, but let me just say that it included a strawberry rosewater "milkshake." Afterwards we saw the new Indiana Jones, which was campy in all the right ways and thoroughly enjoyable. That spitfire Karen Allen was so much fun and we agreed that Cate Blanchett can do no wrong.

So now I'm bleached out and exhausted and listening to the 4-hour mix I made for V's road trip. My house is an echo chamber with the furniture gone. My library and bedroom are full of everything I own. Leaving has become at once quite real and quite unfathomable.

i will miss soma

2008-05-19T14:28:00.000-04:00

Overheard: "I ate some gator and it was pretty good."

yard sale days

2008-05-19T10:26:00.003-04:00

V called me both Anne of Green Gables and Pollyana yesterday, the former when I was rhapsodizing over the moon, hanging full and white in a pinkishly blue twilight, swooped across by bats. The latter when I was opining over the unexpected merit of yesterday's yard sale: seeing stuff I've toted around idly for years walk off with people who loved it more than I ever could. A few of these:

The hot vintage dress with the beautiful floral print that doesn't fit right went with a sweet hipster girl.
The cheerleader doll altered so that her uniform reads "punk" goes away with a polite little girl who helped her young friends find their own spoils.
The futon -- my first long-term post-college bed -- to an English PhD student.
The green velvet throne chair to another English PhD student I randomly see around all the time but haven't ever officially met.
The hot shoes and yellow shirt I never wear to my friend Sherri.
The little red wok and pretty bowls I bought in Providence right after college to my mentee in the CW program - a young Mainer just post-college herself.
The necklace from the Silver Dragon to the beautiful woman with the facial tattoo who has waited on me often at a local cafe. Her stunning child with a chest of pirate booty slung round his neck and cascading curls wandered around wielding Chris's curtain rod like a sword.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. Not as bustling as we'd hoped, but satisfying.

soon i will never have to listen to the bakehouse girls again

2008-05-17T14:26:00.004-04:00

A gaggle of sorority girls congregated near V and me as we tried to work today. Girls like this come to this cafe all the time and are rude to the waitstaff, loud and overbearing, mean to their absent friends, and generally disruptive. V and I exacted our final revenge by riffing on their outbursts over gchat. Here is an excerpt of our mockery. It's sort of found mockery if you will, since most of the language came from the girls themselves. If you would like the whole text please see her blog. I warn you, this is entirely gratuitous frustration born of four years of dealing with overpriveleged 20 year-olds. Please do not think the less of me:

VM: they are SO RUDE here

me: oh my gawd

2:18 PM VM: I like asked for a sandwich with no fat in it

and like this turkey HAS FAT

like WTF?

me: OH MY GAWD you ARE SO OPPRESSED

VM: I know, right?

vegan cocunut curry soup over rice

2008-05-15T18:33:00.002-04:00

I'm at Rachel's Cafe, where I've never been before. If I were going to stay in Bloomington I would come here all the time. Some kind of local theater production is about to go up and festively dressed children are standing about while a young man is shouting "yay" at regular intervals in that monotone of excitement peculiar to gentle nonprofiteers.

2008-05-15T14:04:00.007-04:00

Please go read Mary Austin Speaker's wonderful article and ogle Kramer O'Neill's starkly lush photo essay for Last Exit Magazine, "Remains of the Day." The collaborative piece explores an Altoona, PA Taxidermy Convention.

Good News

2008-05-13T12:28:00.002-04:00

Laura Van den Berg's story "Where We Must Be" from Indiana Review 29.1 (my first issue as Fiction Editor) has been selected for inclusion in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008! Marjorie Celona's "Y" from IR 28.2 has also been selected for the same issue. Congratulations Laura and Marjorie!

poor boys and pilgrims

2008-05-12T21:37:00.015-04:00

I'm back from Oklahoma City. Tracy's wedding was beautiful and moving. On the way, V and I stopped at Graceland. On the whole, it was sad mostly because it felt so real, so lived in. Even though Tim Gunn would say that he questioned the taste level of the designers of Graceland, and everything there is so over-the-top it, what was most striking was how clear it was that people had actually inhabited the space. Paintings that seemed done by someone's uncle in the vicinity of ceramic chimps. A kitchen range that seemed used across the hall from green shag carpet. A carport that looked like anyone's carport. Vanessa and I remarked on the racial stratification of the employees - the inside workers were predominately white, the outside predominately African American. After leaving Graceland we ate some tasty barbecue and later stayed in a small town in Arkansas where people stared at the road from seas of belongings under shelters and packs of dogs slept on the yard of boarded up elementary schools. Here are some of the striking patterns of Graceland.

green leaves open their fists

2008-04-30T17:42:00.002-04:00

Almost all of the work is in. The MFA band, Steven! and the MFA hip hop group, Funk Attack, played their final shows, in a raucous revel. Then I got sick. I've still got 35 finals to grade, but after that I'm officially transitioning. Next week I'll be on the road to Oklahoma for a wedding. I plan on stopping through Graceland. However, I will not be visiting Elvis Jumpsuits All Access. There's a lilac bush blooming near my house. I typed the word "lilacs" into a word pronunciation tool, but it would not pronounce it. I still don't know whether "lilux" warrants teasing but "bar-rette" is apparently a-ok. Last spring in Bloomington!

Tiny poem from Aracelis Girmay's Teeth:

FIEL

Love me, love me with two hands & no rearview.

half buried, half free

2008-04-22T21:31:00.003-04:00

The visitors have come and gone, the Breakfast at Tiffany's shower has been thrown, the thesis readings have been executed with great success, and I'm left mired in papers (queering primitivism in Wallace Thurman's Fire!!) and exams (French!) and syllabi (my own version of a graduate Intro to Cultural Studies course). So expect a little less of me for a short while.

In the meantime, send your prose poems and short shorts to I ndiana Review's 1/2K Prize. The illustrious, hilarious and unsettling Russell Edson is judging. Yee-haw.

private publics (public privates?)

2008-04-16T22:16:00.004-04:00

Fascinating photo essay on latrine graffiti in Kuwait and Afghanistan. Apparently photographer Steve Featherstone has another essay on the same subject in A Public Space 5, if you want to go out and get a print version.

who knew indiana could be such a funky state?

2008-04-15T16:29:00.004-04:00

Check out the audio from the funk reading over at the IR Blog and you can pretend you were there getting funkified for yourself. It was a pretty amazing night and the earlier panel, which addressed themes of history, memory, race, music, and much more, really demonstrated for me how coming up with new rubrics can jog floating ideas into place or dislodge the stale ones. There are some photos up on the blog too. My little summary of the four readers:

Aracelis Girmay is a wise and attentive woman, and I'm digging her book, Teeth.

Tyehimba Jess among other talents, plays a mean harmonica.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is a delicate, but hilarious, bird.

Patrick Rosal is my new literary crush. Man can rock a mike with joy.

Up there's Abdel Shakur, master of ceremonies, mad genius behind IR's forthcoming Funk Issue. Photo credit: Ben Weller. I hope he doesn't mind.

save the date

2008-04-12T18:38:00.003-04:00

I have two collaborative poems with the incomparable Tracy Truels coming out in Subtropics in May. They're from a series of Accidental Death poems we've been working on; collaborating with Tracy has been a complex, provocative and restorative experience. If you haven't seen Subtropics yet, you should check it out. They're relatively new, out of The University of Florida and edited by phenomenal writer in his own right, David Leavitt, and they've already published some amazing people. I'm honored to be in their pages!

Here's the plug for the issue from their website:

Subtropics 6 will be out in May—a double issue with two covers! Featuring stories by Jacob M. Appel, John Brandon, Nadia Kalman, and Celeste Ng; an essay by Timothy Cook; a novella by Peter Wells; and 41 poets, including Peter Cooley, Averill Curdy, Richard Kenney, John Kinsella, Kathleen Rooney, Reginald Shepherd, A. E. Stallings, G. C. Waldrep, and Suzanne Zweizig. In translation: poems by Tomaz Salamun and Hai Zi, and a story by Ricardo Silva Romero.

a small observation

2008-04-09T20:21:00.001-04:00

The hyacinths are out, perfuming the streets of Bloomington.

why words matter

2008-04-08T16:31:00.004-04:00

This is so depressing. Do a little search on thesaurus.com for "man" and for "woman" and these come up as the first results:

MAN
Homo sapiens, being, body, character, creature, earthling, fellow creature, flesh, folk, human, human being, humanity, humankind, individual, mankind, mortal, mortality, person, personage, populace, somebody, soul, species

WOMAN
Mrs., babe, bird, bride, broad, chick, chicken, companion, dame, debutante, doll, gal, gentlewoman, girl, girlfriend, inamorata, kitten, lady, lass, love, lover, maid, maiden, mama, mate, matron, miss, mistress, moll, nymph, old lady, paramour, partner, pigeon, rib, she, skirt, spinster, spouse, squaw, sweetheart, tomato, tootsie, virgin, wife

Aside from the obvious ways these sorts of reference points construct our understanding of gender, there's some real muddiness going on here. Seriously, since when is a "mistress" the same as a woman? A "virgin"? Someone needs to get re-educated on the definition of synonym.

EDIT: The folks in my Harlem Renaissance/Black Arts/Negritude class laughed at me for getting all up in arms about this. They said I'd been listening to Black Power talk all semester and now this was my moment to get riled. It was pretty funny.

blackberry, blackberry, blackberry

2008-04-08T00:02:00.003-04:00

I would like to hire Robert Hass to read to me every night, and it wouldn't matter whether good dreams resulted or nightmares. He could even talk about environmental stewardship. That would be ok. Today he read my old-time favorite poem of his, "Meditation at Lagunitas." It was fun having him in Bloomington the day he won the Pulitzer, and it was fun hearing him talk like my LA roommate about being a Californian living in the Midwest, delighting in seasons in silly ways like having fun scraping ice off windshields.

I also saw Okkervil River tonight (whose singer was way more Wiley Wiggins and way less Northern Exposure John Corbett [Chris Stevens] than I'd expected), and while they did not play my favorite song ("Red"), they did kick some ass. Howlin Rain was good too - they brought out my inner hitchhiker. And I got to have one of those fun cross-generational moments where you exchange eye rolls with a sixteen-year-old girl because the asshole drunk skeezy superfan dude who's shaking his fist wildly and bopping like crazy is about to take one of you out. I'd been rolling my eyes at -her- all night for her cell phone recording/photography, so it was nice to have a moment of feminist companionship.

Also, since I haven't yet posted about the Funk Reading, I now owe you three posts. Tattoo, sex worker's art show, funk reading. And a promotional post soon to come.

i don't sleep i dream

2008-04-02T16:42:00.003-04:00

In unstable times in my life my psyche always decides to turn itself up a notch and provide me with the strangest, most unsettling dreams. The kind of dreams it's hard to wrench yourself out of, whether they're good or bad, because they're so consuming. Lately I've had a spate of these dreams, and it's hard to know whether to be grateful for their vividness or to be frustrated by their disruptiveness. The other night I was climbing a cliff away from a beach, when the cliff turned to sand and I was grappling with the root systems of wildflowers trying to climb it. I was also explaining to someone the story of JFK rescuing the crew of his PT boat with a coconut. A couple of nights ago I was in some fascist country that was a mixture of Nazi Germany, Japan and North Korea. I was breaking into a militarized building with a few friends in order to dig up the graves of people we'd once known. For some reason, I had to go through this process several times in order to clutch the decomposing body of a loved one in my arms. Last night I was being accosted by someone in scuba gear. I'd really like to wake up feeling well rested for once.

spring break cincinnati!

2008-03-31T21:42:00.004-04:00

My friends and I are such nerds that we drove to Cincinnati last weekend to CRASH A CONFERENCE. The panel was on fat and sex - interrelated topics that my friend Sonya is working on. We rocked the one panel we attended, asking the incisive questions that the discourse lacked, and then flounced off in our fluttering skirts like some kind of Western heroes who bounce into town, stir things up, and seconds later are in the wind. It felt good to put my MA work to some use. While at the Hilton, we poked our heads into the Hall of Mirrors - the hotel where the conference was held was attired in lovely art-deco garb, down to the arches over the conference rooms, each of which embodied a different Greek style - and admired the baroque excess.

After we left we went to a vintage store called Casa Blanca where the owner, Hollywood, who seriously doubled for Hollywood from Mannequin - aw yeah, 80's conspicuous consumption in its heyday - styled us in absurd getups that involved neckties as scarves and underboob belts. Then we ate ice cream that Oprah says is the best ice cream in the country. I've also eaten the red velvet cake that Oprah says is the best red velvet cake in the country. If only I could eat them together, it would be like being at an Oprah birthday party.

real live girl

2008-03-31T21:22:00.002-04:00

My friend Tanya makes fascinating video art that explores the borderlands between the public and the private. In a culture obsessed with reality and authenticity (see my Peggy Selzer post), her work manages to both exist autonomously as art and to self-reflexively critique the modes through which we perform and embody our lives. One of these days I will ask her whether I can write the essay on her art that I have brewing in my head. All this to say, Tanya's uploaded a bunch of her videos onto this website: http://tanyabezreh.blip.tv. Some of them are recordings of live performance pieces she's created and some of them, like the DIY Holiday Musical, are self-contained "films." Go check out her stuff if you get a chance. She also blogs. Whether or not you think analytically about media like I do, you can appreciate how cute and endearing Tanya is, and admire how her work manages to be both joyful and candid, whimsical and analytical. p.s. I stole that image from Tanya's website.

student knits her own ferrari!

2008-03-25T04:46:00.005-04:00

In researching for my paper (looking up ana voog, the original 90's back-in-the-day life as art camgirl, now crochet-artist), I came across this story. Please admire.

he is risen

2008-03-23T21:07:00.010-04:00

This is the phrase I always think of at Easter, the phrase my mother always dyed on her eggs. I always made elaborate puzzle ones, ones that looked like dawn, trying to outdo my artist father. I didn't dye eggs this year, or do very much Eastery. It snowed, big papery flakes. I sent out some submissions, trying to get back into the writing game after a year of being more of a scholar than anything else. But tonight Vanessa and I went ahead and made an Easter meal. Orange roughy, asparagus and the requisite lambcake. Anyone who's ever Eastered with me knows the wonders of the lambcake. I took some pictures for your touristic or nostalgic delight, depending on what side of the line you fall. I'm wishing you all rebirth and a joyous spring.

Here's the asparagus:

The simple plate:

Grandma Loverde's lamb mold:

And the lamb, frosted with Vanessa's favorite frosting, confetti-filled. We decided it was a disco lamb. Usually the lamb is standing, hanging out in a bed of Easter grass. This year's lamb is lazy. It's made with strawberry cake mix, so it looks pink inside. This is no homemade cake. Crazy storebought kitsch all the way:

if april showers bring may flowers, what do may flowers bring?

2008-03-18T17:12:00.006-04:00

Sasha put this image up on Facebook recently and I can't get over it. Partially because I transformed this event in a story, and now it's a new thing. So these little kids here aren't real, in some ways. And partially because Dan is a lawyer now. But also because it's not just the fact that we're kids that makes this time seem so much more innocent now. We're in the end of the oughts. The decade is starting to take shape. "These are globalizing kingdoms now." This is the Wake Up the Earth Parade, by the way.

12-step list in the second person even though you are skeptical of the second person

2008-03-16T16:40:00.006-04:00

Walk into your friend's warm apartment that smells like hot chicken and tomatoes. Accept dinner. Accept jazz. Accept wine. Accept the view of the night sky. Don't feel like you need to swing in the hammock. Accept the dictionaries with the illustrations of beaked rodents and alcoves.
Discover the 6-year-old unheard mix from Portland. Listen to it and think about sad, rainy Portland in sad, rainy Indiana. Remember that cycles are liberating and not merely circumscribing.
Stop the car by the side of the highway when the wiper bolt comes loose and the semi blinds you with rain. Stand to the side of the car and allow the rain to soak you. Rain always stops, eventually.
Don't bother to flirt or look helpless. Just ask for a wrench and the toolbox and helper will come along.
Drink Kentucky bourbon in Kentucky. Don't worry about the empty ice trays.
Think again about becoming a Quaker. Think about sitting in silence for an hour each week. Think about silence.
Be gracious when given the slice of pot pie that most looks like pie. Be gracious about having friends who will feed you warm, comforting food.
Act incredulous at the bar brawl that nearly breaks out. Hard rockin blues bands need bar brawls more that bar brawls need hard rockin blues bands. Act incredulous at the song that attempts to use "hammer, nail and screw" in a catastrophe of mixed metaphors. You need to be surprised more often.
Listen to the sounds of the forest for a few minutes before reading the sign that tells you the experience of forest immersion is simulated. Learn that the forest sounds are all coming from the mouth of a multi-lingual artist.
Eat oatcakes with fresh blackberries. Be honest, again.
Put on the Funk Mix and feel the Funk deep where it is meant to be felt.
It doesn't matter how long since you've picked up a paintbrush. Minute by minute tells you what to do. You need long strokes, long wordless strokes.

look at me

2008-03-15T14:02:00.002-04:00

The good people who are running IR's blog have posted my book review of Chris Abani's The Virgin of Flames. Go check it out.

In other news, minor fiascos aside, I am still on the road. Next stop, Lexington.

problems with using a semi-large purse as a grocery sack

2008-03-13T00:48:00.001-04:00

you may end up carrying an avocado to the bar.

wind it up and let it go

2008-03-12T18:37:00.002-04:00

On the walk: pinwheels in multiple yards, spinning in the wind; the cemetery streaked in light; bright morning stars are shining; a tinsely homemade arch; the Triple Deuce, crayon scrawls all over its door an old school out-of-office message for the band that inhabits it; a line of t-shirts and sweatshirts, from grey to yellow to blue, emblazoned with the name of a carpentry business, hang-drying in the sun; Sonya's house, no one home, little skully canvas shoes waiting on the landing; kids playing basketball; the arc of a swing up towards the sun and down to the river to pray; that same blue hearse whose owner I now know by sight; saturated colors on houses; fake flowers scattered across my lawn.

this is for my mamma

2008-03-11T19:55:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite things about youtube is that I can find clips of old children's shows I used to watch and regional PSAs. I recently stumbled upon this Sesame Street gem. I still get the ditty in my head every once in a while, and my mother swears that whenever she needs to pick up three things at the grocery store, all she has to do is sing it in her head and she remembers. A handy mnemonic device. Watching it again, I'm really interested in the styling of the mother - do rag, apron, fancy shoes. Also, I wonder how many kids are sent solo on errands like this these days. Finally, doesn't it make you miss hand drawn animation? Watch and tell me what you think.

when i come home, if i come home

2008-03-10T06:52:00.007-04:00

I dropped Vanessa off at the airport this morning and now I can't sleep. She accidentally arranged her flight for super early so we were up at 3:45. Things look strange from this side of morning, after an hour of sleep. I nearly got into a terrible accident when a car decided to cross the highway right in front of me. On the way up we saw many bedraggled things by the side of the road, including a coyote or fox.

It's supposed to warm up this week, but I still feel winter everywhere.

Look how the meager lights try their hardest:

Look how unforgiving the sky has been:

Can you see my disapproval?

scandal, thy name is Selzer

2008-03-04T16:26:00.003-05:00

I spent too much time today reading up on the story of Peggy Selzer alias Margaret B. Jones, the latest hoax memoirist whose publishing deal has hit the fan. I happened upon the Times "Homes and Gardens" profile of Jones's house last week, and like 2/3 of the commenters responding to news of Selzer's comedown, I definitely felt like something was rotten in the state of Denmark. I'm not sure if it was Selzer's bourgeois aesthetic, the lack of a photo of the pit-bull tattoo she bragged about, or the idea that anyone raised in S. Central would refer to any part of Eugene as a "ghetto," but the story reeked of, if not fraud, the Times' fetishization of a certain iteration of the Horatio Alger myth.

On the one hand, I want to respond to the hordes asking why Selzer didn't just publish her memoir as fiction by pointing to the current craze for the "true story" evidenced not simply by the canonization of the memoir as the literary genre du jour but by the proliferation/success, on one side of the culture gap, of reality television and the gossip press anointing successive bad-girl saints of the hour, and on the other side, of Michael Moore's opus and This American Life. It certainly would have been a lot harder for Selzer to publish this book as fiction, although clearly multiple alternative routes were available to her, from the Adrian Nicole Leblanc style reportage of Random Family to the Dave Eggers' fictional biography style of What is the What? Still, I do believe the publishing industry deserves some scrutinizing for this one.

And yet the author in this memoir scandal warrants, I believe, almost more scrutiny than James Frey. And this is because of the attitude behind this comment: "For whatever reason...I thought it was my opportunity to put a voice to people who people don’t listen to...I was in a position where at one point people said you should speak for us because nobody else is going to let us in to talk. Maybe it’s an ego thing — I don’t know. I just felt that there was good that I could do and there was no other way that someone would listen to it.” Instead of working to provide a forum for the voices of those who really could use it, Selzer took the money and the acclaim and appointed herself spokesmodel for a group of people about whom she seems to have had very circumscribed contact. Clearly, in order to create this public of a persona without thinking she would be recognized, Ms. Selzer must have erected some kind of elaborate delusion/denial framework. Yet it seems like a shockingly blatant example of cultural appropriation at its worst, and I suppose it's a good thing that it imploded so spectacularly. I only hope the dialogue in the wake of this scandal veers more in the direction of scrutinizing what/whose kinds of stories are getting traction in the publishing world than in the direction of "I could have told you her use of the outdated 'homegirl' gave her away."

i also spent some time in the warm sun

2008-03-02T22:15:00.004-05:00

Today I went to my first ever college basketball game. I saw the "Lady Hoosiers" (I find the "Lady" part kind of a questionable prefix) whoop the asses of the Penn State "Lady Lions." No matter how impressive the players were, I persist in being equally impressed by the athletic stunts and sharp claps of cheerleaders (seriously: three level pyramids, multiple midair somersaults culminating in basket drops, coordinated rows of back flips). Bucking recent trends, the Hoosier cheerleaders wore remarkably chaste uniforms, all 50's sweaters and hair ribbons. The band did a cover of "Welcome to the Jungle." I chatted with Tracy about her wedding plans. Abdel clued me in on the reasoning behind some of the fouls - the only team sport I ever played in any kind of organized fashion was soccer. And there were some pretty nice plays on the court too. They even let the little 5'3" player on at the last minute. Also, it was interesting to see what a family sport women's basketball is; I couldn't keep track of how many little tiny girl were thronging to slap the hands of the players. All in all, it was a good way to spend a Sunday afternon.

in my pjs, not out on the town

2008-02-27T22:01:00.003-05:00

Because the times have been gloomy for me lately, I want to post a few good things. I gave my first real "lecture" to 80 or so students today (it's supposed to be around 120, but absences abound!). And it was on Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning which was a super fun text to teach. Then, on my way home, I actually caught a glimpse of sun after days and days of wintry mix. Earlier in the day I distilled the lessons of composition into a few easy steps to help dear education majors who don't have a clue about crafting a thesis (it distresses me how frequently I encounter young female students with an inability to make an argument). And I was reminded how much I appreciate those crazy capitalist subverting kids who man the IMU Starbucks when my money was waved away - not for the first time. Now I'm working my way through Michael Denning's interesting, if at times, overly didactic Culture in the Age of Three Worlds - the first unit gives a really nice synopsis of the problematic of culture, cultural productions and cultural studies post-collapse of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd world schematic - aka the era of globalization theory. And soon I will be trying to craft some sort of abstract that argues something interesting about Nikki Giovanni's poetry. Speaking of which, reading Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgment made me realize how much of my early understanding of "contemporary" or "free verse" poetry, for better or worse, was shaped by pulling her stuff off my mom's shelf. I want to link to one of her poems but I'm not thrilled with what's available online. Here's one, nonetheless: Nikki-Rosa.

february is a long short month

2008-02-26T21:28:00.006-05:00

I'm so tired of the way I have to walk in this weather, feet lifted and planted squarely one after another in an awkward stomping shuffle. It makes me feel as though I'm pretending to be a monster, all ungainly limbs. The black ice is everywhere, and now slipperiness comes in two disguises: a thin snow whirls about in the wind and dusts the roads and paths and covers the black ice with its own deceptive slickness. I can't count how many headers I almost took.

I owe y'all posts about the tattoo and the sex workers' art show: coming soon, I promise. But for now, two snippets of conversations overheard, literally, in passing = two reminders that I live in a town full, so very full, of undergraduates:

Conversation 1
Two young men are walking towards me in Ballantine. They look like a cross between emo kids and frat boys - it's actually not that uncommon of a type in this town, at least, if not elsewhere. Boy one, in the tight skinny jeans and black framed glasses, is schooling boy two, the lumbering hulkster of the two. "Here's what you do: you get a game of spin the bottle going, with a bunch of people. That way you have to -watch- each other kiss other people..." Dating for dummies? Just what is the relationship dilemma for which this is the perfect solution?

Conversation 2
Two young ladies are walking towards me as I head into the gym. I can't describe them any more than to say, they look like the standard blonde undergrads in workout gear, those ubiquitous elastic headband thingies securing their hair. As they pass, girl 1 says to girl 2, "ew, what's baked ham?" Girl 2 replies, "you know, just regular ham, only baked." Back to girl 1: "what does 'baked' mean?" I'm seriously hoping she was only confused by the context.

snow blankets the heart

2008-02-03T15:21:00.000-05:00

The mating pair of cardinals has come back to my window, which seems like it should signify spring, but I'm not so sure. Even with the sun, it's still hardcore winter as far as I'm concerned. Last night we made sweet potato pancakes and pea soup with mint and salad with fennel, or finnochi as you say if you're in my family, and everything was perfect and warm for winter. I wish I had pictures. I've been wintering in, I suppose, lately, huddling under layers of clothing and blankets, reading and writing. I'm going to take a walk in the cemetery soon. There's too much of this town to haunt before I go away.

passings

2008-01-21T14:39:00.000-05:00

Over Christmas a beloved local/not so local musician named Evan Farrell tragically died. I didn't know him but a good friend of mine is closely connected to his family. Last night I went to the memorial benefit, which you can imagine was a rollicking and heartbreaking affair. At any rate, I saw amazing performances by some stellar bands, and I wanted to mention a couple in particular you should check out.

Drakkar Sauna

Japonize Elephants

Evan's mother got on stage and sang with the Japonize Elephants, one of the many bands with whom Evan played. It was one of the saddest, lovingest things I've ever witnessed. Anyway, it feels odd to blog about a tragedy that isn't my own, but over the course of the night I observed a few amazing acts of love, the kind that are only possible during times of loss such as this when people can reach out to each other across the barriers of pain that usually separate them. So, in the spirit of saying the unsaid, I hope you all know how dear you are to me. Stay warm and safe this winter.

backing into posting, little by little

2008-01-20T17:05:00.000-05:00

i promise the posts will get more frequent/interesting, but first things first: post period.

i've been bowling more frequently lately. i've always loved bowling. the satisfaction of pins toppling. the jukebox with music like the stone's gimme shelter and poison's talk dirty to me. the faith you have to have between the moment of releasing the ball and watching it spin down the lane. as my mother always says, the fact that you get second chances. anyway, i tend to be an erratic bowler. it's hard for me, usually, to pick up points on a strike or spare. i don't know if it's the pressure or what. so, be proud of me when i announce that i've just acheived my personal best score ever. 146. here's to getting even better.

they got cars big as bars

2007-12-20T11:24:00.000-05:00

This one's for Vanessa. Because somehow we didn't drive around listening to this before we both shuffled off to our respective coasts this year. Happy Christmas.

papers making one crazy part ii

2007-12-19T23:24:00.001-05:00

and then last night's diversion was reading some old notes I'd written high school (saved for me in a scrapbook by good ol' Tina P) with excerpts of terrible off-the-cuff teenage poetry:

"my pulse rocks to the beat
of the hum of a girl
who sits on the street corner
playing with her see-through panties
while Moses parts the water
flowing from her skin...
my car breaks down
outside your house...
your car is stopped
you say come inside
but i'm bleeding
and my blood clashes
with the upholstery..."

90's ephemera:
"I got a new Sassy today and it was good..."

and bad attempts at humorous wisdom:
"sometimes i think i have to cut myself in half to be whole again but then i realize that for god's sake i'm not playdough."

There were also some bits that gave me insights in retrospect. I realized for the first time how these sorts of notes really record something very precise about my experience as a high schooler, gen x-er, child of divorce, alternakid, whatever. It wasn't such a bad distraction, in the end.

when i start going crazy from writing papers and it's dangerous that i have a camera on my computer

2007-12-15T22:31:00.000-05:00

I take ridiculous breaks. Here's this from the other night...

An excerpt of one of my crazy-making papers:
...In its depiction of a transatlantic circuit of transit and exchange, The Secret History complicates the binary between colonizer and colonized, white and black, center and periphery. It is for this reason, its Creole nature, that Elizabeth Dillon argues the book has “remained hidden in plain sight,” overlooked by contemporaneous readers and contemporary critics alike; to the extent that, as per Benedict Anderson, the novel participates in the project of building an imagined national community, Sansay’s community is based on the Creole, rather than the black/white dichotomy the United States ostensibly founded itself on...

Two excerpts of me being silly:

This one is entitled "Faces You Never See Yourself Making"

This one is entitled "Portrait of the Artist as Spunky 80's Lady Trucker"

second chance haircuts

2007-12-14T11:28:00.001-05:00

This year my dear Vanessa triumphed in that she managed to successfully recreate the ideal haircut that, years ago, had resulted in the worst haircut of her life. Today I was able to accomplish the same feat. In Vanessa's case, the haircut was the infamous Winona Ryder Reality Bites haircut whose ease and, as they would say in the 18th c., artlessness, tempted so many of my own peers. Vanessa ended up with a mushroom, but this year she bravely cut her hair short again with gorgeous results. My bad haircut happened in 1986. I was going for some kind of sexy tousled long-layered deal (I know, I was too young to be thinking sexy, but what can I say). Instead, I got the closest haircut to a mullet I've ever had. She chopped the bangs way back into my head and feathered them, thinned out the hair radically and left the longest pieces at the nape of my neck, rather than cascading down my back. Anyway, I hadn't intended to go into today's haircut reclaiming my original vision, but I think that's what I got. And somehow I feel immensely gratified. It is as if, even though so many other things seem inordinately frustrating these days, the universe was able to right one tiny wrong, restoring a little bit of balance.

single girl, married girl

2007-12-10T22:12:00.000-05:00

All this yoking of theory I'm doing - travel narratives, epistolary novel, creolization, national allegory - is making my head hurt. In two days it will all be over, though who knows whether what I'll have to show for the semester will be in any way worthwhile. I took a break and listened to some sad and rockin love songs last night, though, and that helped.

Sitting at a red light on the way home tonight, V and I observed a gaggle of girls taking pictures of the Christmas lights around Courthouse Square, all holding out their cell phones high in the air. They finished just in time to lose their walk signal, and sort of lingered, edging out into the road as the left turn arrow blazed. We winced in anticipation of the inevitable; they wandered across the street just as the light turned green for us to go. As V and I flung our hands around and cursed them out to each other (look, it's the end of the semester and our nerves are shot), I looked over at the one girl left on the sidewalk, the sole adherer to pedestrian regulations, and I realized it was one of my students. A good, earnest, student. So, of course, I waved.

Earlier that day I saw a murder of crows loudly congregating on the maples along one of the campus paths. Their squawking was a lot more palatable than these girls'.

how i know i live in a college town

2007-12-09T14:40:00.000-05:00

The graffiti in the bathroom at the local coffee shop (ok, the writing on the chalkboard in the bathroom of the local coffee shop) says "for god's sake don't just spellcheck, proofread!" This is also how I know what time of year it is. Clearly, all the grad student hipsters are doing their grading grading grading. Not me. I'm still writing writing writing.

don't wear it out

2007-11-12T19:20:00.000-05:00

I remember vividly that the year I turned 14, suddenly it seemed as though all three-year-olds in spitting distance had my name. I'd be in the grocery store and I'd turn around every other minute because someone would be shouting it. Certainly, my name never did live up to the key reason my parents bestowed it to me - that it was unique. They always chalked up its popularity to the soap opera character with my name who was popular when I was a toddler. That and the fact that we moved into the heart of the Boston Irish when I was two. But there was a definite explosion around the late '80s, early '90s. All this to say, that instinct was confirmed for me today when it dawned on me that all those three year olds must be around 20 now. When I'm at the Starbucks where I hold my office hours (the Starbucks that used to be the Indiana Memorial Union Gallery, for those interested), one out of every five people waiting for some sort of coffee drink has my name. And as I sit there doing my work, I look up every few minutes wondering who's calling me.

cold praise

2007-11-10T16:58:00.001-05:00

Paula's in town and we're going for a walk in the autumnal splendor. Last night Alyce Miller and Ross Gay read beautiful pieces at my house while lots of people looked on in delight. V made mulled cider with rum and I made a Turkish feta/parsley/filo dish whose name I can't spell. I took pictures and maybe I will post some later. It's always nice having people in my space. Opening up the household makes me feel as generous as I want to be all the time. It makes me feel better about my capacity for open-heartedness, especially in times in which said capacity can feel like a handicap or a challenge. Ross Gay read poems that were praiseful, including one about Roti which made me think of Elissa. Listening, I immediately wished I had more capacity for writing joyful poems. When I asked him about it, however, his answer made so much sense to me. His joyful poems are in service of a larger project which is much more painful. His poems were written into this project as an attempt to reconcile the joyfulness in his character with the strident qualities of his writing, which if you know it, is often more political, more cutting. Of course I'm paraphrasing entirely.

Praise the cranberry pancakes at Uptown. Praise the thick-knit sweater. Praise the bits of yarn that change hands, even after the hands are closed. Praise the sway Nina Simone calls out of the hips. Praise the navigating mind. Praise lip balm. Praise the empathy that engenders guilt, even as you surrender guilt. Praise mopped floors. Praise toes even the cold ones. Praise language even when it lets you down.

all hallows

2007-10-31T23:57:00.000-04:00

but not too much extraordinary. Reading Jefferson comparing the relative size and fortitude of quadrapeds of the new and old worlds. Reading about the bardic tradition in English poetry. This morning, fittingly, reading 30 papers evaluating horror movie reviews. Finally watching Seven Up and Seven Plus Seven...five more to go, though I saw 42 Up in the theater in PDX. Vanessa tells an anecdote about a man wielding a chainsaw at Nick's then locates my fame and marriage lines. Chris comes over to share pizza and give out treats to the few trick-or-treaters, a ragtag mangy bunch of mostly too-old or out-too-lates. The best costume is the small ghost of a Titanic drowned boy, complete with ineffectual life preserver. Sirens. And the oddest coincidence - Stove and I have both written Donner party sonnets! Now, there's that lonely freight train whistle telling me it's time for bed.

Semiotic Tranquility

2007-10-25T18:48:00.000-04:00

I -did- see the Dalai Lama. For free, which was nice. Tibeten monks' robes make them look like marigolds, which I'm sure is no groundbreaking observation. Unfortunately, there was no mandala making or throat singing. Lots of talk about various kinds of meditation. I like that the Dalai Lama wears glasses, uses kleenex from a little plastic pack, pulls sunvisors out of his satchel and dons them, and scratches his face while speaking. I do not like how sleepy I feel, but that is not to be helped. Perhaps I will attempt critical analysis, which according to the Dalai Lama, is a form of meditation, in my French class. Bon soir!

think/know

2007-10-24T11:50:00.000-04:00

I think I only HAVE to take one course next semester. I think I can read French well enough to get by. I know I miss my writing. I think I'll be able to return to it this weekend. I know the Dalai Lama is in town and I think I may go try to hear him speak. I think I may be able to AI for a children's lit class next semester. I know I need to get serious leaving.

nobody can look well without taking some pains to please

2007-10-22T20:05:00.000-04:00

Fall blew in all wet and leafy today. It matched my mood. I would like to squirrel myself away. I have started leaving my ringer off. It's better to watch for the blinking light. I've decided my concentration is the 20th C. novel. I would like to be contributing more. I would like to not have a slippery carpet under my feet. I would like to wake myself up in the middle of the night laughing.

long time no post

2007-10-21T13:09:00.001-04:00

I'm going to try to get up on this blogging thing again, particularly given that the next year is likely to bring many rapid changes.

So, I'm just back from my aunt's funeral and my cousin's baby shower. Doves were released, seven-course Italian dinners were eaten, 5 hams were received in the mail, ersatz poop in the form of melted candy bars in diapers were identified, photographs were ogled, and togetherness was had. It was a hard few days, an important few days. The best line of the funeral goes to my cousin Karen: "My mom was a piece of work." May we all be.

Now I return to reading Belinda by Maria Edgeworth. Proto-Jane Austen. Thusfar, I've gotten to the bit where women duel with pistols, while dressed in men's clothing. I have to present on the transatlantic romanticness of this book on Tuesday. Wish me luck these next few days. Maybe after that I'll remember I'm a writer again.

saturday, june 30

2007-07-02T17:31:00.000-04:00

it's chilly bears, hon-ey.

a very practical update

2007-06-26T19:38:00.000-04:00

I'm here in Vermont where I live in a small wooden cabin with a wood stove. The cabin is perched on the edge of a horse field, which is bounded with an electric fence; when the horses come galloping down the hill they come so close I can smell their musky horsiness. I can watch them graze not twenty feet from me, and they'll stand out there sometimes chewing in the rain. The field is full of fireflies, and at night their tiny green lanterns make me think about how Barrie invented Tinkerbell. I wear my Wellies and tromp around, listening to the wind. At night I look at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling and the actual stars out the window over my head.

Today was Bad Writing Day, and we wrote the worst poems we could think of. Somehow, mine involved a romance between two people presented metaphorically as squirrels "running up the trunk of life./Peekaboo." I've been out of touch because everything was crazy before I left Indiana (Revise two 30-page stories! Read 500 submissions! Accept the last of the work for IR 29.2! Meet the Director of Composition about teaching Basic! Have a last ice-cream sundae at the Chocolate Moose with dear P and B who will be gone from Bloomington by the time you get back! Revise your book review! Print out the Acceptance Sheet for your thesis on the fancy paper and place it in several envelopes so it can be mailed around! Pack! Clean! Get in that car and drive drive drive). And then I was driving cross country ("Don't Stop Believin" played before I'd even left Indiana) and stopping to visit my grandparents, and listening to Amy Sedaris and singing along to Bruce. -Then- I was hanging with Mamma (hooray for good conversations and new Thai restaurants and goofy mid-90's workout gear). Finally I made it up to Vermont, where I am now, and where I, of course, have very little access to a computer.

But that means I've been reading a lot (finished PORTNOY, began ATONEMENT), and running some, and getting coffee at the Putney Co-op, our local of sorts. In the "spare time" such as it is, I'm finishing that thesis. So expect more MIA for a while, though i'll try to be in better 1-on-1 touch. And of course I'll post any charming student anecdotes. I'm planning on going to go to the hip-hop dance evening activity. But probably not letter writing. I'll have to get by on that one on my own.

poems

2007-05-31T11:55:00.000-04:00

A plug for Mary Austin Speaker's new work at failbetter. Go read it.

brooklyn is a long cab ride away (in indiana)...oh just google brenda kahn

2007-05-20T10:01:00.000-04:00

I'm back in Bloomington and somehow, the moment I got home, I managed to get sick. Some of my Ledig momentum was currtailed by the illness, but today I woke up feeling moderately more human. There is laundry to be done and lawns to be mown and man I need to get back on that thesis. (So I can move on to the next project!)

Here are a few little snaps of where I was. There're lots of good ones C took of the other people there, but I'm starting to feel funny about posting pictures of people on my blog without asking them. So you have to imagine them. Or ask me and I'll show them to you one-on-one.

Oh, and sorry to renege on the book posting deal. It's a long story (or a short story, depending on how you look at it). Basically, my reading dropped off rapidly as my conversations/adventures with the other residents grew. But here's a bit of To the Lighthouse: "The sky stuck to them; the birds sang through them. And, what was even more exciting, she felt, too, as she saw Mr. Ramsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in the window and the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach."

dispatches

2007-05-13T09:16:00.000-04:00

The only bad thing is the sulfuric water. There is a sound installation in the woods so that when you walk there at night everything is defamiliarized, frightening and also thrilling. The phrase "thrilled and chilled and existentially satisfied." We've written our messages on the slate gravestone. All the baby animals are out; the goslings stick close to their mother. I'm armed with pancake recipes. We are encircled by stud farms. I've met a German publisher who only prints books that have some connection to the ocean. The story is coming. I'm not ready to leave.

a machine that could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour

2007-05-02T16:36:00.000-04:00

I'm working on my poetry portfolio and listening to August and Everything After for the first time in god only knows how long - I'm not sure which house I was living in when it disappeared from my collection, but it's been since Portland, at least. Someone here at Ledig has it on her itunes, so I'm listening in. Man. It really was a formative album for me. And one remarkably devoid of associations that make me feel sad, like many other albums I listened to obsessively at various points (see Elliot Smith, Tori Amos, Ani Difranco, Neutral Milk Hotel...).

It's so beautiful outside that I would really like to take a walk through the magical sculpture fields, but the portfolio is already past due, so I'm holing up like a good girl and plugging away.

Apparently Chris and my arrival doubled the number of Americans here. We've got writers from Spain, China by way of India, Austria, Germany, England and the Congo. Indiana? Not so exotic. Interesting dinner conversations, for sure. I have a king-sized bed and ate zucchini with mint last night and organic berries all day. We may stage an informal reading, since many of us are leaving before the next formal reading. I'll let you know how that goes. There's a beautiful wood-paneled library full of all the past residents' books. I also have a big white chair that's good for reading in.

I've been trying to read a book a day, so I might post bits of ones I've read. I started out easy, with a funny book about the personals blurbed by Ira Glass. Now I'm rereading The Great Gatsby. I'd forgotten how much I love that book. I haven't read it since I've been seriously writing fiction; it's so different now. What a brilliant characterization his introduction of Daisy is. I know I'm not saying anything new here, but the narrative perspective is so well handled. I keep being amazed at how Fitzgerald manages to tell a story about such compelling individuals as Gatsby and Daisy without ever losing sight of the fact that Nick's is the central story, and that all the drama of Gatsby's parties is simply one aspect of a summer in which so much more happened in this character's life. Plus, who can get over Chapter 3? "A pair of stage twins, who turned out to be the girls in yellow, did a baby act in costume, and champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger-bowls. The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales, trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drip of the banjoes on the lawns." Wow.

Finally, the aftermath of car accidents is no fun. Although my agent reminds me a little of Steve Carrell on The Office in that he's a bit overly personal (read flirtatious), but he's good hearted and seems like his fierce loyalty might get the job done. Cross your fingers.

temporary home

2007-04-29T22:35:00.000-04:00

I am safely ensconced in the Hudson Valley.

I've missed the Catskills.

never enough time

2007-04-25T13:01:00.000-04:00

Everything is madness right now! I'd really like to post about:

The thesis readings. What amazing peers I have, and how lucky I am to take these writers away with me as friends.
So much family! Spontaneous visits from my aunt and uncle for whom "in St. Louis" means "in the neighborhood," and planned visits from the immediate family. Hooray for moral support and breakfasts out.
Sherman Alexie's reading, which seriously lived up to all expectations. What a perfomer. The dinner aftwards was revealing in many ways that I won't go into. He asked us all what song we wanted played at our funeral; you get mad cred if you can guess what I said. He also kindly recorded his poem from IR's 25th anniversary edition. Bounce over to the IR blog for more on that.
Blackberry coffee cake.
This beautiful book, The Back of the Line, that showed up in my mailbox today thanks to the inimitable Jeff Parker.
Motorcyle accidents.
Small bits of good news that I don't feel like posting about but you can ask me about if you want.
The fact that I'm leaving in 4 days. Seriously.

three years later

2007-04-21T00:34:00.000-04:00

It's my thesis reading! Tomorrow night! Are you in Bloomington? Do you want to come hear me read?

Come to the Faculty Club at the Indiana Memorial Union! I promise my fiction isn't this full of exclamation points!

Saturday, April 21, 7:00 pm
Tracy Truels, Megan Savage, Carissa DiGiovanni, Monique Harris
(followed by reception at Tutto Bene)

2007-04-17T22:22:00.000-04:00

Thank you Nikki Giovanni.

reading between projects

2007-04-17T18:50:00.000-04:00

So, it's that time in the semester when I have very little time for anything other than wrapping up the major projects. Maybe you're in the same place? Here are three little reading tidbits for when you need a procrastination break:

Chloe Hillard in The Village Voice has an interesting article about AGs, or Aggressives, a subculture comprised of predominately African American or Latina lesbians. I saw Daniel Peddle's documentary in last year's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on the same subject. I have mixed feelings on this issue: on the one hand, it's reassuring to see coverage of the diversity in the gay and lesbian community, but on the other hand, the rampant sexism that seems to be perpetuated in the community (this was stressed more in Hillard's article than in Peddle's documentary) in terms of attitudes toward femmes is profoundly disturbing. Also, while the documentary focuses on the women's limited career choices based on their often impoverished circumstances, the article skews toward the career-stalling choices some of the women from "better off" backgrounds make in order to maintain their appearances/lifestyles. Sample em both and weigh in.

Having looked at a thousand houses with my parents over the course of my life (we moved a lot), I've often wondered about the appeal of the split-level ranch. Here's a fun little article on the subject. Turns out, wood paneling was once revolutionary.

There's a new fiction editor at Esquire, and he's making his mark with fun pieces like The Napkin Project. This is an institutionalization of the age-old game in which you write a story on a napkin (if you're Laurel or me, you do this collaboratively while waiting for concerts to start). It's is a good one to sample over the course of several days. Check out, in particular, David Means, Daniel Alarcon and Julianna Baggott. Thanks for the tip, AD.

travels

2007-04-15T10:02:00.000-04:00

So the Ledig House Residency has worked out after all. I've got my plane tickets, and I'll be heading to NY on Sunday, April 29th. I'll be in the scenic Hudson Valley until the 14th. After that, I'm heading down to the city, hopefully in time to make Mary Austin Speaker's reading with Jessica Baran and Bob Hicok. I'll be in the city until the 17th, if anyone wants to come out to play.

get yourself read to

2007-04-13T20:33:00.000-04:00

Pop over to the Indiana Review Blog to listen to Tyrone Jaeger's eerie Civil War-era prose poem/short short, "Specter," on our new feature where IR authors read their work, the bluecast. IR is featuring 3 of Jaeger's pieces in our upcoming summer issue, 29.1. If you didn't get the official tiny teaser chapbook at AWP, consider this teaser #2.

kurt vonnegut 1922-2007

2007-04-12T09:29:00.000-04:00

Hey, Kurt Vonnegut. I hope you are somewhere where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. I'm sorry for saying I should see you read because you were probably going to die soon. And I'm sorry that now I'll never get the chance. Thanks for this funny interview with Kilgore and for everything else.

rock 'n' roll days

2007-04-10T22:13:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was Boxcar Books' annual Rock 'n' Roll Prom benefit for the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project. The theme was "Under the Sea" - lots of plastic shells and a decadent papier mache mermaid. I wore the most wonderfully hideous dress you can imagine - let's just say, picture the most decadent dress Melanie Griffith wore in Working Girl and add lace, ruffles, rhinestones and cleavage. Mostly we took polaroids, but hopefully I'll have pictures to post soon. Sadly, I missed most of the Pixies cover band. The ersatz "Iggie Pop" was very intense, but he wasn't Iggie Pop. He looked like he should be shooting up on stage, and his big move of night was to show us his wares. The highlight was definitely the "Sweet '80s and '90s Covers by Secretly Canadian's Best." My friend Sarah's husband and the rest of the band dressed up as the kids from The Breakfast Club, including drag versions of Molly Ringwald and a brilliant Ally Sheedy. Emilio Estevez was pretty compelling - earnest and also, "fit" as they say in Bend It Like Beckham - and he sang a mean "Eye of the Tiger."

In other Rock 'n' Roll news, my friend Matt's band Murder By Death is on perpetual tour - Europe now, but soon the US again - and they are also kickass. If they're playing near you, you should go see them. They put on a whiskey drinkin', bottom of the ocean scourin', old west saloon fightin' good time. Here are some of their sounds and moving pictures.

hip action

2007-04-03T21:49:00.000-04:00

A few years ago I injured my hip literally "clowning around" with a friend of mine, a former Ringling Bros. performer. He had bright red curls and an imposing physique - a red nose looked startlingly incongrous on him. These past few days, the hip's been all twingy. I chalk it up to the storms. Like any good New Englander, I get the weather in my bones.

Laurel and Seamus came to visit for their birthdays

2007-04-01T18:11:00.000-04:00

We saw these:

We ate peppers stuffed with stars. Sometime, I will show you a photograph of those.

They showed me this wonderfully funny animation sequence. And their interpretation of it (note my old kitchen):

We talked about Wittgenstein. Kind of a lot.

We saw Louise Gluck (insert oumlaut) read and she talked about wanting to hear the sound of a poet's mind on the page. I like that thought. I also really liked the first and second sequences of poems she read, the first of which involved horses (voodoo, Laurel says) and a burning field. The second of which involved girlhood and marriage. She proved not as crotchety as we expected.

We ate chocolate-dipped ice cream from the Chocolate Moose.

Laurel and I locked ourselves in the bathroom and sang the Billy Bee song. Everyone else was playing music we didn't know, you see, and singing beautifully and loudly and we didn't want to disturb em.

We had amazing Turkish food (mint in soup!) and I got to hear a story about an exciting but treacherous protest in Paris. Laurel has lots of photos of it on flickr.

We played speed Scrabble.

We ate (yes, we ate a lot) the aforementioned birthday Dutch Baby.

We read Eyeheart Everything aloud. Like this only without the robot and in Bloomington:

snippets from Laurel and Seamus's visit

2007-03-28T10:29:00.000-04:00

My friend Seamus made a hilarious movie. It is incumbent upon you to watch it now.

The bloody ends of deer legs are terribly red. Lions' tongues are red too.

I ate a dutch baby yesterday.

grad school is indulgent

2007-03-22T19:36:00.000-04:00

I appreciate that I'm taking a class in which we can spend two and a half hours reading "The Prelude" aloud, and only get through the first part because we're too busy digressing about sympathetic vibrations, the Sublime, Atomism and Lacan, or drawing little doodles that illustrate how, when rowing backwards, one can witness a cliff face suddenly rising up to blot out the stars. I had the revelation that I would like to make a claymation version of "The Prelude," but perhaps it's because I've been watching too much Morel Orel.

IR is Time's person of the year

2007-03-22T08:24:00.000-04:00

Indiana Review has a blog. It's nascent. It will grow. We'll keep you abreast of what's going on with us and our authors. It'll be all hip-like.

http://indianareview.blogspot.com/

if you lived in bloomington you'd be stimulated now

2007-03-20T22:23:00.000-04:00

David Lehman read some beautiful poems tonight. My favorites, I think, outside the incredible long piece, "Yeshiva Boys," were the Daily Mirror pieces and this, which I sort of love/hate.

Here's a tiny Daily Mirror from poets.org:

April 26

When my father
said mein Fehler
I thought it meant
"I'm a failure"
which was my error
which is what
mein Fehler means
in German which
is what my parents
spoke at home

But that is not all you missed because you do not live in Bloomington. Barbez played an amazing set in which poems and incidents from Celan's life were interpreted through their avant-chamber music. Of course, the theremin was a highlight, but so were the excerpts of Celan woven through the hypnotic, kinetic sound. Barbez is touring, but usually their shows are more rock-oriented. I'm not sure if the Celan pieces are part of their usual repertoire, but if you get a chance to see them, go!

palmistry

2007-03-18T09:49:00.000-04:00

I used to get out books on palm reading (and napkin folding) when I was a kid. Now I live with a woman whose grandmother made a living during WWII by reading palms; V's got the art down. Here's something you may not know: the lines on your right palm change. Yesterday I learned that my palm is drastically different than it was a few months ago. My life line has utterly absorbed my head line. Thwack. No more twin "M"s. What does that mean? Well...I'm pulling for growing pains. That the head will re-establish itself in a healthier relationship to my life in the months to come.

rememberances

2007-03-14T13:58:00.000-04:00

I just found out my friend and colleague from last summer, Lucinda Mason, passed away a few days ago. She was a brilliant, vibrant artist who worked in large-scale, in art as in life. She will be missed. Here's one of her pieces:

Addendum: Here's what I remembered today. One day last summer, when I was having a tough time of it, for some reason that's long gone to me now, Lucinda invited me down to her little cabin by Grey House. She little the stubs of candles she had lying around and fed me plums. We sat on her porch in the warm night and talked. I don't remember what she said, only that it was reassuring. We looked out over the pasture. In the fog a pack of horses emerged and disappeared again.

twilight

2007-03-13T20:13:00.000-04:00

Whatever will I do if I don't live near a cemetary in my next life? All those lonely bodies, all needing a kind word, someone to read their names. Cracked stones, fallen markers, granite logs. Handfuls of pine needles. We leave our dead all over the place now. Cemetaries can smell like summer camp, mulchy in the warm air, the crickets whirring. Why hold your breath when you can laugh?

list - you connect the dots

2007-03-12T12:55:00.000-04:00

Running on the cross country course outside of town. It was hilly, 60 degrees or so, the sun warm and the wind cold. The grass was dry and brittle; the mud tamped down easily underfoot. The fields were scattered with arrows in different colors which were less easily followed than the much more convoluted, mazy public path through the Cotswolds. I hid my car key in my bra like a mol. The golf course was nearby. But it felt like nowhere.
My round-offs need some work but my handstand is as good as ever.
Cate, reading a poem aloud over delightful cake with sugar sea turtles on it. She said, "the volta, the volta!" I want you all to admire it too, but I can't find it right now. I don't want to give anything away.
This morning, for the first time in a year, the espresso maker foamed the soy milk.
My favorite thing someone has said about my writing lately (context soon): "[the actions of the central characters in the story are] a reflection of their desire...to communicate beyond the limited vocabulary they've been endowed with in Milford, a place that seems diabolically American [emphasis added]." I think that accurately describes the suburbs of Boston, indeed.
Sunlight in a public library.
The Putney Co-op stainless steel coffe mug.
E-mail from Tucker Capps. Yes, Tucker, you sound dangerous.
The end of a great Bob Hicok poem, "Did I ever tell you about my love/hate relationship with confessional poetry?" Please don't sue me for copyright violations for posting it:

"The other thing/

I get wrong most of the time is caring
about people. For instance: recently blood
collected in my grandmother where blood

shouldn't, everythihng she said came out
like Jiffy Pop on the stove just before
the foil rips, people cried and the hospital

was a factory of indifference and I scurried
home to write a poem about death. This
is an indication that my head's not

in the other room but up my ass and that
my soul's in there with it. I don't mean
to care less about people than what

people do, and could lie and say
I've taken steps to increase my devotion
to the actual limbs that come off and hearts

that stop, so I will. The art
of confession's to focus attention on what's
confessed while leaving the secret

mutations untouched. I once put the hose
of a vaccum on my penis and turned it
on. Honesty makes me feel so clean."

awp pictures

2007-03-08T08:26:00.000-05:00

Abdel brought the camera and took some great pictures of which I'm stealing a few and posting for your viewing pleasure. Because my camera went all wonky, I don't have pictures of my own, and most of these are from the Book Fair. Just don't get the idea that I was attached to a giant table all week, because that's sort of what it looks like.

Our motto for the weekend: sex sells. Whatever it takes, as Abdel says, whatever it takes, baby.

Mary's boyfriend Kramer's mother, the amazing Sue O'Neill, was published in IR's collab collage issue. Here she is posing next to Mary's beautiful banner. Can you see the fighting roosters?

We all love Joshua Poteat's poems. But he did promise to show up in an orange mesh tank top, so we were a little disappointed.

One really -can- spend too much time in a hotel bar. Packs of writers sprawled out from the bar's mouth and onto the carpet in teeming or tired masses. On the last night Ben Moorad took a picture of this carpet. It seemed highly symbolic at the time.

Everyone was happy at the Flying Biscuit. I ate the Love Cakes. I mean, really, who wouldn't?

Steven manages to camouflage himself at the Book Fair. Notice the low ceilings and cinderblock walls. I spent the week in a basement.

In the end, everything was gone. Note the absense of the stacks of journals. All we were left with were the pretty bookmarks and our sense of satisfaction for a job well done.

We flew home with Maurice, Mitchell and Micah. That sounds like a children's book. Mitchell's reading on the Affrilachian Poets panel was really wonderful. Thouh I missed Maurice's talk, I heard great things about it. And he bought me yogurt when I was desperate. Micah, she just exudes cool.

'lanta

2007-03-05T16:14:00.000-05:00

I'm back from AWP.

I'm reading Ben Moorad's lovely letter-pressed books, The Strange Transformation of Eamon Arble and The Second Dream of The Berry-Nosed Cab and The Art of Chiaroscuro. Strange and wonderful poems. Although I had to repack my suitcase in the airport to make it light enough, there are so many good things to read I don't care. We were told many times that our banner was the prettiest at AWP, thanks Mary. Today I was confused to not be standing in front of a bank of eight elevators when I tried to take one in Ballantine - the hotel was ridiculous but somehow habit-forming. There are too many stories to write. But it's good to be home. Pictures soon.

My family is as wonderful as ever. I wish I could immerse myself in the chaos more often. I don't, however, wish that I could eat such rich food all the time! Collard greens and cornbread, fried green tomatos, chicken parmesan, tiramisu. How did I survive?

Today, for the first time this whole year, I read my first name in a submission. In fact, I read it in two. Back to the routine. Only different.

peter is amazing

2007-02-24T02:51:00.001-05:00

I bought a piece entitled "Name it What You Want to Name it." It is very zen, and the lines seem to indicate monsters, crocodiles, dinosaurs and an eye.

We stood around and talked eruditely about the work.

The playmobile piece with its upending of heteronotmative relationships (particularly as localized in the figure of Santa) was a standout.

Peter was almost tossed in the river a number of times, and each time was granted a reprieve.

I was sent to a desert eerily reminiscent of Seven Minutes in Heaven.

Here are some pictures.

if this were This American Life i would entitle this program "stories of being 'foiled again'"

2007-02-23T11:41:00.000-05:00

Looks like my attempts to go here, to write and read and bicycle and swim, and also to visit my old stomping grounds may be foiled by unfortunate administrative snafus. I won the fellowship, yes, but sadly they may be booked during the only time possible for me to go. Keep your fingers crossed that things will work themselves out.

Last night the MFA basketball team, The Dangling Modifiers, aquitted themselves beautifully but were ultimately denied victory against their opponents, Some Team in Blue Jerseys with a Less Witty Name. I stood on the sidelines and tried to adapt my football cheers (by the time you get out "move that ball," the ball has been up and down the court five times already), and T wore her team colors, even if it was an accident. A had an amazing backwards lay-up, L scored several handy baskets, and dear sweet R blocked like the fierce woman we all know she is, even if she's usually too polite to show it. I wish I had pictures.

Thank goodness art openings for 4-year-olds can't be foiled. Tonight I will witness the debut of the masterwork, "No Good Things or Bad Things Ever Happen." I can't wait.

escapes

2007-02-19T23:05:00.000-05:00

All of my belongings are walking away from me lately. I think perhaps they are trying to tell me I need to be less invested in things that tie me to the material world. First the phone adventure, and now my school ID has headed for the hills of Ohio in the company of a wandering minstrel. Hopefully it will come back to me through the good ol' P.O. in the near future so the gym won't charge me exhorbitant rates to use the services I already pay exhorbitant fees to use. Speaking of the gym, there's been a rash of children there lately. The other day I saw a little girl walking very deliberately, head down, in front of her mother on the treadmill (collective "ohhhh...") and today two little boys were scaling the railing I use for barre work. They climbed all around me and then there was apparently some sort of falling out, because the chubbier boy said, "well, you'll never get to be king, then." This warmer weather is nice, but the resulting floods of slush make it mandatory for me to wear my moonboots to the gym. This entry has been brought to you by the adjective: whimsical.

in the icy world

2007-02-16T10:01:00.000-05:00

Last night I scaled the snowy heights of Prospect Hill without slipping once. Everything was iced and I felt like a pioneer as I wandered the silent world, trudging across bridges and fields and placing my footprints next to the tracks of dogs, birds and cars. During the day melting ice had made the trees crackle like paper. But it was cold enough again at night that everything was still and my legs in tights were two popsicles. It's been a long time since I've wandered alone after dark in snow that clean.

In an odd and fun piece of news, The Hartford Courant has nominated my mother as a finalist for letter to the editor of the year. We tried to figure out whether it was for her letter scolding them for their ethnocentric take on housing paint colors, or whether it was for her letter recommending Slim Whitman as a solution to the ubiquitous "loitering teens" problem. More information as it rolls in.

My friends are lovely writers. At the reading last night P read poems as beautiful as she, and V's bank robbery story held me in its thrall until the final, explosive and emotional ending. Marzipan is divine. I watched a cat and dog mate. I also picked up some terminology I really wish had stayed outside the purview of my knowledge. No, don't ask. I'm protecting your tender ears.

Oh, and in case Jamil called you, I have my phone back. No worries. Just one more petit adventure.

the great valentine project 2007

2007-02-11T12:26:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, there are no photographs of the hot pretzels or the hot toddy. No photographs of people actually making the beautiful valentines. And I didn't, as I promised A, actually attempt to make a pretzel in the shape of a sexy lady. That would have made for a good snapshot. But thankfully, there is a photograph of the wreckage (carnage?) of the valentine-making. Check out all the magazines. Can you see the Anthropologie catalogues? The copies of Science? What about Stanford Alumni magazine? CosmoGirl? Hustler? Poets&Writers? SexFever?

The house is still recovering. Next stop, groceries.

p.s. That new Charlie Brown Valentine movie they made was terrible. Stay away. It's no Great Pumpkin.

brushes with fame

2007-02-07T15:11:00.000-05:00

This past week I have been stalked by a Famous Artist. I don't know who he is (ok, this is a lie - it's a small town so a little research led me to this conclusion), and I only know he is a Famous Artist because I've twice sat next to him in the Art Museum cafe during my office hours. Both times, professor-types have come up to him and discussed his visit - it became immediately clear that he was in B-town to give a talk, and also that he was much admired. It made me think about how many writers have come through town, and occasions that strangers have interacted with them in my presence in a way that made me want to say, hey, don't you know this is ________ (Mary Gaitskill, Charles Baxter, Toi Dericotte...), and how on this occasion I was the dummy sitting blithely at my table reading submissions while Famous Artist guy sat around being famous. So, I thought it was funny that I ran into him twice at the cafe. And then I ran into him at the union parking lot. And THEN he almost hit me with his car. This is totally unrelated (don't think it an unkindness born of the car incident), but I have to confess that something about him reminds me of Wallace Shawn.

go colts!

2007-02-04T23:50:00.000-05:00

We were clearly a room full of writers. The wording of the commentary got us almost as up in arms as the game. At times it was like watching clowns come out of a clown car, at others like that greased pig wrestling I watched last year. And what was with Prince and his phallus? V says she heard gunshots. I'm just waiting to see how many students bother to show up to the 9am class tomorrow.

memo to the salt-scatterers of bloomington

2007-02-03T01:11:00.000-05:00

You may think it clever to spread blue-green tinted salt on the road. You may think it brings light, like the pebbles on the bottom of a fish tank, refracted underwater. But here is what else it looks like: broken glass.

climate change, language change

2007-02-01T22:05:00.000-05:00

As someone who teaches students about the precision of language, I find these two sentences from a CNN article on the latest global warming research amusing:

"The phrase 'very likely' translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man.

What that means in layman's language is 'we have this nailed,' said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who originated the percentage system."

Is Jerry Mahlman really the one who decided that "very likely" = 90%? Does that mean that whenever I use "very likely" in the future, it's going to mean I'm 90% certain about something? And why does "very likely" need to be translated into layman's terms? It it really such technical language that no ordinary mortal could grasp it?

road trippin for poetry?

2007-02-01T10:57:00.000-05:00

Butler University has a pretty well-funded reading series. And people from here are always jaunting up to see the Famous Poets, and now that I'm writing poetry again, I thought maybe I might take a field trip myself one of these days. Of course, I secretly want to see Mr. Billy Pilgrim in all his glory, but I've also been trying to read bits of the other folks that I'm sure I ought to know (but too often, only know by name, my contemporary poetry literacy having been stunted).

So anyway, in poem-of-the-day form, here's some nice Franz Wright I came across. Particulary enjoying the turns (verse! reverse!) in the first, "Old Story."

three nice things about shorter hair

2007-01-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

When I swim, no melon-sized ball of hair pulls my swim cap off.

After I shower, I can towel-dry (almost).

When I leave the gym with wet hair, it still turns into icicles, but at least they're not waist-length icicles.