Bemidji!

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

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

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

Four, Poetry

1. I was on the radio yesterday. I didn't mention it before, for I feared I might sound like a big knob. While it's true that I accidentally talked about theremins and cocktail waitressing more than I had intended, you can still stream the interview (the 4/12/2007 show) from here. I'm about a half hour in, after an interview with a really interesting Irani memoirist. My primary purpose was to promote this crew who will be gracing us with a reading next Friday!
My secondary purpose was to mention that the Thursday night before the Imaginary Press Reading, I'll be in LaCrosse, and if you happpen to be around the area it would be swell if you could make it.
Those Write On Radio folks are great. You can stream the show every Thursday from 11am-12pm (central time) if you want!

2. Here is a nice article about Twin Cities poetry at mnartists.org.

3. My pal Kate Harding and her friend Jillian Dunham have launched a literary blog called the Bibliophilistines. While I've been linked to them on my sidebar for some time, I am so tickled by what she posted today concerning my and my pal Paige Ackerson-Kiely's books that I want to thank her properly. Kate, thank you. Perhaps soon we can meet midway between our towns for fireworks, antiques, and cheese.

4. I just found THIS.

...and sundry

1. Giant congratulations! The wonderful Allison Titus's chapbook,
Instructions from the Narwhal is imminent! We are so lucky.

2. I have a week off!! I spent much of the last couple days outside spring cleaning my yard. The irises are off to a good start and the cedum is budded! I LOVE plants that don't need me too much. And, though I sometimes dread to find what trash my neighbors have been tossing in my yard all winter is hiding under the snow, this year it was naught but a single beer bottle. And Heineken, no less -- quite schmancy for these parts.

3. To further the idea that I listen to no music from the last two decades, I will share my other spring ritual which is this: the very first day it is possible to open my windows I do so and crank London Calling then the Replacements' Hootenany. That's a happy day.

4. It's been a while since I've given a MEHSBM (Movies Everybody Has Seen But Me) report. Here goes: I like Will Ferrell. Enough to rush off to rent Taladega Nights? No. But I appreciated his sweet comic relief in Winter Passing which I watched this weekend, and which I liked, though you shouldn't trust my taste in films. I also liked him in Stranger than Fiction which Sarah brought on our recent writing trip. (I even liked him in Elf, and guess what? There is a narwhal cameo in Elf.)
P and I also watched Ciao, Professore, which was simple and sweet, and Cecil B. Demented which was simple and sour.

5. Hart Crane Hart Crane Hart Crane


My plan is to glut on movies and books and outdoors this week. Please give me suggestions if you have some.

Cabin Writing Retreat

This is the monster I'm working on...

...in its entirety. No idea if when I'm done it will be one hundred pages long or three (not hundred, pages long).

Dear S.

Dear M.

Sarah Fox and I have translated each other's work

This was such a fun project. Many thanks to Konundrum Engine!

Queen-We Are The Champion

There was once a time when I had a relationship with Queen music! This was everyone's elementary softball victory song. In fourth grade we had orange jerseys and were Orange Crush, and in fifth grade we had blue jerseys and were the Bluejays, which name I picked, foreshadowing my bird fetish.

I would like to dedicate this video to my great grad school pal Elvis, Gbanabom Hallowell, in celebration of another new book for him.

Thanks to Deej's Digital Photography Skills Here's some Brooklyn

In keeping with my word combo issue, here is a restaurant that gives Chicago's Patio Beef a run for its money.
Except these aren't from Brooklyn. They are just south of Hell's Kitchen. Above is one of the pieces from the Exit Gallery's opening of the exhibit of Latin album covers and art inspired by said covers. In addition to this sculpture's aesthetic appeal, it is a Hot Wheels track.
Good neon outside the Exit Gallery.
A photo by one of my new favorite artist/photographers, but I'm not sure I've got the name right!! Vladka Horvak, I think. She is not currently Google-able. If anybody has information, please share.

What are you doing on October 13th?

Because I am going to be reading in Brooklyn at Pete's Candy Store at 7 PM with the remarkable poets Fred Schmalz and DJ Dolack! If you are in the vicinity, and you like poems and sandwiches and beer, I hope you will come!

Do you want to know a little big about Fred and DJ?

Okay:
Fred Schmalz is a poet and publisher of the literature and art journal swerve. His poems have appeared in TheBedazzler, jubilat, Conduit, Divide, Forklift Ohio, H_NGM_N and other magazines. Schmalz's chapbook, Ticket, was published by Fuori Editions in 2002. He lives in Brooklyn.

DJ Dolack's work has most recently appeared in TheColumbia Poetry Review, Forklift ,Ohio and Salt Hill.He is a poetry editor at Eye For An Iris Press and teaches writing at Farleigh Dickinson University. He holds an MFA from Vermont College and lives in Brooklyn.

I won't be spelling, though, which makes me a little sad. The spelling bee at Pete's is held on Mondays...I have ALWAYS wanted to compete in a spelling bee, which is silly in a way, as I'm not that talented of a speller. But, perhaps if you come, you could just ask me to spell stuff when I'm not reading, and it'll brighten me right up. Thanks.