The Casual Tee

Micro review of Scared Text

2012-01-22T21:53:00.001-08:00

Thoughts on ScaredText by Eric Baus

I love this book. I’ve read it twice, and have thought abouthow to talk to others about it. Really, I’ve thought about how to assure otherpeople that they in fact should absolutely read it. This is a little difficultbecause Eric’s book is somewhat like a unicorn: you have to approach it with anopen heart, and it will certainly reward you. I should mention here that while there are plenty ofcreatures in Scared Text (bees,snails, doves, beetles, eels, elephants, and others) there are no unicorns.Anyway, here is the best way I can describe why you should go out and read thiscollection:

There’s a syndetic structure to Scared Text—a cross-referential of not only phrase, but of tone andideation. Baus chooses to beginhis text with “Glass Ear” which itself begins, “Approach the smallest ghostafter he has turned his back. A buzz of definition surrounds him” and concludeswith “There is no such thing as ‘there is no ghost.’” In a way, this describesthe book: there is indeed a “buzz of definition” which surrounds it. Yet likesome weird poem-fractal, this buzz surrounds nothing—it scales all the way downto the sentence and unfolds with equivalent coherence to the entire book.

Scared Text as aplastic whole reads almost tactilely. Because there’s no narrative or symbolismor allusion it must be read exactly as itself. And it pulses. Words and phrases don’t so much as echo eachother, as they pneumatically pull on one another; perhaps another way toimagine this is to see the entire text as a network with certain characters(and I use this term loosely) like “Minus” and “Iris” along with some others aswell simultaneously occupying multiple locations. Scared Text does a really neat thing for me: it somehow points to away of non-local non-sequential cognition, as if the entire text should be read simultaneously if onlyour minds could become so elastic.

The Grand Piano -- Holloway Reading Series

2011-11-16T10:05:00.001-08:00

This Friday, November 18, at 6:30 The Grand Piano will be read at the Holloway Reading Series at Cal Berkeley in 315 Wheeler Hall, the Maude Fife Room. The Grand Piano is "AN EXPERIMENT IN COLLECTIVE AUTOBIOGRAPHY ... a multi-volume, collaborative work centered on the rise of Language poetry in San Francisco in the second half of the 1970s." Should be a notable reading!

"Breath Control"

2011-11-15T16:02:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been spending a some time on a random word generator site, WatchOut4Snakes, and have been using some of my lunches to try my hand at flash fiction. I find it a brilliant escape for a little while, which makes it fine for those products of my escapism that find egress themselves back into oblivion when I delete them. That said, a few seem worthy of this modest publishing:

___________________

Breath Control

When I was younger and the sky seemed larger, I was told that the wind was alive. That the breezes and currents and gusts were the world’s breath and as such were what animated all of us. I liked this idea because of the slight dissonance it caused: I knew I was not my little brother or neighborhood friend but if the wind was everywhere and animating everybody then how were we different? I spent a lot of time as a kid holding my breath trying to figure out who I was.

I got pretty good at it. At first, I could only hold it for a minute, but after months of practice, I could last over three minutes. I’ve heard that some magician held his for 17 minutes, which impressed me but also made me wonder if he was searching for himself as well. At some point I stopped practicing, and forgot all about the winds—though I always loved windy days, the way that autumn leaves go crazy and how trees seem suddenly to be more alive than you recall.

My mother was the one who told me about the wind. When I heard that she was gone, it was pretty late. I got the call, cried, told my wife, made arrangements, and finally went to bed. I woke up when it was still dark; the house was still and I could hear the wind right past the windows. I wanted the wind to crack its cheeks, for branches to break from trees, to hear her in the world.

The moon was covered with dark clouds so the hills surrounding my house were great black giants hunched over, the oak to the west of the house was swaying and twitching like it was going to take a step, like everything was on a cusp, was holding its breath. I realized that I should stop. I opened my mouth wide so the wind, the night, everything rushed in and I knew she had been right.

___________________

Oh yeah! If any are very determined, November is National Novel Writing Month, and there is still time to get going! Read more here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Holy Bat Deco Art Man!

2011-11-09T14:17:00.000-08:00

So cool! Art Deco superheroes by Gregoire Guillemin. Thanks Saudade for posting these!

Interesting story on librarians' tough decisions...

2011-10-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

It's a tough reality that librarians have to weed collections--that means getting rid of books. Sometimes there are books sales, sometimes donations, and sometimes straight-up destruction. If this is something you find interesting, you may want to take a look at Libraries Really Do Destroy Books over at NPR.org

Lagerfeld Loves Books

2011-06-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Karl Lagerfeld Loves Books

So this is pretty fantastic: Karl Lagerfeld, fashion king and head of Chanel has decided to create a fragrance that smells like books. Ink, paper, leather, cotton, glue--these are the smells bibliophiles (such as yourselves) love and soon you will be able to announce your passion for print with a fragrance. Kristina Rodulfo writes:

According to FOCUS, a weekly magazine based in Munich, Lagerfeld is collaborating with Geza Schön, a perfumer from Berlin, to create a scent directly inspired by the smell of ink on paper. The fragrance, apparently called Paper Passion, is said to come in a package resembling a hardcover book as designed in collaboration with Gerhard Steidl, Lagerfeld's Edition 7L partner.

Read more here: http://www.stylecaster.com/fashion/12414/karl-lagerfelds-new-perfume-smells-like...-books
and here:
http://www.bellasugar.com/Karl-Lagerfeld-Release-Book-Inspired-Fragrance-Paper-Passion-15805934

"Why?" you may ask would Mr. Lagerfeld choose to make this perfume. Well take a look at his personal library and you'll see how much this man (who said, "I buy my shoes a size too small. I like the way it feels") loves books:

And finally, if fragrances derived from books interest you, perhaps this book all about fragrance will interest you as well: Perfume, The Story of a murderer by Patrick Suskind.

Oh my Elder Gods!

2011-06-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

So my pal Grant saw this on BoingBoing and posted it on FB and here we are.

There is an awesome blog in the swirling aether we call the internet and it is full of eldritch, remorseless critters which can be found at Yog-Blogsoth. One artist, Michael Bukowski, risks madness most foul to illustrate every entity that Lovecraft ever put to page.

Can't find the words to express your revulsion and fascination? Don't worry, the Lovecraft Engine will find the words for you.

Schematics of a Librarian

2011-05-26T16:24:00.001-07:00

It should be known that even I own a pair of cat eye glasses and wear them when I need to shhh patrons; when you receive your MLIS diploma, the glasses come with a ribbon.

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++

Source: Master Degree Guide

Three of my favorite things! Poems, indices, comics together in one post

2011-05-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

Never have I had the pleasure of labeling a post with three of my favorites: poetry, libraries, and comics. Yet thanks to Eric Baus, I can do so today. Eric's post at Jacket2 "...explores the poem as index, bibliography, catalog, or otherwise arranged list."

Of specific interest, Eric writes:

I am interested in what the arrangement and interplay between selected materials suggests as well as how indexical forms often point to the hidden, the unacknowledged, the invisible, the partial.

This is a topic that fascinates me as well. I am curious about syndetic structures. What rules act as their structure, what atypical forms might an index utilize and how might one use this creatively, and how do they look when they are evolved/automated as with somefolksonomies? These are just some ideas to play with you listen though the post, which can be read here:

https://jacket2.org/commentary/back

If you have patiently read thus far wondering when the comic angle was going to appear, then, first, thank you, and second, be sure to scroll down to Alice Notley's recorded poem which uses comic book titles to exist as both the poem and non-alphabetized concordance. Mar-vell-ous!

Brief review of Maureen Thorson's Applies to Oranges

2011-04-05T16:48:00.001-07:00

Applies to Oranges by Maureen Thorson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Maureen Thorson's Applies to Oranges is an excellent first book of poetry. The oranges, spiders, ships, and Zeniths almost become recursive magical traps looping the reader into the speaker's longing. Some poems were stronger than others and some seemed to rely more on surprising language than content or structure, but even with this slight criticism, A to O is one of my favorite poetry books this year. As well, it's from Ugly Duckling Presse which consistently publishes lovely editions, and this collection as a book is really well-designed and looks great in its dark blue and orange letter-pressed cover.

View all my reviews

Just finished the first quarter of a new manuscript...

2011-03-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

...and it feels terrific (and cetainly took long enough...).

Here's a poem from Somewhere there is a forest

O floor, O foothills. Languor
holds deep here, this tight
fitness of your mouth to mine,
cursive of your tongue
caught in my indecision, perfect
as quarks as photo emergent
as birth in its soup; soon wreckage
becomes what it is so nothing needs
be what it ought not; nothing
ought to be here in me but
the grace of your sweat, tender
looks, hips rolling yonder.

This one is a bit romantic I think. Anyhow, there are 24 more in this section, "The Book of the East;" now comes the fun part of sending these out, while finishing writing "The Book of the North."

Banned Book Week

2010-09-27T12:47:00.000-07:00

This week, and until October 2, is Banned Books Week! I'm not going get on my pedestal too much here, but obviously it's pretty damn stupid to allow one group to tell another what they are allowed to read (if, for some, another type of rhetoric is more helpful, we can call this type of censorship Un-American. See? There's the librarianesque preference for "yes, and" rather than "no, but").

In any case, books get challenged all the time all over the place (check out the map linked below), and it's my job, and yours, to advocate for our freedom to read whatever we choose and for libraries to carry what their varied communities want. I've yet to meet anyone who has admitted to challenging a book, probably because deep down they know it's a jack move. With that, remember: you can call their bluff, and shame them into reconsideration.

Check out the links below for other Banned Book Week resources:

Map of Censored Books

Voice of Youth Advocates Banned Book Page

American Library Association of America's Most Often Challenged Books of the Century

Librarians do rock.

2010-09-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks Wired for posting this and thank you Central Rappahannock Regional Librarians for making librarianship a little more awesome.

Sayonara Satoshi Kon.

2010-09-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

I hope your trip to whatever dream awaits is as vibrant as your films. Your vision will be missed.

Oh no del Toro!

2010-08-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

Normally I avoid most things MTV but noticed this comment about a potential Hellboy III movie from Mike Mignola and felt compelled, reluctantly, to share:

[re: del Toro's Hellboy III] "My Hellboy is not going to have kids,” continued Mignola. “My Hellboy is going to die, but I want to be the one who does that. And if del Toro does my ending, there won’t be a lot of surprise when I get to the end of the comic.”

Normally, I think Guillermo del Toro's talented, imaginative, and over-all rad (c'mon, you know that movie was awesome), but if he were to give Hellboy some kids, I may have to boycott his work henceforth.

But if you are into the whole Hellboy/infant thing, than this might be for you:

2010-07-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is actually from January of this year, but I just saw it and thought it was pretty awesome, so I'll pass it along to all the rest of teh internets lollygaggers like myself who are a little slower but have some fascination with both fashion, samurai, and absurdity. I would like to share with you the Coco Chanel Samurai Yoroi set:

Maybe some high fashion armor for Usagi Yojimbo?

Libraries!!!

2010-05-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks Nedroid!

Ah the games of my youth...

2010-05-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

Saw this over at 8bitlibrary.com and was deeply impressed! Cho sugeii!

spelling bees and indie lit--together? Yes.

2010-05-10T13:36:00.001-07:00

Small Press Distribution is putting on the 2010 BEE-IN on May 17! What is it, you ask. Why it's A Spelling Bee to Benefit Small Press Distribution!

Bee well, and spell better.

for those interested in martial arts and librarianship...

2010-04-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

...just discovered that bojutsu has its own classification in the Dewey Decimal System: 796.86.

Specifically:

.86 : Fencing

Including bojutsu, kendo

Class here sword fighting.

Awesome (though I am a little sad to see it under 796, which is "Athletic and outdoor sports and games").

Art of Mike Mignola

2010-04-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

Saw today that Mike Mignola--one of my all time favorites--now has his own site on the interwebs (thanks for the info, Mark)! It's a lovely, creepy site and well worth taking a look at: Art of Mike Mignola, or just click on the lovely pic below!

Also this week is Library Week, so why not check ol' Hellboy out from a local library?

Cute Cat Theory

2010-03-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

Was reading about China and Google today over at CNET and came across this:

Contrary to the perception in the U.S. that Chinese citizens are clamoring for subversive information, Internet users there tend to be more interested in general information and entertainment--much like Web surfers in the U.S., according to Roberts.

Citing what he called the "cute cat theory," Roberts said Internet users in China are more interested in videos of cats flushing toilets than they are in reading political diatribes. "At the end of the day, the social uses of the Internet are bigger drivers than political and controversial news content," he said.

So I ran a search on CCT and came up with less that people are more interested in cute cats than in politics (which is true), but rather that the same tools to say O Hai to your pals will also be used for subversive/activist/political communications. Seems that a fella named Ethan Zuckerman came up with this theory waaaay back in '08, and you can read it here: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/.

A couple of quotes I liked:

It’s fine to build tools for activists, but even better to build tools for folks who don’t know they’re activists yet.

and

With web 2.0, we’ve embraced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. As a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists.

Anyways, apologies for those already down with the CCT, and two years on the internet is like a million years, I know, but hey.

Reanimation Library

2010-03-10T09:39:00.000-08:00

Wow--this independent library in Brooklyn is soooooo cool. Check out the interview:

Poor Stephen Hayes's Mystic Arts of the Ninja--relegated to obsolescence...I loved that book as a kid! (I might even still have it around somewhere.) And OH MY GOD can someone with skillz please make me a pair of those "Master Librarian" knuckle dusters--I'll find a way to make it worth your while. Really.

Books, Content, Form and Formlessness -- Craig Mod Explores the Book as Object and Metaphor

2010-03-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a tip from Saudade about a NYT article, I just read a great article on the nature and future of books, printing, and reading. Check out book designer, writer, and publisher Craig Mod's thoughts here: http://craigmod.com/journal/ipad_and_books/. And as a book lover, a book seller, and a librarian, I must admit I agree with his points, especially that "disposable books" should be swept out from print and into solely digital formats.

My only concern here is that he seems to ignore the digital divide. What of those who cannot afford one of Steve Jobs very expensive-but-beautiful products--do they not deserve to take a bit of summer reading to the beach? I don't think many public libraries will be loaning out iPads anytime soon, so perhaps the disposable mass market should be left around, despite its inherent negative effects until everyone can have some sort of e-reader. Any thoughts?

Know any good librarian jokes?

2010-03-01T15:50:00.000-08:00

If so, post 'em over at LISNews, where they're having a Librarian Joke Contest all of March.

AA Bondy at Cafe Du Nord

2010-01-24T00:33:00.001-08:00

See more of this guy here:

from Somewhere There is a Forest

2010-01-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

Scuttled rubbish and lightened
ardent valse of Autumnal
flux. Muscled runners flit by
chests a’heaving sculptural
as a kingdom of blood of
future joy, of future love
dense as close collapsing stars.

Well written article on e-reading...or how Dio foresaw technology's impact on culture in the 21st Century

2009-12-22T20:22:00.000-08:00

In Matthew Shaer's essay "The e-bbok, the e-reader, and the future of reading" for the Christian Science Monitor, he quotes Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid, who argues that with electronic readers and the twilight of the codex that, “[...] we will develop within the next generation a shorter, less-enriched [brain] circuitry for reading, and I don’t think I’m ultraconservative. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t read online.... I’m saying that we need to preserve what’s best about the present reading brain – preserve the beautiful function of books in our lives – as we move across mediums that will allow us ever greater access to information.”

Others say that both the e-book and the codex will co-exist for a very long time...to be honest, I am uncertain. Who can really say? Yet Christopher Harris, a librarian and the creator of the blog digitalreshift.org says that as a librarian he has to "go where the information goes." I can agree with that. Plus, he gets all heavy metal: "But as with any disruptive technology, you’re either guided forward or you’re steamrolled. The only way to do it is to jump on the tiger and take control of it.” Didn't Ronnie James Dio say so much the same in 1987? Ahem, "Holy diver you've been down too long in the midnight sea oh what's becoming of me / Ride the tiger you can see his stripes but you know he's clean oh don't you see what I mean." Indeed we do, Ronnie.

Awful library books...

2009-12-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

Can be seen here: http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/.

This site is awesome--from crazy old Satanist scare books from the 80s and 90s to how to jump start excitement with Tape Recording. Really, it's worth checking out!

See why weeding really can be fun!

Jacket #38

2009-12-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

Excellent article on Jack Spicer and print culture by Graham Foust in Jacket #38. Here's a taste:

"As in a detective story, the reader is incorporated into Spicer’s poems, and it seems that Spicer’s ideal reader is one who is able to rewrite, recreate, and continue the textbook rather than follow it to the letter. Spicer’s electric poetics aren’t a power trip, as he maintains that even the poet herself remains only a co-author. This process is impersonal, as is Poe’s, but Spicer’s impersonality goes one step further into the Outside by insisting that metaphors are not for readers or writers, that they are not, in fact, “for humans” (Vocabulary 300). Spicer does not seek to predetermine his effects, but rather is affected and afflicted by ghostly figures; in turn, he sounds the stories of these invasions."

And if this gets you going, then be sure to check out Mr. Foust's reading on Thursday December 3 at Studio One Arts Center. To read more information about the upcoming reading and an interview with G. Foust, there's more here.

Punk Passage at San Francisco Public Library

2009-11-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

For those interested in punk rock, San Francisco, and photography, the SF public library will be hosting Punk Passage, an exhibit on the SF punk scene from 1977-1981. Included are photos from shows, posters and fliers, video footage, and other ephemera. Also of interest: tomorrow, Tuesday 9/17, there will be a panel discussion with band Queer Punk, and how being Queer influenced their music and their memories of the original SF punk scene. The exhibit runs through December 6. Read more at: http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/news/exhibitions.htm.

"The photographs represent some of San Francisco’s contribution to the international punk movement. The message is unabashed individualism, creativity, do-it-yourself activism and black humor. Bands such as The Avengers, the Dead Kennedys, the Dils, Crime, Sleepers, the Mutants and others are represented, placing them within the historic context as an important part of San Francisco’s counter-cultural history, as innovative for its time as the beat and hippie movements were."

Two of my favorite things:

2009-11-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

Comic books and literacy! Plus a little respect to librarians...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6516323/Comic-books-are-good-for-childrens-learning.html

Like gashes, little foxes

2009-11-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

So here is a short story I wrote in time for Halloween, but then I forgot to post it... ah well.

Kathryn could hear the foxes barking outside. They had been barking for nearly two hours. Perhaps they made such a ruckus every night, but Kathryn had only been here for two days so she had no way of telling. She was looking through the window again, wondering what she should do. There was plenty of food in the house, the weather was mild, and in other circumstances she would be happy to holiday here.

The sun’s last traces went skimming through the leaves to create soft shadows on the honey colored grass that surrounded the house. Great clouds unfurled against a reddish sky, and a small breeze, like their emissary, drifted through the window and past Kathryn, pulling her hair into dark rivulets.

Now she found herself alone in a house supposed to be occupied by her boyfriend’s elderly aunt. And the car, her car, which she and Richard had driven here was broken half a mile out with a bent axle, and now Richard was gone on a very long walk back into the last town they had driven through on their way here. So she now found herself with the house, a cup of tea, and the vulpine evening.

Really, she shouldn’t be worried overly much. Richard’s aunt was supposed to have met them here, and her absence wasn’t terribly strange. She was older, in her late sixties, and according to Richard, an active capable woman. She had grown up in the Midwest among a primarily Russian immigrant community, and had fished and hunted and wandered with her father during the Depression and had never let go of her self-assurance. Kathryn had always admired that same characteristic in Richard, and had been looking forward to meeting this woman of whom Richard had always spoken with so much esteem. Kathryn was sure all would work out well, and that Richard would be back in a few days.

Instinctively, she pulled her cell from her pocket, to check for a message from Richard; of course, there was none. There was no reception here--there hadn’t been any for the last ten miles. Richard promised to return as soon as possible after he got into town and found a mechanic. He expected to be there within a day or so and back late the next. They had joked about the foxes when he left, Kathryn teasing that he, as usual, would have a harem of vixens within a day of arrival anywhere—even here so far from anything else.

Kathryn sipped her tea, and eventually decided to roll a cigarette and sit on the front porch steps. The evening had grown pleasantly chilly, the moon clear and bright, and a cigarette—something Richard always frowned on—would taste good and she could listen to the foxes speaking in their language of high pitched yelps and barks. Perhaps tonight she would actually see one. She flicked on the dim porch light and shut the door behind her.

She looked out across the large yard to the road winding out through the copse of pines and twisty grey oaks surrounding the house. The house perched on the top of a small hill so that it looked out but not over the tall trees growing everywhere around it. Kathryn liked sitting out on the steps, and if she was honest with herself, it was because the house was too large for her and made her a little nervous. The Yakova residence (Aunt Barbara’s surname) was as gray as the lichen-covered oaks and seemingly as old. The house was a modestly large affair with two stories, a high roof, and the haughty demureness that all these Victorians seemed to evoke. Kathryn had once visited San Francisco and under the presence of so many similar houses had felt like she was constantly being gently scolded by well-meaning but overly prim aunts.

She exhaled and watched the smoke drift out toward dissipation. Shadows flickered here and there in the woods and she could make out the foxes’ small shapes and the sharp flashes of their eyes. She saw light falling on the grass around the house and cursed. She had left the light on again upstairs in the bedroom, and now she would have to go up again and turn it off. “Serves you right, Kathryn, for never getting over your scarredy-pants-ness. Now you have to go up all alone in an old house with a missing old lady and your man isn’t here to go with you.”

It was the last part that roused her courage to not just ignore the light and sleep downstairs on the couch. Richard was always in charge of himself and liked to tease her for her jitters. Kathryn knew that if she were to give in to unfounded fears then they would only become worse and by the time Richard arrived, she would be sleeping in the broken down Honda with a blanket, a box of crackers, and a flashlight.

She exhaled the last of her cigarette, turned to ascend the few stairs to the now darkened front door, and heard a bark behind her nearly at her feet. Twisting like a cat, she saw a small dark fox. It barked again, its teeth small and sharp, its tail puffed high above it. She was happy she didn’t cry out herself, and readied herself to kick the fox were it to attack and then run back inside. She began walking slowly back up the stairs when the fox hissed and ran back into the deep shadows around the house. Shivering from cold and nerves, Kathryn pushed the slightly ajar door open.

The door slammed a little too hard behind as she shut it, and she jumped. “What the fuck was that?” She was talking to herself to break the spell of quiet the was all too easily cast here, and walked into the living room, flicking on the lights as she went. The staircase to the second floor started from the corner of the living room and made for a narrow ascension to the rooms above: two bedrooms, a storage room, and a small bathroom.

Richard and she had spent the first night upstairs in the guest bedroom, and had investigated the entire house room by room looking for clues to where his aunt may be. Richard had received a letter a month or so prior inviting him to visit and go over some issues of Barbara’s will and estate. Richard had promised to be her executor, and Barbara probably would appreciate other people filling her house with people as it had once been when she was young. They had set up a date, and then Richard and Kathryn had arrived to an empty house and a less than empty forest surrounding it.

“Kathryn.” Her heart became a sparrow, and for the second time that night she jumped. Her name had come from Barbara’s room, and was not Richard’s voice. Could her cell phone be on and working? Had she misheard? She checked and still no service. She didn’t recall a phone or answering machine upstairs but perhaps they had missed one in his aunt’s room. Kathryn opened the door, reached around the doorway for the light switch, and flicking it on, opened the door fully. The window was open slightly and she could feel a cool breeze raising goose bumps. She stepped in. Her eyes swept the room looking for a phone. She suddenly felt like a mannequin, hollowed out and stiff, realizing there was such device in the room. Turning to leave, she saw the door slowly shutting.

She jumped, caught it, and slammed the door shut. Forgetting to turn off the light in the room, she fled down the stairs turning on every light she could find. Only when the whole floor glowed with artificial electric life, did Kathryn calm down enough to realize that she probably heard a fox, or a branch swaying, or the breeze and, out of her loneliness, had hoped it was someone calling her with news. And of course the door shut—the window was open and hadn’t she felt the breeze herself?

“Girl, you have got to get your shit together. Now go in the kitchen, raid the cupboards, and take a breath.”

Later, after a cup of tea and some soup, did Kathryn finally fall asleep on the couch, far from the rooms upstairs, but never far from her small and lurking disquiet.

Kathryn dreamt that night of visitors. She was upstairs in the house, and was looking out the window awaiting Richard’s return. Someone kept knocking politely but persistently on the door below and she was sure whoever it was would soon leave if she just remained quiet and ignored the knocking. She was wearing a dress that she had not seen before—a simple blue dress with embroidered stars here and there, and around the square-neck was a curious embroidered pattern of intertwining branches. The knocks downstairs had become something close to thunder and suddenly Kathryn could not breathe and she could see Richard on the road back to the house and was terrified and awoke in the dark to see someone sitting in the room with her. She lurched forward, gasping, to awake once more in an empty room.

The sun was streaming through the windows and her face was warm. She gathered herself, breathing slowly and regularly as she always did when she woke from nightmares. Soon she had brushed the night’s occurrences away, and was left with a strong desire for coffee and someone to talk to. If not Richard, then her sister. She suddenly missed her sister. She wanted her sister here, with her, filling up this house with her brash laughter. Kathryn and Richard had considered inviting her sister along, but had decided to just make it the two of them and bring family over later. Kathryn didn’t normally spend a lot of time alone, and was getting not only lonely, but a little stir-crazy. She busied herself in the kitchen making coffee, and reminded herself that she could use this time for a little self-improvement and maybe meditate or something while she had the time.

Kathryn didn’t meditate that day, but she did clean. This was usually a meditative exercise for her, and she thought it would not only give her something to do, but would also make Aunt Barb happy when she arrived. She swept about the house, dusting, and of course, doing an entirely justified and respectable amount of snooping. Covers and cushions were lifted, drawers were opened to clean the interiors, and while checking the drawers in the kitchen to see if any utensils needed a clean scrubbing, she discovered phone bills. The last time a phone bill had been paid was nearly eight years ago, and she and Richard had not seen a phone in the house. This was curious.

After ransacking the rest of the house, now with little care for covering her tracks, she found a box in Aunt Barb’s room, under a chair with other documents: doctor’s bills, electricity and water bills, and unsent letter in an envelope addressed to Richard; all were postdated at least eight years prior. The letter was innocuous enough, asking Richard to come visit, that she had some work that needed to be done and that he would be of great help in her quickly failing health. Kathryn decided that this was absolutely enough and that she would be leaving this fucking house immediately. There was still time to get a start toward town before it got dark, and hell, she would bring a blanket, and would be happier out there than another night here in this strange house with its bizarre mysteries.

…

Kathryn couldn’t get out.

The forest, or something, wouldn’t let Kathryn leave. She would walk in, following the road for an hour, and then find the house balanced on the rise in front of her again, its immense mockery apparent. At first she had thought she had just gotten turned around, a little lost, but after the third time it happened, Kathryn finally understood that she would not be able to escape under her own power. Helplessness swept through her and, shaking, she sat and wept. She pounded the dirt road with her fists and raged at her own lack of agency. She had been swept to the side and shown her own powerlessness. Eventually, worn from crying, when one suddenly just feels a little better for having run out of tears, she nodded, acquiesced that something was happening with the foxes and the shadows and the strange sounds and if she couldn’t leave, well then fine, but she certainly wasn’t going to give up. She’d sleep in the Honda and wait for Richard’s return. She stumbled to the car and realized that she had left her keys in the house. Slowly, she slid down the door and sat in the cold dirt, and did not scream. She gathered her will and decided that she would go back inside, gather her keys, and then would return to the car. This was going to happen just as she planned; when she was certain, she rose and slowly strode to the house.

Kathryn ascended the stairs warily and wearily. No lights were on inside, and she waited by the door for a moment’s listening. As per usual, all she could hear were the foxes barking in the dark trees behind her, now more like great rips in the world in the shape of trees with the small foxes like knives flitting from gash to ground to gash again.

The door was unlocked. She had left it unlocked in case she missed Richard on his return, and was now glad she had left it so as she was relieved to not fumble with keys in the dark. Slipping in, she flicked on the light and went to the coffee table in the living room where she recalled leaving her keys. The table was made from perhaps a walnut or some other dark wood and was probably an antique; Kathryn wasn’t sure, but it certainly looked old. It also was absent of keys. Kathryn scanned the room. Frustrated with herself and Richard and the foxes and this goddamned house, she fumed into the kitchen, and everywhere throughout the house, but it was just as empty of keys as it was of any feeling of menace. It was as if the house had realized its creepiness, and was doing its best to shunt that aspect aside and only show its house-ness. As if it were saying in its best dinner table voice, why there’s nothing here but me, just an old house on a quaint and quiet piece of normal property.

Kathryn could scream.

She instead sat on the couch and determined to make a plan. Fine. She would stay in the house one more night. She would not sleep, but instead would sit here on the couch with all the lights on, and if she felt sleepy she would smoke cigarettes. Inside. Tomorrow, she would attempt to leave again, and if she was turned around again, she’d burn the whole fucking thing to the ground, and that would be sure to garner someone’s attention. “Did you hear that, house?” She asked. “Tomorrow I’m either on my way toward town, or there’s gonna be a reckoning.” She shook her head, amazed that she was at a point where talking to houses seemed totally okay.

She woke with a start. Fuck, she had been sleeping. Someone was in the room with her. Sitting quietly on the antique chair looking at her. She screamed.

“Kathryn! It’s me. It’s okay.” The shape lurched toward her, arms heavy and ready to crush her. Beating them away, Kathryn heard from a distance, on the periphery of hearing, the form saying something but all she could hear were the foxes almost chanting outside and around the house, and inside her head. She stopped to listen as the barking seemed to almost coalesce into language. The foxes were saying something and Kathryn knew she should hear whatever it was they were saying and then Richard was there holding her tight and whispering, “I’m here, I’m here.”

…

“There wasn’t a mechanic who would come out here!”

“Richard, you don’t get it, we have to go! You weren’t here!” Kathryn was weeping again. Lord, she was tired of crying. Her fists were clenched at her side and she decided that hitting Richard would not actually hammer in the valididty of her concerns. but he was saying something.

“...come on, Katie, don’t you think that just maybe you could be freaking out? Just a little? You know you’re not very good alone, you’re Ms. Scaredy-pants, remember? Anyway, I’m here now and it’ll be fine. The house is beautiful, the little forest outside is lovely, and we deserve to be here.”

“What about the bills, Richard?” Kathryn pointed to the bills scattered across the counter. She had shown them to Richard to prove that something was happening here, and that maybe Aunt Barbara wasn’t here anymore and wouldn’t be coming back.

“Well that is strange, Kathryn, but I received a letter from her just a month ago, remember? And it was her writing, and she asked me to come here. Let’s just wait a week or so. And what were you doing, anyway? This isn’t your house. You shouldn’t be snooping around.”

And so it went for a good portion of the day. Eventually Richard retreated to the upstairs room, and Kathryn sat on the couch--less afraid of course, but frustrated and feeling very alone. She could hear him upstairs, pacing about and cleaning. He once came down into the kitchen and grabbed some cleaning supplies and a broom. The house didn’t need cleaning, but Richard was fastidious, and sometimes cleaned as a means to cool off. Yet he scarcely came down, and when he did, he ignored her. He was zoned out, probably tired from the walk back, and frustrated he had not found a mechanic. He didn’t need her paranoia upon his return. At leas this was Kathryn’s analysis, but when she tried making amends and was brushed off like a stranger—well to hell with him. She could ignore him too; tomorrow she’d leave. She would leave tomorrow to walk to town. If Richard didn’t want to go with her, fine. And if she got turned around again, she’d pull him by his ears with her until he saw it too. So once again she slept alone downstairs, and this time tired Kathryn fell quickly asleep and did not dream.

Early in the morning, long before any light, she began to feel a little cold and groped for her blanket. She pressed herself into the back of the couch, facing the living room and pulled her blanket all the way to her chin, both hands curled into fists holding the blanket tightly wound in each.

The stairs creaked and she woke no longer angry but immobile and cold and panting.

Something was coming down the stairs heavy and terrible.

Something was lurching toward her. She tried to see what it was, but it was dark, and it’s movements too abrupt, terrible and unnatural.

She tried to scream and couldn’t. Where was Richard? Was he dead? Had this thing been in the house all along, just toying with her? It was closer now, and she could finally begin to see it and oh god oh god oh god it couldn’t be how could there exist something like this so unnatural and monstrous.

It was Richard, but not him. Good god how could it be him? She couldn’t hear the foxes tonight. Just her heart and the floorboards creaking as if under immense weight. As it moved down the stairs toward her, the sound of teeth gnashing and bone scraping along the old stairs filled the room and oh if she could only scream.

It was Richard and it was not. Flickering in and out and through him was a terrible old woman. Metal teeth grinned out at odd angles, and a merciless and empty humor dripped in and out with the rasping breath. It whispered her name, just once, and she shuddered for in those two syllables there was such hunger and such invitation. It was Richard asking her to love him, pleading. It was the old woman pleading to be fed. It was her first lover whispering her name during sex, and Kathryn felt herself giving in to their demands. They needed her. A strange sort of resigned peace spread out and warmed her. She had read of predation, of how some animals simply go slack at the end. How by finally letting it all go, they reach some sort of primitive transcendence in the teeth of whatever creature is at that instant like their god.

Richard’s not-face was above her now and she could not differentiate between the old woman with absent sockets filled with night and a chicken foot hanging from her neck and Richard’s panicked, sorrowed eyes hungry for so much of her. She heard a fox bark, and finally could scream.

Like fire ripping through the house, a fleet of the small and vicious creatures swept into the house. Blood and fire and white teeth consumed the heavy backed and bone-legged crone. Foxes swirled over her screaming and biting and bit. For every fox she tore off broken-backed, two more would be there rending. Kathryn felt like the house was on fire, just as she had planned, and finally began crawling toward the cool air rushing in through the front door.

Kathryn looked back once from house’s exit. The old woman opened her mouth to speak. It was smeared red. She was trying to say something, something Kathryn knew would be hideous, but stemming from her mouth were dozens of branches, lichen crawling over her desiccated lips, branches black and grasping. Foxes snapping at her lips and pulling. Kathryn watched, unable to breathe. The lips began to part even wider and the hag began to shake her head in fury.

That night Kathryn fled through the dark trees, running and tripping along the road, leaving the blaze of foxes and that thing that had taken Richard to whatever doom was their fate. She cried out as she ran, her breath ragged and eyes raw. She wept from relief and its attendant guilt. Poor, poor Richard. Once, from the road, she looked back again, and thought that she saw the house, smaller now, moving away jerkily as if on legs, light leaking like blood from its windows and foxes giving chase.

small, new poem from a mss hesitantly titled "somewhere there is a forest"

2009-10-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

O quilted leaf, pneumatic
limbs of noisy light. I am
piercéd! Cumulative questions
loft into lilting conflict.
Electricity has lost
its watch and seven small winds
sweep the elms, speckled greenly.

What does your soul look like?

2009-10-15T16:18:00.001-07:00

This project is really neat! Draw your soul, and send it to the good people at Information is Beautiful. Closing date is Oct.31st though, so get on it! As David states on his site:

If enough people do this, it could be really interesting. Because we’ll all be blind to other peoples’ drawings, there’s a chance here to spot patterns, commonalities and any interesting coincidences that might appear across all the souls.

And to my agnostic and atheist friends, swap out "soul" for "mind" and play on.

a reminder from the past...

2009-10-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a poster from the WPA.

Public Libraries and Provocateurs

2009-10-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

Reposted from the September 19, 2009 San Francisco Chronicle article the "Public Option" by M.C. Blakeman:

Of all the current assaults on our noble republic, perhaps none is more dangerous than the public option - specifically, the public library option.

For far too long, this menace has undermined the very foundations of our economy. While companies like Amazon and Barnes & Noble struggle valiantlyeach day to sell books, these communistic cabals known as libraries undercut the hard work of good corporate citizens by letting people read their books for free. How is the private sector supposed to compete with free? And just what does this public option give us? People can spend hours and hours in these dens of socialism without having to buy so much as a cappuccino.

Furthermore, not only can anyone read books for free in the library, they can take them home, too. They get a simple card that can be used at any library in town. No checking on the previous condition of books they've read. No literacy test. Nothing. Yet, do these libertines of literature let you choose any book you want, anytime you want it? No. Have you ever tried to get the latest best-seller at a public library? They put you on a waiting list for that, my friend. And if you do ask these government apparatchiks a question about a book, they start talking your ear off, and pretty soon they're telling you what to read.

Of course, if you break one of their petty rules and return a book late, you have to pay fines that mount grotesquely each day. Even if you die, your overdue fees keep piling up. Is that not a death tax? How long must the elderly live in fear of burdening their children with these unfair sanctions on their estates?

Don't be fooled for a minute. Somebody has to pay for these "free" libraries, and I'll tell you who it is, pal. Those good ol' suckers, the
American taxpayers, that's who.

Have you ever wondered who's really behind this public library option?
And don't you think it's fishy that they mask their nefarious activities with benign-sounding names, like Friends of the Library? What's their real agenda - and why do they have so many "volunteer" meetings, anyway?

No, my fellow Americans. We cannot wait until we're all goose-stepped into a massive book checkout line. This assault on capitalism and our very way of life has got to end. Be subversive ... burn your library card! Go out and buy a book!

...

Friends, if this made you mad, then you definitely need to read this.

This is awesome...

2009-09-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

Y'all know that I love technology, but this is heart-breakingingly...

2009-09-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

...dumb. And sad.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/04/a_library_without_the_books/

James Tracy, Headmaster of Cushing Academy says, “When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ and has successfully pushed for a book-less library. *sigh*

And one more quote from the article--this time one I agree with:
"William Powers, author of a forthcoming book based on a paper he published at Harvard called Hamlet’s Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal, called the changes at Cushing 'radical' and 'a tremendous loss for students.'

'There are modes of learning and thinking that at the moment are only available from actual books,’ he said. 'There is a kind of deep-dive, meditative reading that’s almost impossible to do on a screen. Without books, students are more likely to do the grazing or quick reading that screens enable, rather than be by themselves with the author’s ideas.'"

And what about the simple arithmetic of constantly changing technology? With a library with books, once a book is bought it can be used until the contents are no longer relevant; that's a pretty long shelf-life! With a room full of kindles and laptops (which are perfectly wonderful tools in addition to books) what happens when these machines are no longer a supported format and the library cannot afford to purchase another $15,000 to $50,000 worth of new hardware?

Well, it's a first--I'll give Cushing that.

Nick Harkaway talks about Web 2.0...

2009-08-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

...as it relates to authors and publishing, and, surprise, it relates to libraries as well. Take some of this those lessons he mentions and move them from publishing reps to librarians and they still make a lot of sense. He also includes space capsule artifacts and witty banter, and relates the internet to a pub. The most simple and most important idea he mentions (and writes in < big > letters) is "The internet is not a broadcast medium." Yes. Yes. Yes. To read Harkaway's post, go to: http://www.nickharkaway.com/2009/04/you-have-to-be-there/ (or perhaps you a fast clicker person and have already clicked on the title link).

Harkaway is also the author of The Gone Away World. You can read a review of this book here (written by yours truly): http://omnidawnblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/nwf-fiction-review-feature-1-trevor.html

Letter to electricity

2009-08-23T22:03:00.000-07:00

(for Robert)

We were deluged
with your absence
the sky hanging low
we reaching out
our mouths moved
and I noticed
curvature of
lips and sound
then the lights
they went out
out where you might be
now I’m writing
this to you and to
all electricity
the rain outside
that night accompanied
by light and wind
was, is not architecture
when the sky
is hung to sleep
every star a pill
of potential dreaming
the old constellations
still there and no one
reading them at all
we opened our mouths
so you could speak
only stars spilled
forth driving and flickering
possibilities and languages
frozen in static
so this is a letter to you
a tracery of what might
this is a letter to you
to electricity.

Heidi Taillefer's art is pretty cool.

2009-08-12T17:31:00.000-07:00

It seems that ever since Mark Ryden (and maybe before him Frank Kozik) there has been a plethora of artists that re-imagine narratives combining the mythic, banal, monstrous, political, and absurd into pieces that while times both whimsical and disturbing, are nonetheless often sub par (Mark Ryden excluded--his work is fantastic!). Take a look at Juxtapoz magazine and you'll see what I'm talking about. Nonetheless, sometimes an artist skips away from the rest, and while still playing with the same elements, does so in more interesting ways. I discovered Heidi Taillefer in an advertisement in Art Forum and immediately went looking for her site, http://www.heiditaillefer.com (okay, obviously, it wasn't really much of a search); nonetheless, her work is fantastic (pardon the literal-ness here) and well worth taking a look. Here's just one example:

Sunn O))) at the Independent

2009-08-10T00:09:00.001-07:00

Sunn O))) at the Independent was immense! Here are a few of the photos I took sans flash with my Canon Powershot SX10IS:

More pics can be seen on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/trevor23 and a few more are at my pal Saudade's blog: http://saudadecrux.blogspot.com.

Same Hat! Manga Site

2009-08-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

Just read about Same Hat! in the Last Gasp catalog. Same Hat! is a manga blog edited by Ryan Sands, a fella who lives close by in San Francisco and translates said Eastern comics. So I went and checked out the blog and was impressed with the site and the provided manga--especially Dorohedoro--a story of sorcerers and animal-headed people who apparently can chomp heads or eat ramen and gyoza.

This one's for all the Librarians, Booksellers, Bibliophiles, Book Addicts, Publishers, Biologists, and Classification Geeks

2009-06-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

John Evans of Diesel a Bookstore passed this along to me from the New York Times and Nicholas Felton:

Brilliant.

and finally a new poem on the blog...

2009-06-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

a gloaming union
bloodied and phrastic
"O lively inhuman
we'll be heretics"

against our mouth
music, glass, concrete
writing is uncouth
a blushed discretion

oakland howls, demands
"smoldered throat / peeled collision"
we'll sing a smattering
tendoned fête

Interesting article on copyright law from a science fiction writer

2009-05-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

Just read this piece by Cory Doctorow about copyright law and was surprised to learn that Frank Herbert's estate sued some Second Lifers because they paid an homage to Dune in SL. Absolutley ridiculous. In any case, Doctorow's essay is concise and makes a unique point about copyright's bias against constructive creativity. Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/13/cory-doctorow-copyright

---
*Good thing the bit below is a parody*

brief thoughts on Tuned Droves

2009-04-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

Eric Baus’ latest book, Tuned Droves, is a perceptual transmission, a linguistic reengineering, and a phenomenal cartography of a wild borderland both innocent and amoral. Reading these poems, with lines like “The bee’s stinger is like an enclosed, dark tongue. The atonal tortoise is a kind of dictionary in reverse,” reminds me of the often overlooked linkages between the world’s contents and their connection as well to language and thus thought. Eric Baus’ poetry refreshes the world and makes it more dangerous.

[EDITED on 4.29.09]
Remember! Tomorrow is Poem in Your Pocket Day. Don't be embarrassed when someone asks you to share a poem, and you reach into your pocket pulling forth only lint.
Print, steal, tear, memorize, or write a poem and carry it in your pocket. Dare to disturb the universe!

Books stabilize culture

2009-04-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

I read a terrific essay today by Stephen L. Carter over at The Daily Beast. Carter begins with the following:

Like a lot of writers, I am wondering when Congress and the administration will propose a bailout for the publishing industry. Carnage is everywhere. Advances slashed, editors fired, publicity at subsistence levels, entire imprints vanished into thin air. Moreover, unlike some of the industries that the government, in its wisdom, has decided to subsidize, the publishing of books is crucial to the American way of life

Ironically I read this online, but I very much agree with Carter when he asserts that the book itself is quite different from information, and that both are necessary. We so often tend to blindly adopt new media and throw out the old without taking the time to critically analyze not just the benefits and costs of each, but the deeper nature of different media types. I'll take a book any day over a kindle, and I don't trust those who wouldn't do the same.

And in tangential but ever-so related news, Ama.zon (may it be crushed by its own weight) has decided to define its LGBT titles as "Adult." WTF? Read more here: http://i.gizmodo.com/5209149/amazon-deems-lgbt-books-too-adult-for-search-best-seller-lists

Tom Gauld is funny

2009-04-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

From Beasts Vol.2

Check out more of Gauld's work here at Cabanon Press: http://www.cabanonpress.com

Hurray for Vermont!

2009-04-07T19:05:00.001-07:00

I don't really have too much to say, except that I am so pleased about Vermont's legalization of gay marriage, and that California needs to get its act together.

Read more here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage_vermont

I love California, but c'mon, are we really this far behind the curve on this? Sheesh.

Poem in your pocket

2009-04-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

April is national poetry month, and this is apropos and rad (perhaps apropoetic?):

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406

A good week of training and poetry and people

2009-02-27T15:53:00.000-08:00

It's been a great week; I got to do the things I most love: hang out with my girl, train a bunch, engage with some terrific poetry, and talk with really intriguing, smart people.

Monday started the week off well as I trained with the Oakland Buyu group and, as usual, learned a lot with them.

Tuesday, I had off, went out to dinner, and then was off to train again at the San Francisco dojo.

Wednesday I was lucky enough to catch Peter Gizzi at St. Mary's College where I was reminded of the importance of breath to poetry. Hearing Peter's poems is a pleasure; he's a terrific reader! Peter talked a lot about his poetic process, and I was inspired to ditch the laptop for initial composition, and to employ the more visceral pen and notebook.

Thursday night, Ammie and I went for a long walk, ate some delicious food, and then I was off to my martial art class in SF after getting off work. What a night! my teacher, Dale, taught principles relating to disappearing and misdirection, and was damn near ghost-like when I tried launching a few full-speed attacks.

Today, on a walk with Ammie, we ran into Willis and Sarah Barnstone, and had a great talk that included a story about Willis having lunch with Robert Frost (as well as another poet with the last name of Snow). Frost, the great populist, in a discussion about Dante, remarked that he had only once briefly read Dante while taking courses at Harvard and then had only read the great Italian poet in Greek. Talking with Willis is stunning. He is easily one of the most remarkable, open, and thoughtful scholars I am likely ever to meet.

Thinking on all this today, I am reminded of the importance of space in, and to, art. The Japanese use a term, Yugen, to describe a space in poetry and art for the unsaid and unrealized which deepens a piece's tone and allows the viewer an entry point wherein he or she could supply his or her own imagination. This idea of Yugen, different than just simply space, is vital for arts (poetic, visual, and physical) to become alive. Keeping this sort of "space" open seems so vital to any creative endeavor, as it is an invitation of sorts for the dynamic unknown potential of things to breath life into whatever is being created--a poem, a movement, or a conversation.

Poetry, Oakland

2009-02-03T18:40:00.000-08:00

Censorship, Comics, & Porn

2009-01-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

Just read this today at the Telegraph UK after reading an article about a quiet invasion of immortal jellyfish: two pieces of law in the UK working to limit certain types of porn could potentially make a host of comics illegal. Basically, and on the surface rightly, one law seeks to ban print-material that depicts sexual violence. Sounds good, yet one critic aptly criticizes: "A kick in the balls or a--- would constitute this, and a kick in the balls is a well trodden part of humour." So the Punisher and Batman are probably right out, and the Preacher is definitely in trouble. Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4370072/New-pornography-laws-could-make-comic-books-illegal-claim-campaigners.html.

"Take that squirrelly legislation! Here's a little love from Planetary!"

Don’t Worry, the Librarians Will Save Us, or, Really, They Will Save Us—a Careful Analysis of Librarians in Pop Culture, and What That Means to Those

2009-01-10T00:32:00.000-08:00

Think about the last time you needed some information. Maybe it was whether your Chinese zodiac meshed up well with that of your date last night, or maybe it was work-related: suddenly your boss needed to know the economic demographics of northern Utah. Who knows? It could have been anything. Yet, I am willing to bet that you didn’t think of turning to a librarian. You probably first went to Google, then wikipedia, then maybe you either followed the links at the bottom of wikipedia, or you went back to Google and tried a different search. I know because I’ve been there: this has been my search strategy in the past, and I have watched my roommate do the same on a number of occasions. Friends, there are better options.

Why not a library or librarian? Libraries’ web-sites are usually well designed, librarians are friendly, a phone call away, and, best of all, cost nothing. I bring up cost for a specific reason: if we do suddenly say, “Whoa! How have we fallen into this depression we saw miles ago? Where did my savings go?” librarians are still going to be around to help us find the jobs we lost, the community resources we may need, and possibly the best place to get a drink to deal with where our economy has gone. Really, no matter all else, librarians are vital to our continued social well-being as they possess four skills from which we might all benefit: they can find information better than anyone, they excel at discovering patterns, they are friendly, and, for the most part, offer their services for free.

Thinking about why my friends don’t love librarians as much as I do, I thought it might be worth everyone’s time to take a quick look at the, ahem, relevance of some pop-culture librarians (to the librarians who are reading this, you probably already know who these are, but please do continue if you need some positive reinforcement). I considered creating a poly-hierarchical taxonomy and adding several more examples, but, realizing that sometimes brevity really delivers, have decided to categorize these librarians under two basic headings: Librarians-as-Adventurers and Librarians-as-Information-Gods.

Librarian as Adventurer:

Okay, if we all think about it, we can probably agree that Rupert Giles of the Buffyverse stands at the head of those librarians who not only know everything, but are quite willing to stand up to the forces of overwhelming darkness. Giles was not only a librarian par excellence, but could wield a mean axe (actually, thinking more on this, I realize that these are not really mutually exclusive). How many times did we watch him polish his glasses, get the team back on track, and provide Buffy et al with both the relevant and accurate information they needed to save the world?

We would all be remiss though if our imagination did not briefly touch upon Willow. Granted, she wasn’t a professional librarian, but nonetheless she was a wonderful role-model for every digital librarian worth a damn. Willow, armed with her trusty Mac Book could find just about anything, and best of all, she conducted good reference interviews!

I know The Mummy was not really the best film, I considered not even using it, but credit must be given to the writers for including a librarian. Evy Carnahan not only know her Dewey Decimal System, but also could read hieroglyphics. Unlike the main protagonist of the movie, she more than once paused to consider options, retrieve information, and then act. A sure sign of a fine librarian.

We even have super-hero librarians! Go ahead, and take a second to let that sink in. Yes. Batgirl, aka Babs Gordon, is a librarian, in fact she’s a Head Librarian at Gotham Library. From 1967 on, she’s been fighting Gotham crime as well as illiteracy (though not always as Batgirl--after a particularly nasty run-in with the Joker, she lost the use of her legs, and became Oracle. There is also Jet Li’s character Tsui Chik in the film The Black Mask. Honestly, Tsui Chik wasn’t really a great librarian (he was kind of surly), but nonetheless, could feel no pain and kicked kung-fu ass all over the rain-soaked streets of Hong Kong (or whatever city that was).

Friends, these librarians are indeed fictional, but that is no reason to discount the qualities they share with real life librarians: fearlessness, selflessness, and an uncanny knack to find the right information in time to at least postpone looming disaster (be it the end of the world, or just not finishing that report and having to work over the weekend).

Librarian as Information God:

I bet you didn’t realize that there was actually a librarian in The Matrix (with a speaking role no less!). Tank. He was the pretty burly good-looking guy who ran the information systems on the Nebuchadnezzar. This is important to librarians because it reminds everyone that librarians need not always be surrounded by books—sometimes they can be well-muscled digital-resources virtuosos.

Speaking of well-muscled digital-resources virtuosos, while Julia Stiles as Nicky Parsons, logistics coordinator for Treadstone in the Jason Bourne trilogy, lacked the brawn, she totally counts as a kick-ass digital librarian. See, even ruthless shadow government agencies need information professionals (and of course, as a responsible professional committed to bettering her society, Ms. Parsons abandoned said shadow organization when she realized the evil they did).

I ask you dear readers, where would these fictional worlds be were it not for intrepid librarians? The Buffyverse would be over-run with undead and demons, all would suffer under the dominion of an undead mummy, Hong Kong would suffocate beneath the iron hand of a ruthless government as would America, and the robots would win. Suffice to say, are not these terrible forces of all-things-bad so much the same as the forces of ignorance and repression, still alive, well, and among us? Friends, next time you have a question that needs answering, please think of your local librarians. Don’t let the robots win.

Information, Culture, and Responsibility

2009-01-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

These screencast videos about technology and culture are so often tacitly about design as anything else; nonetheless this video is thought provoking (and well designed!):

(It should be mentioned that Bermuda has such high internet penetration, relatively, because it is tiny: just over 66,000 people living on 20.6 sq. miles.) Actually, that's my only gripe with this presentation--where did this information come from? Is the data properly contextualized? I know I'm splitting hairs here, but I do wish the video would include at the end some sort of indicator about about how the information was gathered and from what sources.

This video also reminds me of a concept I still often ponder--the difference between information and knowledge, and of course, the process of information becoming knowledge. The video asks "Do You Know?" This is a good refrain for the video, but I then have to ask, what good is knowing when the knowing does not (or cannot) alter behavior in positive ways for the "knower"? I don't mean to sound cynical, this is rather just a question about which I wonder. Perhaps that is the difference between information and knowledge: information is data that cannot yet be acted upon, while knowledge is data that, to use a business term, is actionable.

The tacit question, of course, is how we as a species will begin to deal with this immense amount of information. When we realize that we can create and publish information so much faster than we can organize or even comprehend its fullness, the above presentation takes on a slightly more serious tone; nonetheless, that doesn't mean we can't try. Ah the joys of librarianship! I knew I went into this profession for good reason.

Thanks to Karl at experiencecurve.com for posting the above video!

New poetry arrives in the mail...

2009-01-07T13:44:00.000-08:00

...which is exactly how a new year should begin. Michael Cross, the man behind Atticus/Finch, and an old friend of mine, sent me his first book of poetry, In Felt Treeling and it is gorgeous (both in edition and content).

Cross frames the poems as a libretto for Lavinia (from The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus) and Eumenides. The poems seem to hint at a sort of internal syndetic structure, but one that has begun to collapse. The language, though, evokes and surprises:

"e. sallow blossom / dis-
sympathy your eyes / sort of
emphatic squints / spatially met
useless near you rend / already
yield / for instress"

In the second half of the book, Come Flora Err--Solos for a Mezzo Soprano, Cross leaves the lyric structure behind and concludes the collection with a series of prose poems (hurrah!). I love the prose poem as a form, but it can certainly be tricky to write. happily, the prose poems in this collection manage to balance the visceral lyricism of the earlier section with the more dense structure of prose blocks.

Chax is publishing some really interesting writers and I am happy to see Michael's work included in their catalog.

A new year...

2009-01-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

is the very best and worst of all worlds.

Happy New year everyone--let's make the most of it!

Ninja Crisps, traveling in Nihon, yeah!

2008-11-07T23:33:00.000-08:00

Well, just got back from J-land and what a trip! Six of us left in late October and came back early November. The weather in Japan was terrific (it only rained two of the ten days) and we packed in a lot. For the most part, I was there to train in my martial arts (you can see a post on that here), but even so, I was able to take the shinkansen with my girl to Osaka (where we ate the best takoyaki ever), and found time to visit friends in our home-town over-seas, Kunitachi. We also went to one of my favorite places on the planet, Kichijoji (where we ate a lot of delicious food, but the certainly the best bowl of ramen that I have ever had and perhaps the best bowl of ramen in the universe). I was also able to get a bag of Ninja Crisps at a train station.

My girl, Saudade, has done an excellent job documenting the delicious food and wacky hijinx of Japan--so I shall leave you with her, here.

Oakland poems

2008-10-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about Oakland lately, and the sort of illusory and plastic nature of "place." Here are a couple of poems stemming from that:

This must be more than just

us, these words upon you.

Stories climb out as veins;

pave our roads, carve clouds

from sky. Oakland...we have

yet our obligations. There is

more there than here, and no

index has been imagined. A

woman in an evening coincides

with violence, skirting briefly

along its edge. She walks

home, still in love and aware.

...

A city invoked becomes

every city to subtle senses

until we cannot leave—urwilderness

denatured, newly flowered

with glass and glancing light.

The alphabet of trees has been

bombed, made strange, but one

cannot escape environment. We

leak complexity, our borders

flicker. Send me a letter and I

will reply with sutures, drifting

stories, digital photographs.

Banned Books! Creative Librarians! See it now!

2008-10-05T22:55:00.000-07:00

Mark (aka Bad Librarianship) posted this over at his place, and I liked it so much I thought it deserved a re-post:

Water and dinosaurs

2008-09-30T23:49:00.000-07:00

So today I read on Saudade's blog about how on the Economist debate site Steve Hoffmann, Managing Director, WaterTech Capital & co-founder, Palisades Water Index Associates, is arguing that water should be commodified (yeah--of course he would. I know this is an ad hominem logical fallacy, but how can one trust this guy's intentions? They seem pretty obvious to me), and then I learn that Palin thinks we humans once rode around on dinosaurs. Goddamit.

*sigh*

Chad VanGaalen

2008-09-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

Saw this today on bridging the atlantic (a really good music blog--five remote friends sharing their musical discoveries) and saw fit to share...

Check out the eyelids--they rule!

Consumption, Books, and Reproduction

2008-08-31T00:27:00.000-07:00

So this week I discovered two things:

1. ABE.com has been purchased by Amazon.com. Read more here.

and

2. Isabella Rossellini is into insect sex and is wonderful and mad.

The first piece of news distresses me. I have worked in an independent bookstore, Diesel, A Bookstore, for a few years now, and have sadly watched other incredible independents go out of business around me. Most people don't really realize the great benefit independent bookstores bring to their community--indies are so often the places, like public libraries, where public discourse occurs, and where new ideas are introduced and disseminated. I very much hold online book-sellers like Amazon responsible for irrevocably damaging independents.

The second discovery delights me. I have known for quite some time that Isabella Rossellini is a wonderful actress who makes interesting choices. These videos on the Sundance channel have cemented this knowledge and, indeed, have lead me to the new understanding that she is, in actuality, a genius.

You can watch her episodes of insect-on-insect interaction here. One must give respect to any artist who creates life-size paper replicas of bugs, and then does what she does. The Bee episode is probably my favorite.

Perhaps there is a relationship between the often cannibalistic sex of life of insects and the uber-capitalist society in which we now live. Perhaps not, but the discovery of both the above topics nevertheless leads to intriguing juxtapositions.

Knowledge and Security and Openness

2008-08-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

My pal Saudade floated this to me the other day: an article by Matthew B. Stannard on Wardriving in SF Gate.

What I really liked about the article was the emphasis on correct levels of network security. As an example, if you are a using a home network with little information-of-interest on it, there is no real need for a 16 hex password. If you are a bank--well then you better have a full-time team of security professionals online and ready.

That said, the librarian-hat goes on. And what does said hat look like? Well, it's different for each librarian, invisible, and can only be recognized by others with similar hats; anyhoo: there is a lot to be said for keeping as many networks open as possible. If you have secure info, store it in an external and hermetically selaed hard drive, or better yet: don't keep sensitive info on your network.

But here is the tension: we all want freedom of information (information wants to be free, right?), but at the same time we want safety. So which to choose because true freedom is not always safe, and true security rarely includes very much freedom. Maybe we should look to the Tao te Ching:

9
Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

But back to the Stannard article; Check this out:

"I got like 135 (access points) off the freeway on my way up here from Santa Cruz," said Seric, as he adjusted his equipment - laptop, Wi-Fi antenna, GPS antenna - in the parking lot of Stanford Shopping Center.

After a five-hour cruise around the Bay Area - including residential and downtown sections of Palo Alto, San Francisco and Oakland before returning to Palo Alto across the Dumbarton Bridge - Seric's list included more than 2,600 individual networks, spotted at businesses, in homes, on campuses and within moving buses.

Open networks appeared every block or so, beaming from homes in West Oakland and near the Hewlett-Packard garage in Palo Alto, from Stanford University to Oakland's Federal Building and San Francisco's City Hall, along freeways, on tree-lined streets and in dusty industrial parks.

Wow!

Sloppy ninja comes up with clever excuse...

2008-08-11T22:53:00.000-07:00

A New Jersey school was shut down due to a ninja being spotted as he dashed through the wooded area surrounding the elementary school. I only hope that this was a school for the gifted, like Charles Xavier's, or, and this is more likely I suppose, a school filled with Jersey Devils masquerading as children--anything else and this not-so-sneaky *sigh* ninja should hang his head in shame and commit seppuku.

Read more about this here: http://tinyurl.com/6px2y4

Mahmud Darwish

2008-08-10T16:57:00.000-07:00

Saw this today on David's blog: Mahmud Darwish died yesterday.

I met him once in San Francisco. He was quiet, wry, and patient (I was pretty much the opposite) and I enjoyed his reading and conversation.

You can read one of his poems here: http://www.webdelsol.com/Perihelion/darwish.htm

New issue of the Scrambler is fresh off the press!

2008-08-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Spencer, the publisher of Rarer and More Wonderful, just published the newest issue of the Scrambler--with a brand new layout (which is lookin' sharp). I very much recommend that y'all take a look and read Donald Illich's two poems--they're brilliant! "We drink plastic from plastic cups."

Torture, Music, Copyright, and David Gray

2008-07-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

Saw this article posted on Saudade's blog, and thought it worth re-posting here:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2289778,00.html

I do have large issues with current copyright law (c'mon the DMCA? lame!). But should artists get royalties if their music is being used as a form of torture? I suppose that they should by American copyright law's standards, but I wonder if Mr. Grey will choose to pursue this...

Here I must quote saudade as I love puns; I, too, "want to see how this plays out."

Poetry at Studio One!

2008-07-02T14:45:00.001-07:00

Reading at Noah and Sara's in Denver

2008-06-15T22:53:00.001-07:00

So the last week, pretty much, I spent in Denver, Colorado (thank you Eric for the kind use of your apartment!) where A. and I visited with the Baus, learned to really drink water, and how to ignore cars successfully when crossing streets. Denver is a weird sort of town--as Eric put it, "it has little friction." That said, Denver has a lot going for it: some delicious vegetarian restaurants, lots of parks, a museum (and, in 2010, Denver will have the only Clyfford Still Museum), an absolutely gorgeous public library and, best of all, a dynamic and friendly creative-community. Case in point: Noah Eli Gordon's and Sara Veglahn's salon/reading/dance party hosted in their home. I was lucky to have this terrific opportunity to read with and listen to some really super writers: Barbara Barg, Bhanu Kapil, Bin Ramke, and Danielle Pafunda.

Bhanu's writing was lyrical, intimate; documenting the intersections of race, gender, and passive xenophobia with candor, music, and depth.

Bin's writing was elegantly structured, concerned with etymology and its tie to experience.

Danielle's poems explored animals that have evolved in tandem with man. Each piece evoked its title with surprising and sharp associations.

Barbara read and sang her work: witty-jazzy, a little sad, angry, political, and very smart.

Of course, this doesn't really capture the reading, but luckily Eric did: keep an eye on PennSound as the reading should be posted soonish.

And of course, thank you Noah and Sara for hosting such a terrific soiree! Thank you for the books, the food, and (best of all) the company!

Check it, bub...

2008-06-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

Want to see more, click on Wolvie or go to http://www.chrislanestudio.com.

We Need Your Help!

2008-06-04T13:01:00.001-07:00

Seven Videos in Thirty-Two Minutes and Forty-Four Seconds

2008-06-03T00:11:00.000-07:00

My pal Mark over at Bad Librarianship tagged me for 7 songs that have been affecting my life as of late. So in no particular order here they are for your perusal:

Neko Case--saw her live last year (she gave me a chocolate-chip cookie recipe) and find myself singing along out loud at work to this song:

My girl, Ammie, bought me this album for my birthday, and it is awesome. Some douche on the radio said that trip-hop is dead--and while I don't care for the term, I must disagree. Case in point, Portishead's new album Three:

Ammie also got me Einsturzende Neubauten's newest--and mein gott! Es ist sehr gut! Ich liebe dieses Album.

Saw Bloodhag (should have umlauts over the o's but I am too lazy to look up the html code for that...it's late) at Dark Carnival Ammie (thanks Ammie for the surprise!) and Chris (follow this link for an awesome Wolverine...):

Best ever, and only rock show, I've seen at a bookstore...

Boris with Michio Kuriahra--saw them earlier this year, and while I love the new album, Rainbow is still probably my favorite:

(I'm seeing them later this month at Amoeba in Berkeley--if any one's got an extra ticket send me an email!)

And for my pal Jon at work who always puts this song on every damn mix he makes, The Four Seasons' Oh, What a night, or what I like to call the STD song:

Last song needs no comment. In fact, no words can do this masterpiece justice. Ladies and Gents, I give you Eels:

the tiger of columbia

2008-06-01T14:25:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, I went to my nephew's graduation from kindergarten--kind of a strange thing in itself to this particular avowed non-parent--wherein every child stood at a mic and announced what s/he wanted to be when s/he grew up: there were many astronauts, veterinarians, a few soldiers, dentists, and spa-girls(?), but the best, and only reason for this post at all is (and I will enbiggen this response for emphasis):

When I grow up I want to be a tiger.

Fucking hell, me too.

Rarer and More Wonderful is nearly here...

2008-05-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

I am so excited! Today I completed my last project of the semester (adding LC and DCC numbers to a faux-catalog--yeah!) and learned from my publisher, Scrambler Books, that the final proof of my upcoming book is in the mail! If you'd like to read more about Rarer and More Wonderful, check out the link on the right. Be sure to check back as I will be updating the blog as more information coalesces.

Back Room Live at Pegasus

2008-05-12T23:53:00.000-07:00

Went to reading last night at Pegasus in Berkeley: Valyntina Grenier, Lucas Champagne, Sara Mumolo, Jack Morgan, and Janet Hardy. Clay Banes hosted and was charming as usual. Valyntina sang, Lucas laid down lonely truths, Jack mentioned craigslist and flaneurs, Sara was subtle and wry, and Janet memoir-ed about heels and scary-sex.

Valyntina

Lucas

Sara

Jack

Janet

Bought: 19 names for our band byjibade-khalil huffman.

Jack and I decided that high-fives should replace hugs at these sort of events--they're more authentic.

2008-05-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

One need not be a comic book reader to appreciate Mark Evanier's exquisite book, Kirby—a fantastic collection of and tribute to Jack Kirby's contributions to comic books and American culture (Kirby gave us characters such as the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and Captain America—among so many others). Evanier's book is large which is important—-it celebrates its contents with large-page spreads of Kirby's art which so often seem as if they are going to burst forth from the frame. And while the art is impressive, it is Kirby's imagination that truly stuns. Here we see men and women traveling into the infinite crossroads of the universe, concrete monsters lurking along brownstone walls, a new gods careening through space in complex machinery. William Hazlitt, the great English literary critic, states in his essay "On Gusto" that "Gusto in art is power or passion defining any object" and "In a word, gusto in painting is where the impression made on one sense excites by affinity those of another." Hazlitt was describing Titian's work, but I think the same description can be applied to Jack Kirby's drawings and spreads, panels and paintings. Evanier's Kirby is a wonderful and necessary contribution to not only the growing appreciation of comics as an art form, but for designers, daydreamers, and rogues.

Packs of wolves

2008-05-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

assault, rend, and asunder!
Each lyrical beast
is named for a poet
but Punch knows
the power of names
and pummels surrealism!
Were this Russian, survival
would be different; today,
Punch fights elsewhere.
What? Where? Than can’t
be said.
Wolves have no meaning—
yet even signifiers
bite. He whittles
a flute.

Tarkovsky

2008-04-28T23:05:00.001-07:00

Way back in '02 I first saw Solaris directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. I watched it three times in two days and was astounded, moved, and challenged (it also helped that Natalya Bondarchuk is absolutely stunning in her role of Hari). The film was poetry. It was patient, and challenging, and rewarding--I built a relationship with that film, and still I see elements of it reverberating in my creative work and the way I watch movies. As I recall, I was reading some Gertrude Stein at the time, and I recall musing that a very Steinian idea of insistence was also present in Tarkovsky's cinematic adaptation of Staislaw Lem's sci fi classic.

Since that film, I hold Tarkovsky as one of the great directors of the 20th century. How happy was I, then, when today what found its way into my hands but Tarkovsky edited by Nathan Dunne. This hefty book is full of gorgeous clips and photos, and includes 24 essays in the following categories: Russia and Religion, Art and Nature, Music and Modernity, Memory and Awakening from 20 contributors.

Reading this is going to take me a while, but hey school is almost out for the summer, and I've got time, time, time to read, write, and watch movies.

I wrote a long poem about that film right after watching it, so I'll include just its beginning as the poem still makes me happy:

Begin with a telescoping, a
house from memory. Long drive through color.
Slip into monochromatic. There was
a child and a sea. Disbelief, old leather.
The children were scampering, and a photo
was burning with twigs and recollection.
I am a guest.

...

Mirrors filled this place.
Chris was electricity,
deluge. His jacket,
blue and worn. He wore that
jacket well.

...

Spirals and mirrors
capture the sound of bells.
They were lost at a sea.
Where was Hari, where was
“Chris I have a feeling.”
These resurrections were always.
A feeling of rockets, of deception
and duplicate shawls.
Tide pools.

Cow-human hybrids...

2008-04-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

So cows have finally been merged with man. Whoa! And these cow-man embryos lived for three days!

The article states:

The embryos survived for three days and are intended to provide a limitless supply of stem cells to develop therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and spinal cord injuries, overcoming a worldwide shortfall in human embryos.

This is really incredible and I am impressed and grateful. The Catholic Church may cry "monstrous" but dying from Alzheimer's is monstrous, too, and so is not exploring a potential development that could alleviate or cure its worst effects (Alzheimer's, not Catholicicsm's).

With this news, though, I cannot help but recall a lovely poetic fable I read years ago:

"The Sheep Child"
By James Dickey

Farm boys wild to couple
With anything with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earth mounds
Of pine straw will keep themselves off
Animals by legends of their own:
In the hay-tunnel dark
And dung of barns, they will
Say I have heard tell

That in a museum in Atlanta
Way back in a corner somewhere
There's this thing that's only half
Sheep like a woolly baby
Pickled in alcohol because
Those things can't live his eyes
Are open but you can't stand to look
I heard from somebody who ...

But this is now almost all
Gone. The boys have taken
Their own true wives in the city,
The sheep are safe in the west hill
Pasture but we who were born there
Still are not sure. Are we,
Because we remember, remembered
In the terrible dust of museums?
Merely with his eyes, the sheep-child may
Be saying saying

I am here, in my father's house.
I who am half of your world, came deeply
To my mother in the long grass
Of the west pasture, where she stood like moonlight
Listening for foxes. It was something like love
From another world that seized her
From behind, and she gave, not Iifting her head
Out of dew, without ever looking, her best
Self to that great need. Turned loose, she dipped her face
Farther into the chill of the earth, and in a sound
Of sobbing of something stumbling
Away, began, as she must do,
To carry me. I woke, dying,

In the summer sun of the hillside, with my eyes
Far more than human. I saw for a blazing moment
The great grassy world from both sides,
Man and beast in the round of their need,
And the hill wind stirred in my wool,
My hoof and my hand clasped each other,
I ate my one meal
Of milk, and died
Staring. From dark grass I came straight

To my father's house, whose dust
Whirls up in the halls for no reason
When no one comes piling deep in a hellish mild corner,
And, through my immortal waters,
I meet the sun's grains eye
To eye, and they fail at my closet of glass.
Dead, I am most surely living
In the minds of farm boys: I am he who drives
Them like wolves from the hound bitch and calf
And from the chaste ewe in the wind.
They go into woods into bean fields they go
Deep into their known right hands. Dreaming of me,
They groan they wait they suffer
Themselves, they marry, they raise their kind.

Poetry Tonight!

2008-04-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

So...I'll be reading poems tonight with some friends!

Poetry at Book Zoo

Back Room Live
Release Party
Fri. 4/25 7PM

Trevor Calvert
Challen Clarke
Zach Demby
Eleanor Johnson
Blake Ellington Larson
Sarah Garrigan

Book Zoo is located at:
6395 Telegraph Ave
(between Alcatraz Ave & North St)
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 654-2665

For a sample of what you may hear, check out a recording of one of my poems at www.weirddeer.com

Fashion and Illustration

2008-04-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

So I was over at saudade's blog and I read her fantastic post about fashion and superheroes. Later, I opened up a copy of Juxtapoz and what advert did I see? James Jean doing work for Prada.

Check out the NYT article, or read more on NotCot.

http://www.jamesjean.com/

Pretty and awesome (check out the illustrated bags--they're terrific).

Why I like Indie Bookstores

2008-04-15T14:38:00.001-07:00

My pal Saudade brought this terrific article about independent bookstores by John King at the SF Chronicle to my attention. Anyone who knows me knows that for the last few years I have worked at Diesel, A Bookstore, and I have learned a lot about the business, the challenges, and the ethos that drives a lot of professional book-sellers. I was told during my interview that the owners and workers at Diesel view it as an intellectual commons--a place where thinkers-of-all types could rub shoulders with mystery novelists, environmental activists, and graphic novel aficionados. So far that has often proved true. Diesel is always interesting.

King writes of indie bookstores:

a good bookstore is like a good city block: varied and rich, with layers that bear evidence of imagination and pride. There's a tactile connection to the ephemeral world of ideas. This is merchandise, but it's not something to be worn for a season or hung up on a wall; it's something to be discussed and shared, maybe even something that will shape your thoughts and actions. There's more going on than the creation of a scene. It's the slow formation of identities, of thoughts and passions and who knows what else.

Online retail is really cutting and gouging a lot of independent retailers--bookstores especially with their crazy-high running costs. Just think: in any given bookstore there are thousands of books--and everyone of them has been bought by the store in the hopes of selling them and making just a sliver of what the book actually costs. Plus, stores have to pay for the shipping and the return of books (if they do not sell); and if a store does have to return a book, it gets less than half of the cost in credit to apply to its next order: talk about diminishing returns.

King writes well and romantically about why bookstores are important and I agree with him--but please allow a few other points:

1. Bookstores provide a physical place to browse.
A good bookstore will surprise you. I often hear from customers, "I never even knew this book existed! " and then they happily buy it for their collection. This is something not even the smartest online databases can do (hell, sometimes not even seasoned professionals can show you the things you never knew existed but were happy they did).

2. Bookstores are places of public congregation.
Say you call a friend to meet for dinner--what better place to wait then a bookstore. If it's a date, even better as a bookstore is full of potentially fabulous conversation starters. (Actually, that should get a whole line of its own: Independent Bookstores--They're great for dates!). Every time I work at Diesel I see people meeting and chatting with strangers in the store about books. Not everyone, sure, but every time I work someone will say to another something along the lines of: "That's a _______ book! I ______ it."

3. Most independent bookstores are stocked with well-read and enthusiastic professionals.
These are the people who have meetings (had one last week) on how to better listen to and chat with patrons in order to help them find the books they want. I swear, go ask a bookseller who's been doing it a few years any sort of question: "I need a story about foxes, lost dogs, spies, and romance" and they will have a book ready for you. or will be able to find one (in the case above, I'd recommend Icelander by Justin Long. You can order it from Diesel!) :)

4. Very selfish here, but another important reason why indie bookstores are important: I like them very much, and would be terribly depressed were they to disappear. I think this is true for most people--sadly though, most don't realize how much they liked something until it is gone.

Connectivity is a poor metaphor for us

2008-04-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

A syndetic structure--web-strong--
won't describe nor define what we'd like:
loves lost and momentum's murderous
impact on interstellar intimate bodies.

"The brain is amazing!" Blah, blah.
Can it create, conceptualize any-
thing that extra-exists external to it?
So far, no; but we can hope.

Meantime, let's be (wo)men (preferred term
yours) and yoke our desires to damn-well
whatever we want.
Let's exist for energy's sake.

Quills, Colin, and Oprah

2008-04-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

Dudes, my co-worker Colin rules: check out his book reviews segment on NBC 11's Quills (just click on the image):

Oprah, you should totally listen to Colin's recommendation--he knows what he is talking about.

Joseph Lease, Marjorie Welish, and Martha Ronk at Moe's

2008-04-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

Moe's Books
2476 Telegraph Avenue
Berkeley (510) 849-2087
moesbooks.com
readings begin at 7:30

Friday, April 11th 7:30: Coffee House Press Poets Marjorie Welish, Martha Ronk & Joseph Lease

Marjorie Welish is the author of five previous collections of poetry. Poems from Isle of the Signatories have appeared in Conjunctions and No: A Journal of the Arts (Issue #4), edited by Ben Lerner, which was centered around her art and poetry. A recent conference on her writing and art at the University of Pennsylvania resulted in Of the Diagram: The Work of Marjorie Welish, published by Slought Foundation. The recipient of the Judith E. Wilson Fellowship, the Howard Foundation Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, and other prestigious poetry awards, Marjorie Welish lives in New York and teaches at Columbia University and Pratt Institute.

Born in Ohio, Martha Ronk received her Ph.D. from Yale and has lived in California since 1971. She is the author of six previous books including In a landscape of having to repeat, winner of the 2005 PEN USA Poetry Award. A 2006 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, her poetry has been widely published in journals and magazines. Selections from Vertigo have recently appeared in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and elsewhere. A Renaissance literature and Shakespearean scholar, Ronk is the Irma and Jay Price Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles, a city that is often the subject of her poems and projects. She has also taught in the graduate writing program at Colorado University, Otis College of Art & Design, and in the Naropa University Summer Writing Program.

Joseph Lease's critically acclaimed books of poetry include Broken World (Coffee House Press) and Human Rights (Zoland Books). His poem "'Broken World' (For James Assatly)" was selected for The Best American Poetry 2002 (Scribner). His poems have also been featured on NPR and published in The AGNI 30th Anniversary Poetry Anthology, VQR, Bay Poetics, Paris Review, and elsewhere. Of Broken World Marjorie Perloff wrote: "The poems in Joseph Lease's Broken World are as cool as they are passionate, as soft-spoken as they are indignant, and as fiercely Romantic as they are formally contained. Whether writing an elegy for a friend who died of AIDS or playing complex variations on Rilke's Duino Elegies ("If I cried out, / Who among the angelic orders would / Slap my face, who would steal my / Lunch money"), Lease has complete command of his poetic materials. His poems are spellbinding in their terse and ironic authority: Yes, the reader feels when s/he has finished, this is how it was-and how it is. An exquisite collection!" Thomas Fink's book A Different Sense of Power: Problems of Community in Late-Twentieth Century U.S. Poetry includes extensive critical analysis of Lease's poetry. Lease's recent readings and residencies include those at the University of Minnesota, The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, City Lights Books, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University, the University of Denver, Louisiana State University, West Virginia University, Stanford University, and elsewhere. Lease is Associate Professor of Writing and Literature and Chair of the MFA Program in Writing at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

A skull a day...

2008-03-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

Like the new font in this blog's header? Check it: Skull-A-Day is a blog anybody can support. You don't have to be a goth or a rocker or a ninja to appreciate the aesthetics of cool skulls; you might be a Buddhist.

Despite a new skull everyday there are two things Skull-A-Day is not:

nor

Wouldn't it be cool though for Damien Hirst to create a diamond encrusted DeathKnight?

Back Room Live and Sorry 4 Snake 3

2008-03-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

Back Room Live is Live tomorrow!

Valyntina Grenier has been running a terrific reading series at a local pub for a year or so now and decided to publish an anthology of all those who read last year. The anthology is as V. puts it, a "polyphony of voices," and as such there will be poly readings here and there in the East Bay over the next couple of months--the first of which is tomorrow at McNally's.

...

Sorry 4 Snake 3 is out and is ready for mass consumption. Yours truly is humbly sharing space with such awesomeness as:

Mathew Rohrer
Feliz Molina
Jared White
Mark Cunningham
Gillian Hamel
K. Silem Mohammad
Juliet Cook
Erika Staiti

Check out more info at Stormy Petrel Press.

Classic Japanese Culture, or Ninjas! Ninjas! Ninjas!

2008-03-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

A friend recently brought my attention to this:

Passengers dressed in ninja costumes will be given free travel along the Iga Tetsudo line from April 1 to May 6 to mark the city's popular ninja festival.

Man, I wish I was in Japan for that... Anybody, if you are in Japan, along the Iga Tetsudo line, please take pictures and let me know. I really want to see a whole family, grandma and grandpa too, all dressed in the mysterious black garb of the ninja. That would be sugoii.

AACR2 The Movie

2008-03-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's that I am taking a cataloging class this semester, and am learning to stop worrying and love the AACR2, but this movie is awesome! Not sure if you have to be a cataloger to love it though...

See--I post librarian stuff, and what have you...

Ensorcelled!

2008-03-20T17:08:00.000-07:00

A future perhaps fraudulent
pulls poor Punch
far flung to a meeting
with himself! Perpetually clever he
introduces himself en francais
as Punch and sips
an absinthe cocktail.
"I hate the future"
thinks our friendish fiend
and unsheathes a knife
from his oft-stabbed back.
"Dying is easy" he laughs
making a mask of his face
in the likeness
and the not-likeness
of Fantomas!
Riots ensue, string
theories cut, and several
foundations go missing.

:)

2008-03-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

Rest well Gary Gygax

2008-03-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

I learned today that Gary Gygax, inventor of Dungeons and Dragons, died on March 4, 2008. D&D very much informed me growing up and I didn't really realize how grateful I am for the game until I heard today of its creator's death.

In honor of Mr. Gygax, a poem by Cesar Vallejo (translated by Clayton Eshleman):

The Eternal Dice

My God, I am crying over the being I live;
it grieves me to have taken your bread;
but this poor thinking clay
is no scab from your side:
you do not have Marys who leave you!

My God, had you been a man,
today you would know how to be God;
but you, who were always fine,
feel nothing for your own creation.
Indeed, man suffers you; God is he!

Today there are candles in my sorcerer eyes,
as in those of a condemned man--
my God, you will light all of your candles
and we will play with the old die...
Perhaps, oh gambler, throwing for the fate of
the whole universe,
Death's dark-circled eyes will come up,
like two funeral snake eyes of mud.

My God, and this deaf, gloomy night,
you will not be able to gamble, for the Earth
is a worn die now rounded from
rolling at random,
it cannot stop but in a hollow,
the hollow of an immense tomb.

Lungs full

2008-01-12T18:18:00.001-08:00

of god
knows what
is what is
fulfilling
Punch’s
introspection.
He flings
from him-
self his better
half so
damn well
only he
remains.
His health
resists his
occupancy,
but Punch
loves being
drunk
with fever
and delirium
is the best
alternative
medicine
to rum.
Sweet Jesus,
Punch loves
days like
this one.

The Scrambler!

2008-01-08T17:10:00.000-08:00

I know there is a lot to read on the web. Wow--that's not only a grievous understatement, it's also totally misleading as it makes no mention of quality sites one wants to read. So let me re-phrase. There are so many sites on the web that you can't read them all even if you read as fast the Flash and read for the next five years; many sites, however, are not worth even the smallest bit of your time, and unfortunately you will miss many sites that you would love. One of these sites is The Scrambler.

b(ook)log--a virtual library!

2007-12-11T17:37:00.000-08:00

So for my final project in my web 2.0 class, I created a virtual e-branch, and put it up online! I think it's pretty cool! Check it out:

b(ook)log url and features:

* http://trevorcalvert.com
* WordPress blogging software
* Scriblio plugin which allows a OPAC to rest on the WP platform
* RSS (1 for general feeds and one using Feeder for event-specific posts)
* A vidcast, podcast, and transcript for how to use the site
* Meebo for chatting
* Teen MySpace

I was very interested in creating an e-branch as I enjoy creating and using web-based tools, and was interested in learning how to host an Online Public Access Catalog (henceforth referred to as OPAC) on a blog. Hosting an OPAC on a blog is useful for a number of reasons: many web2.0 tools can come into play easily through plugins, add-ons, and site-specific open source software; blogs allow patron interaction—something vital to online spaces; hosting a library catalog on a blog is free—something very useful for smaller libraries that lack sufficient funding.

Creating this was certainly a beneficial experience. I had some free server space on GoDaddy, a popular and inexpensive web-hosting company, so I initially decided to host b(ook)log there, as I wanted it to sit on a non-SJSU server so that I could include it in future employment-application-packages. Briefly b(ook)log’s creation consisted of the following stages:

1. Deciding what I wanted to include, and researching necessary software.

2. Downloading all the appropriate software: WordPress, Scriblio, bSuite, and a new file transfer protocol application called CyberDuck.

3. Uploading and configuring the above on GoDaddy (by far the most complex step!).

4. Organizing and designing the WordPress blog and learning more about uploading MAchine-Readable Cataloguing (MARC) records to the site.

5. Creating various features: a teen MySpace page, a secondary RSS feed, a podcast, and a screencast.

This report will go over each step in greater detail.

I had heard of OPACs resting on WordPress blogging software and knew that I wanted to try and create one. So I followed Debbie Faires’ advice to research Scriblio (http://about.scriblio.net/about). After looking at some of the libraries using Scriblio (http://tamworthlibrary.org/ and http://www.plymouth.edu/library/read/223702), I was a little intimidated—could I create a well-designed, functional, e-branch too? The only way to find out was to try.

After downloading the appropriate software, I began uploading it to the free space I had on GoDaddy. Unfortunately, the FTP software I had been using, Fugu, proved overly difficult in uploading the software, so I chose to try another application—CyberDuck. CyberDuck was easy: just type in ftp.trevorcalvert.com, and then the appropriate name and password, and, voila, my files were uploaded!

First, I loaded WordPress on to the server, which was not difficult—I just followed the directions included on WordPress’ website. More complex was getting an aspect of Scriblio to work. WordPress plugins first must be uploaded to the server, and then must be activated from the plugins page in the Dashboard. For some reason the Scriblio Catalog Importer plug-in would not activate.
It turns out that your web host’s database has to be running on Apache (which mine is), and also has to have PHP5 set as the default language. This was not evident at first, and I spent quite a bit of time investigating the error message. I found the answer on a blog, and then emailed GoDaddy tech service, who sent me a reply walking me through how to set up the language of the database. Afterward, everything activated normally and I was able to import over 300 MARC records donated in a file available at: http://remainingrelevant.net/relevant/240.

After uploading the MARC records file, I began designing the site so that it would be easily navigated and interesting for the potential patron. That meant that I had to play quite a bit with the site in order to better understand its structure. I stuck to the default theme, as that way I had one less variable to worry about, but changed the header to one that was more individual. For this new header, I chose a picture taken by my wife, and using Photoshop adjusted the size and created a border. Next, I just found the header file in the WP-Contents file, and saved the new header image under the same name, and replaced the original file with the newly created one.

Facets are vital to Scriblio—they allow users to narrow the search and they are found in the widgets menu from WP’s dashboard. So I used several scripts included for “narrow by subject,” “author,” “title,” and “isbn.” To use these, each has to be not only added from the widgets menu, but also needs to be set up from the option‡Scriblio menu.

After the facets were set up and functioning on the site, I knew their utility would not be self-explanatory to most patrons, so I decided to add a screencast, a podcast, and a “How to use this site” page. First, though, I had to solve one last riddle: I was receiving an error-message whenever I tried clicking the RSS link in the url field.

Initially, I decided to use a work-around, and include a separate RSS feed using Feeder (a feed-generator application found at: reinventedsoftware.com/feeder/). After creating a post, however, Feeder could not upload it to the server, so I took the xml file, and manually uploaded it to the WordPress file, and then added a link to the file, along with a button, to a widget. This worked, but I was still troubled why the general WordPress RSS would not work.

As earlier mentioned in the report, b(ook)log was hosted for free at GoDaddy, which means that scrolling advertisements infest the top of the site. These advertisements constantly change—which means they probably interfere with RSS updates. This was easy to investigate: I upgraded the site for very little money, and as expected, the RSS worked.

All this had taken quite a bit longer than expected, and I was ready to take a break. Creating a MySpace profile for b(ook)log’s teens’ space seemed like just the next step. I created the site, found some music from the Yoshida Brothers (whose neo-classical Japanese music is heard every time anyone hears an advertisement for Nintendo’s popular Wii gaming system). I found a theme for the background, edited out all the advertising code, and added it to the site. (On a brief side note, I hope to add a catalog search to the MySpace site, but was not able to add this and still make this project’s deadline.) I then added the MySpace address to a widget, and called this section of the project finished.

Also simple and fun (and important!) was adding the Meebo widget with a descriptive enough title so as to be self-explanatory (I just used my existing Meebo account).

Next, I added a tag cloud so that book-reviews (which are important because customer services are important to any library) could be found easily on the site, wrote two book-review posts, and tagged them. The last step was the creation of different ‘casts to help teach how to navigate and utilize b(ook)log. I linked to each (which exist on my server) on the “how to use this site page,” and then created and uploaded a screencast of using b(ook)log to blip.tv and embedded it in b(ook)log’s welcome page. Initially, I had thought about only adding it to the “how to use this site” page, but then reconsidered—how many people would even acknowledge they needed that page, how many would notice it? Better to have a bit of redundancy: have the embedded video on the home page, and link to it on the “how to use this site” page.

Creating b(ook)log was useful on a variety of levels: it taught me a lot about different online resources and free applications (plus, there is nothing like experience and problem-solving to learn how to use them!). On a design-based level, I had to really look at the site as a new patron, and evaluate the interface: could I navigate the site effeciently? Was it pleasing to view? Were the search function and the facets comprehensible? For these questions, I pestered my wife and my friends, and observed their use of the site.

Today, I looked once more at the Scriblio-based online libraries listed in this report’s introduction, and while each site may be a bit more polished, b(ook)log stacks up well against them. b(ook)log’s search engine works as well as any, the site is well-organized for ease-of-use, and includes a variety of tutorials. All said and done, b(ook)log is a challenging, successful project that not only taught me a lot about design, scope, and implementation, but also serves as an important aspect of my educational-career portfolio.

Will Alexander Benefit

2007-11-24T23:01:00.000-08:00

Poet Will Alexander is ill with cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. He's spent his life largely off the poetry grid, taking on odd jobs, and has no financial support or, needless to say, health insurance. Please join us on Dec 1 at 7:30 for a Bay Area benefit reading. Donations will be bundled and sent directly to Will.

Readers include:

Nate Mackey
Juliana Spahr
Taylor Brady
Lyn Hejinian
Andrew Joron
Tisa Bryant
Adam Cornford
D.S. Marriott
and more!

hosted by David Buuck and Small Press Traffic

$10-up donations
Saturday December 1, 2007
7:30 PM in Timken Lecture Hall,
at the California College of the Arts,
1111--8th Street, San Francisco

If you cannot make it, but would like to contribute, please contact David Buuck for details at: dbuuck@mindspring.com

or, you can also send donations directly to Will:

Will Alexander
400 South Lafayette Park Place, #307
Los Angeles, CA 90057

Television and Book Reviews

2007-10-31T14:47:00.000-07:00

Check it! I was interviewed on NBC Channel 11 a few days ago for their show Quills. I feel it was a success as I only said "um" seven times, and concluded the interview with a high-minded "indeed."

You can see it here:

http://video.nbc11.com/player/?id=176166