Dec 31, 2005

The Islands

This Is Supposed To Resemble Rifitia


Balcony says take no part in moving the creature
only four of them
stinking the crushed
or mashed more
at the spiny protists/
this weekend
first-snow it goes
its knobby knuckles
en masse of
“had enough of had too little”
twitching at the
mouth of tennis cleats
feeding together
and nearing
at the sustained
stench of his soapy crotch
as rudders of food
to digest
but in a peculiar
digestion

Dec 30, 2005

North Concord nights...

me and Alicia and Camille and Daniel and Michelle drinking Ancient Age watching disgusting videos on BET...

...most of the videos seemed to follow a theme...cut to big bouncy oiled butt...cut to guy rapping in big gigantic t-shirt...big bouncy oiled butt...huge t-shirt guy...big bouncy butts...another guy in air brushed ginormous t-shirt with big bouncy oiled butts being bouncy and oiled behind (ha!) him...butts butts butts butts butts...and oil...

Dec 28, 2005

on Waldman's "both both"...

http://jacketmagazine.com/27/w-bard.html

though at the Kerouac's School's 05' SWP Waldman used the term with respect to Keats' Negative Capability...which was where i got the idea for the series title...

dill...

The Pickle Family Circus tonight with friends...

Dec 27, 2005

airport...

still asleep and possibly swerved...
and then i found out that Ashly from Fulton St. works at Madrone...
...the twins...
"bed party"...
Becky visiting from LES sappin' Jameson sans ice...
how do you work an ipod Ashly?
bout to roll to the Tobe to get coffee then off to the consulate to pick up Tony then to the Mission to pick up Truman then to SFO to drop everyone off...

New Year's anyone?

Dec 25, 2005

The Islands

“the mirror is hell”
—Sundowner Graffiti
goes the bones
on the brick
of the throat
in the fig
goes the lethe
of ouzo

—dedicated to the person that I particularly want
to look into it—

in a clear bit of rock
or maybe soap-
stone the ur-
flick of the thumb
looking at pieces
fleck in dull shards
or maybe clay
or soot regardless
to make marks with

Kevin Killian BD...




Jack Spicer cake!!!
...S. Stein's new chapbook...
...astrology with BB and SS over Budweiser...
...KK's new chapbook...
...gushing bloody BB finger on 6th street in SF...
...Norma C. and Susan G. with Bruce B. @ KK's BDP...
...J. Waters' Christmas ornament
...Jack Spicer cake!!!
..."kids table" (at least the way i saw it) stairwell smokers...
...is SF block to block or apartment to apartment???
...R. Levitsky lovin' Alameda
...thanks Margaret Tedesco for the Spicer pictures...

Dec 24, 2005

The Islands

and if you see “VS.” on a flier know this means spinning TOGETHER
wait, cracking sea-salt anemone in fist, in palm
in “what you should taste is because she likes to collect hundreds at one visit”
going for hundreds of EURO at a time
in my fist I spoon a stick-full of orange jelly
from her palm and mouth it as tasting mango
in the mouth more sweet than B.B. said “I should have tried it.”

Dec 23, 2005

on mangosteen...

sitting here in my dad's office with my brother as he dutifully studies his Portuguese in prep of his forthcoming (next tuesday) expedition to Rio de Janeiro Brazil...go James...wait...how do you say December in Portuguese?... Dezembro...!!! he emphatically replies...bravo jamsey cakes...

this afternoon after we returned a DVD copy of Da Ali G Show to my Theo Nick in Moraga my brother took me on an adventure into the architechturally idiosyncratic community (artists?) of Canyon Hills on the Moraga/ Oakland hills border...this place is amazing...i've never heard of it let alone been before...and for someone who prides himself on his Bay Area knowledge ad nauseum (my tours of the area are the best a la' John Greiner in KCMO) i was surprised to find a neighborly conclave as eye candy friendly as secluded... strange moss covered bric a brac mansions next to geodesic domes next to mud huts next to log cabins next to hobbit holes next etc etc etc...a keeper (and i wish i had a picture)...a huge 3 story house/cabin/mansion seemingly constructed out of discarded/rusted industrial metal, molded oak planks and car parts...to top it off a huge rain soaked/ fog weighted American Flag draped over the entire front of the house...amazing!!!...this community is surrounded by miles of unspoiled canyon watersheds...virtually inaccessable to anyone not on a bike or an off road vehicle (the latter of which we had)...one of the coolest things was that even though we were tresspassing on private property the people who spotted us just waved and smiled...a lovely friday afternoon...

hey James, tell me something else in Portugeuse please...
James: voce pode encontrar uma cabine telefonica!!!

...which means something...

The Islands

after LRSN


she came to the door with a
stick and hit it with a
gentle-rap that made a
indian-song and the debris
that flew from her stick hit a
dog in the ear with a range
of motion not seen since a
dog-star day

Merry Hanukkah...

More than 2,000 years ago, when the Syrian-Greek King Antiochus IV occupied Jerusalem, he forced the Jews to worship the Greek gods. For three years, Judah the Maccabee (also Judas Maccabeus) led a rebellion against the Syrians, and when he finally defeated them in 165 BCE, the Jews could worship freely again. To rededicate the temple, they cleaned it up from top to bottom and then relit the menorah, their special branched candelabrum. They could only find enough consecrated (pure) oil for one day, and it would take eight days to prepare more oil. They managed to make the oil in the bottle last eight days and Hanukkah celebrates both this and the rededication of the temple. Today, families gather around a menorah and light one candle on the first night of Hanukkah, two on the second, and so on for all eight nights of the festival. There are songs, stories, presents, food fried in oil (latkes, jelly doughnuts called sufganiyot) and prayers. Children play games of chance with the spinning tops called dreidels.
Hanukkah (also spelled Hanukka, Chanukah, Chanukkah), is from Hebrew and means "consecration, dedication." It was first recorded in English in 1891. Hanukkah is observed somewhere between November 25 and December 26, from 25 Kislev to 2 Tevet, because the original rededication was on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev. The celebration is also called the Festival of Lights, Feast of Lights, Feast of Dedication, or Feast of the Maccabees.

Dec 22, 2005

The Islands

Didi’s Kids Brandon (B.B.) says “MONSTER” the last thing I expected when I started this thing was to get remarks like that, "Farewell, cousin, here we're frozen," and how do I want to keep doing that thing that takes, by the way, about 2 1/2 hours everytime I sit down to do it. Without them I’d be nothing.


Johnny Headquarters (J.S.) says “CYBORG” the Balcony says I had the presence
of mind to make
her one of our saints.
But then the whole
business is starting
all over again. ACK.
That keeps doing it would get you to Portland to Bigga Bay by being transmetropolitan walking around with a curled lip and sock em’ fists when the Balcony says You belong to the court
Describe to me
exactly
In the center Those
who are still with me
are ready to die for me by ORIGIN.

Dec 21, 2005

Project Runway...

i want to be as bearded as Santino...

...lederhosen lingerie?!

the pool, the persians and the Brandon Brown...

signomi?
milas Vranthon Vroun se parakalo?
echete Mythos Bira?
katalaveno...
bravo agori...
bravo...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVIN KILLIAN...(or, see you then)

The Islands

She’s Been Watching Carmen Electra’s “STRIP TEASE’ Aerobics

on her hip
regardless I can’t
touch you when you sleep
blanket used the
saddle-burr covering
her legs was
going to cream
O dancing that
appleseed singing
terrific boy like
ditties to the tune
of regardless humping
her hand

the 'ric says magazine...

from Eric Unger
Everyone:I am seeking work for issue 1 of a journal I am assembling. The focusof this journal is on working artists / writers. This will be a forumfor people who are deeply engaged in their work, and want a place togo to either a. experiment or b. share work in progress. I reallywant to put the stress on the word EXPERIMENT. I want you to feelcompletely free to give into to your impulses, your playful side, andyour dreams of what you can produce. This will be a tool for you, ifyou want it to be. It will be a place where you can try some thingsout that you haven't before, work through some ideas you have, or justexpress a side of yourself that you haven't before. You may beinvolved in work that is not complete yet. Let this be a resource tohelp you move ahead.This is a serious request, for artists / writers who want to pushthemselves into new worlds of possibility. The only prerequisite isthat you be an active artist / writer who wants to contribute to ajournal of work that may be incomplete, imperfect, profane,intelligent, silly, exciting, mind-numbing, or all / none / some ofthe above. All media that can be translated into two-dimensions willbe acceptable.The edition will be cheaply made and staple bound. There will be avery limited number of issues made, say 25 - 50.Please help me to get this thing off the ground. I am asking youbecause I am familiar with your work and I respect it. If you know ofpeople who might be interested, please forward this e-mail to them. Atitle has yet to be chosen. I am planning for a February release. Ifyou have work and it can be sent over the internet as a word file, myaddress is eric.unger AT gmail DOT com

we wish you a Merry Mithras...

i'm not even reading comics at the moment...

Dec 19, 2005

The Islands

rapture this audition ululate does it feel to live in petrified in Concord on the compile was “we do find images of nude women” the balcony began “what will she do” and further “she’ll sing from a balcony, that’s all” to get an auditionish effect on the freak hiding, say you want me, by putting his old bottle in her licking it was a mutual gel to hide his penis because she bled in her the folds of her knee only popping it out laughing her hand smearing more cream on into the slit of her knee though surely the balcony furthers “I love you because you’re tender and sweet, you the hardest and sternest of men” it’s this auditionish macabre is perhaps that of a dog and his doggrel biology a memory mention made of predictable dog like qualities

“the people were all inanimate”
there are no bruises
and darkness, who is filling the shoe

too busy eating to blog...blegh...

so, writing to you from my homebase of SF/Concord California...i can't express enough how good it feels to be out of Boulder for holiday...Boulder is great if not a bit claustraphobic...at least to a Pacific scalawag like me...the Rocky Mountains (as grand as they are) don't make up for the severe comfortability of the ocean...anyway...

caveat: blogging will occur infrequently at best while i'm in the Bay Area...the whole eating thing coupled with USA's decision to frequently (like 3 times a week) run Law & Order marathons is double trouble for me...and then if USA isn't airing L&W then TNT is...and then if TNT isn't then Bravo is...you get the point...almond rocca con homemade taco's con egg nog con Dectectives Stabler and Benson makes John a happy boy...

yesterday went to the 4th installment of David Larsen's The New Yipes reading series at 21 Grand in Oakland...last night's readers were Bill Luoma and Rachel Levitsky with films by David Enos (some hilarious shorts...one about the/a wolfman and some girls with bows and arrows...they fall in love? grooming? not really sure but enjoyable)

Brandon Brown and Alli Warren freshly minted from SFO via Kansas City Mo where they found long lost graveyards on Grandma's acreage/ mystey bar clam chowder/ snow and a historical train stop shoot out (Brandon's got the pictures to prove it!)...Stephanie Young and i bonding over digital camera impossibilities...Kelly Holt talking smack about Khan-kerd per usual ad infinitum etc. et al (and me sort of agreeing with her per usual ad infinitum etc. et al)...Steve Dickison up in the place to be with his wife Tina, in disbelief about the rare tropical Bay Area rain storm...David Larsen doing a sort of off the cuff introduction (the usual New Yipes rigamorole?) that was one part improv stand up one part raving street person all parts hilarious...and then the readers...

in leau (sp) of a reading report (not sure if i'm up to that at the moment) i'll just say that Bill's translation of The Illiad ("up to where Achilles calls Agamemnon a dog-face") was stunning...i kept getting caught in his syllables (a good thing)...Rachel gave an ad hoc read through of various works culminating with her ongoing project/book/poem "Neighbor"..."Neighbor"'s a strange piece, hard to pin down, at once discursive/lyrical/journalistic/epistolary...i've heard versions and revisions and visions of "Neighbor" over the last couple of years and am looking forward to the completed polished project hopefully in the not too far off future...

okay! some highlights from a couple of parties in the last few days:

1. me falling down a flight of stairs on saturday night and not spilling a drop (okay maybe a drop) of my Chivas Regal whiskey drink
2. danceparty danceparty danceparty...first just me, then me and this girl, then me and this girl and this boy, then more boys and more girls then danceparty danceparty danceparty...
3. Armand calling some guy in the bathroom a "fucking prick" to which the guy responded by showing us his biceps
4. catching a cab at 7 am holding the door open for Armand to which he replied "i think i'm gonna stay..."
5. Brittany!!!
6. ostensibly Zane telling Brittany that he wanted to pee on her head
7. Brittany getting hella pissed to which i replied "naw, Zane's cool..."
8. dancing around with everyone but Brittany cause she hid in my brother's closet
9. pizza with Parker which got my stomach bubblin' something awful
10. Santa Claus pub crawl (about 300 of us Santa's walking around SF with 40's sort of "home invading" unassuming bars around the Mission and Downtown area...we got 86'd from a couple...one bartender got on her PA system and was all "alright! if all you Santa's are gonna be motherfucker's then get the fucking hell out of my bar!!!" to which we replied in chorus "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" and marched over to Doloros Park where a nice man with a moving van had the forsight to set up a speaker system in the back of his cab where he began to DJ lot's of Too Short and NWA to 400 of us soaking wet (super rain) Santas to which we replied with lot's and lot's of dancing and tail wagging...then we marched down Market St. shouting "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" while some naughty Santa's decided to spray paint "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" on buildings and bus stops...and then over to Lucky 13 for more beer/whiskey and then over to Steiner to pee in the street and then home to my brother's for the aforementioned dance party...)
11. Lea!!!
12. i demonstrated some playing card magic tricks to my brother's roommates to which they replied by giving me the finger (i'm still trying to figure out why...seriously)
13. my brother's homemade spiced wine
14. my brother asking me "dude! have you ever had egg nog?! it's the best!!!"
15. interpretive dancing to Peaches with Lauren and Janet

oops! 4 pm...Law & Order SVU is about to come on...

Dec 8, 2005

books read in 2005...

see disclaimer a few posts down...ready, set, go!...

1. Puppet Bones- Zhang Er translated by Rachel Levitsky
2. Parade Odes- Horace translated by Brandon Brown
3. Life Of Diogenes The Dog/ Cynic- Diogenes Laertius translated by Brandon Brown
4. Transfer #87
5. Habits Of The Heart- Robert Bellah
6. The Blue Book- Logan Ryan Smith
7. The Poker #5
8. The Satanic Verses- Salman Rushdie
9. Singularities- Susan Howe
10. The Vertical Interrogation Of Strangers- Bhanu Kapil
11. The Maids And Deathwatch Two Plays- Jean Genet
12. Groundwork II In The Dark- Robert Duncan
13. “How I’m Fast” or “Beaux Zapruder” and also “Write This In Your Diary Or Staple It To It, Oh So I’m Fast”- Matthew Arnone
14. This Is Affront You Pig- Logan Ryan Smith
15. Something Gorgeous- Junior Burke
16. Mirage #4/ Period(ical) #119
17. all of William Blake’s poetry up to “Milton A Poem In 2 Parts”
18. The Negros A Clown Show- Jean Genet
19. Rules Of The House- Tsering Wangmo Dhompa
20. The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures Of Jack Spicer- edited by Peter Gizzi
21. Response- Juliana Spahr
22. Fuck You Aloha I Love You- Juliana Spahr
23. Sleeping With The Dictionary- Harryette Mullen
24. The Letters Of Mina Harker- Dodie Bellamy
25. Arnones #4
26. Metamorphopsia- Norma Cole
27. Small Town #4
28. Stinkbug Barbiturates- Jennifer Rogers/ Michael Koshkin
29. Velocities- Stephen Dobyns
30. For Love Of The Dark One Songs Of Mirabai- translated by Andrew Schelling
31. My Bird Book- Norma Cole
32. Tender Buttons- Gertrude Stein
33. Conduit- Barrett Watten
34. How To Read, Too- Benjamin Hollander
35. The Voyage Of St. Brendon- Brandon Brown
36. Out Of Body Adventures 30 Days To The Most Exciting Experience Of Your Life- Rick Stack
37. Passing Freaks And Graces- Reed Bye
38. Black Box Cutaway- Susan Gevirtz
39. Songs Of The Sons And Daughters Of Buddha- translated by Andrew Schelling/ Anne Waldman
40. Hourglass Transcripts- Susan Gevirtz
41. Littlemen- Kevin Killian
42. The Sandman Endless Nights- Neil Gaiman
43. Clyde Fans Book 1- Seth
44. Series- Robert Grenier
45. Phantom Anthems- Robert Grenier
46. A Day At The Beach- Robert Grenier
47. Nike- Carla Hoffman
48. Linen Minus- Susan Gevirtz
49. The Blue Book- Anna Moschovakis
50. Spicer’s City- Laura Moriarity
51. This Connection Of Everyone With Lungs- Juliana Spahr
52. House Made Of Silver- Elizabeth Robinson
53. Chain #8
54. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely- Claudia Rankine
55. Syrup Hits- David Larsen
56. The Thorn- David Larsen
57. Nuclear- Juliana Spahr
58. The Vulgar Tongue- Norma Cole
59. The Un/Written- Max Regan
60. Mutual Aid- Stacy Szymaszek
61. E Podes- Brandon Brown
62. Bombay Gin #31
63. Babel-17- Samuel R. Delany
64. Empire Star- Samuel R. Delany
65. Harrow- Elizabeth Robinson
66. Drill #5
67. The Cane Groves Of Narmada River- translated by Andrew Schelling
68. 300- Frank Miller
69. Kildare- Stacy Doris
70. Jimmy Corrigan- C. Ware
71. Neon Vernacular- Yusef Komunyakaa
72. Fourteen Hills vol. 5 #2
73. Orbiter- William Ellis
74. Persepolis- Marjane Satrapi
75. Goya’s L.A.- Leslie Scalapino
76. American Splender Unsung Hero- Harvey Pekar
77. The Fixer- Joe Sacco
78. The Sandman Preludes And Nocturnes- Neil Gaiman
79. Radi Os- Ronald Johnson
80. The Sandman The Doll’s House- Neil Gaiman
81. Small Town #5
82. BOTH BOTH August issue edited by me
83. Batman Hush Vol. 1- Jeph Loeb/ Jim Lee
84. Batman Hush Vol. 2- Jeph Loeb/ Jim Lee
85. Paramour- Stacy Doris
86. Transmission Summer Writing Program Anthology #31
87. From Hell- Alan Moore
88. Road To America- Baru
89. Insuring The Wicker Man Shadow Created Delusion- Joseph S. Cooper/ Jared Hayes
90. Good-bye Chunky Rice- Craig Thompson
91. War’s End- Joe Sacco
92. Vigilance- Benjamin Hollander
93. Hounds- Alli Warren
94. The Plot The Secret Story Of The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion- Will Eisner
95. Beg The Question- Bob Fingerman
96. Elektra Lives Again- Frank Miller
97. David Boring- Daniel Clowes
98. Subject- Laura Mullen
99. Summer Blonde- Adrian Tomine
100. BOTH BOTH september issue edited by me
101. The Dormant Beast- Enki Bilal
102. Conference- Stacy Doris
103. Contract With God- Will Eisner
104. Drawings Of William Blake 92 Pencil Studies- edited by Sir Geoffrey Keynes
105. The Watchmen- Alan Moore
106. The Playboy- Chester Brown
107. Mirage #4/ Period(ical) #121
108. Mirage #4/ Period(ical) #122
109. Moira- Norma Cole
110. Bombay Gin #26
111. Transmetropolitan Lust For Life- Warren Ellis
112. Argento Series- Kevin Killian
113. BOTH BOTH October issue edited by me
114. The X-Files Collection- Stefan Petaucha
115. Eunoia- Christian Bok
116. Sliding Uteri Summer Issue
117. I’m Not Thousand Furs- Sarah Menefee
118. Brushstroke Mind- Kaz Tanahashi
119. Simulcast: Four Experiments In Criticism- Benjamin Friedlander
120. Drill #6
121. New And Selected Poems- Mary Oliver
122. Palomar The Heartbreak Soup Stories- Gilbert Hernandez
123. From The Warring Factions- Ammiel Alcalay
124. BOTH BOTH November issue edited by me
125. Leap Year Day- Maxine Chernoff
126. Maus- Art Spiegelman
127. Bombay Gin #29
128. Maus II- Art Spiegelman
129. BOTH BOTH December issue edited by me
130. Mirage #4/ Period(ical) #124
131. Batman Black And White- edited by Mark Chiarello
132. Streaming- Larry Kearney
133. Fourteen Hils vol. 7 #1
134. The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner- Samuel Taylor Coleridge with 42 illustrations by Gustave Dore
135. The Sandman Dream Country- Neil Gaiman
136. In The Shadow Of No Towers- Art Spiegelman
137. Bramble- Jospeh Massey

from Armand C...

As of tonight, there have been a few additions to www.detumescence.com....these include:

1) excerpts from Parker Zane Allen's "Dating Tips", that will only be up for a short time, as soon, he will send a "reworked" version of the WHOLE.....still, nonetheless, brilliant, and please do, check them out....

2) The complete August Demos, from Orth/Shivshark....I recommend, at the very LEAST, listening to "Car into tree" & "Want some rain".....February Demos, will be up soon, as well as other samples.

3) More Steve Orth poetry from "My Life as an Asshole"...."Bloody Tornado of Destruction"...etcetc

4) Greg Pokarney's video translation's of my own, "Notes Towards the Inventory of Visual Impressions"....see:Pokarney Productions.....

5) A NEVER BEFORE SEEN, Pokareny translation of "All you ever do is Look Away"

6) My "Magic Number Series"....audio.....

7) Pokarney's "Roomate" song, under AUDIO, which is another translation, of an awful poetry manuscript.

8) A short sample of C. & Pokarney's "The Autobiography of the Big Gimmie".....which runs roughly 20 minutes, but on the site, I give you about a 2 second taste.

9) A new Brandon Brown picture with his love-rly partner in crime: ALLI WARREN

10) Pokarney's work in progress "M" is up as a downloadable PDF chapbook....

ummm, and maybe that is it, for now...but more to come during the week!

go to www.detumescence.com, cause you have nothing better to do, admit it, you really don't

if you have any interest in obtaining, the actual videos, for anything on the site, please contact me & I will send to any of you, free of charge.

coming soon: The movie: Cold, Cavernous Asses of the Dead!!!

take care,
Armand

p.s.: also, if you have any art work/poetry/audio/video, for the website, please send my way, to hic_bibitur_press@hotmail.com

The Islands

////I’M SORRY THAT BAD MAN BURNED YOUR BOOK

too/k
prea/sure
O/ff
t/he
tit/le
w/atch
emp/ty
Ossi/an
di/g it up
apart/ment
unfu/rling
an undimin/ished

/these collapses/

Dec 7, 2005

Evolution And Mutation...

Currently reading Larry Kearney's "Streaming"...

this morning read "Batman Black And White" edited by Mark Chiarello as well as Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman Dream Country"...

last night read Joseph Massey's "Bramble" as well as Art Spiegelman's "In The Shadow Of No Towers"...

upcoming...my "Books Read In 2005" list which is bound to strike most BOTH BOTH blog readers as preposterously pretentious...a pre-disclaimer...i'm a compulsive reader...i read a lot...i'm an OCD reader...so...don't judge me...as you know, i'm super new to the blog sphere so...i'm going to list in bulk...perhaps for the future i'll list as i go along a la' Juliana Spahr...we'll see...God...this disclaimer is even pretentious...

...and maybe i'll just illustrate my 'books read' code system now because i don't plan to when i actually post my list...

P-square=poetry book
p-superscript1=prose book
p-superscript2square=play/drama
triangle=chapbook
x=magazine
-square=graphic novel

when i DO list...just imagine this codifying system placed before the actual book title and name of author in my mead notebook...

love you...

Hot Whiskey Press says???

"With Clemens uncertain whether he will pitch again or retire, the Astros declined to offer salary arbitration on Wednesday. The move means the seven-time Cy Young Award winner can't re-sign with then National League champions before May 1."

ha!...good for the Astros...uf' Clemens and his "ima throw at Barry's adam's apple" shit...

GO GIANTS!!!

in other news, i read a couple days ago that Bonds plans on playing for the USA in the next Baseball World Cup/ Championship...

any baseball fans reading the blog? who's your team?

The Islands

loving that monster howing does it feel to live in fear in Athens on the ground was “i’m sorry you had to see it like this” the balcony began “it lies with us for this masquerade to change meaning” and further “first, we must use words that magnify,” to get an monsterish effect on the job hiding, I want’chu, by putting his penis in her hand and saying it was a game to hide his penis in his foreskin only popping it out gasping “see-TURTLE” in her hand though surely the balcony furthers “you mean into reality? what of it? let them try,” you see this monsterish masquerade is maybe only a memory made of behind the couch hiding monsterish who might’ve been the BABYSITTER-mary-priss in an off-world-kick-murder-squad.

“a mouth’s a moth that can burn no further”

melts in your hand...

a very big hurah goes out to rapper Eminem and his once estranged wife Kim Matthers...yes "once estranged"...they have reconciled and are probably going to "remary..."

in other chocolaty news...i ate an "orange peel in dark chocolate" (55% cocoa content!!!) candy bar last night and was pleasantly surprised to discover a poem printed on the inside of the wrapper...that's right...on the inside of the wrapper was printed Thomas Campion's poem "My Lady's Eyes..."...it bides not in your lips so sweet,/ nor where the rose and lilies meet;/ but a little higher, a little higher, there, there, O there lies Cupid's fire..."...LRS thinks this poem ribald...i think he's writing about her eyes...what do you think...?

i'm looking for whiskey partners tonight...

stuff...

DJ Shadow's "ear"

i'm all for more cow bells and hand claps in pop music...

was Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" a pun on Debbie Gibson's perfume "Teen Spirit"?

The Islands

FROM THE HEIGTH OF THE HIGHWAY

only the way you look at the way you drive in beaches
it’s hard to s(and) the sight
to fit the breath.

about as much as the debris related to ling-spam
the Penobscot is just as inseparable, why not
after all
what name wouldn’t put on a habit?

Dec 6, 2005

Belladonna...

the lovely Brooklynite poet Rachel Levitsky just sent me a gaggle of Christmas goodies from her Belladonna series..."belladonna* is a reading series that promotes the work of women writers who are adventurous, experimental, politically involved, multi-form, multi-cultural, multi-gendered, impossible to define, delicious to talk about, unpredictable, dangerous with language."

here's a list of the Belladonna chapbooks that were smiling back at me this morning in my mailbox...

#70 Lola by Lyn Hejinian
#71 Theory of Colors by Mercedes Roffe translated by Margaret Carson
#74 Befallen I by Erin Moure
#76 Lessons of the Microscopist by Martine Bellen
#77 Heads Up Fever Pile by Karen Weiser
#78 Belleza y Felicidad work by Fernanda Laguna, Gabriela Bergerman, Cecilia Pavon translations by Urayoan Noel
#80 hyper glossia by Stacy Szymaszek
#81 You But For The Body Fell Against by Nathalie Stephens
#82 from Human Resources by Rachel Zolf
and finally, The Anatomy of Oil by Marcella Durand...a beautiful 8 1/2 x 8 1/4 limited edition letterpressed, handstiched chapbook designed by Bill Mazza with cover art by Tim Sullivan AND signed by the poet...

Belladonna rocks...thanks so much Rachel...by the way, if you don't already know, their back catalog is pretty amazing...go check them out...they're linked to this blog...

xo

The Islands

“the fixer” in there would be plenty
of moths around the dignity

whistling, charging, calling, eraser, musical, horns, rampage, country, chief, believed, of both, prince, wielder, so extensive, fortune, pervin’, tools, 1615, scalped, this word comes from the, fortune, barney, saw chase, breezy, fortune, they could, chopper, GREAT SPIRIT, for reals?, in their dealings, now Augusta, now Piraeus, NOW ATHENS, NOW WATERVILLE, NOW GEOGRAPH, EPA city, FA SHOO, Maine Indians, have not given, NOTICE, Janky////

as look
as bright burn
sits on the shoulder
GIANTS
taking notice
the way names seems
to change in this town
every now and then
they have an name
for the park that
they play in
to change
the way we look.

the grinch...

so, i wanted to make the December issue of BOTH BOTH the Christmas issue...i thought i would do this by using mint-green paper instead of yellow and quoting from a Chrismas Carol instead of a pop song...Steve Dickison just informed me that i got it all wrong...

...here's what i quoted (from memory) "well the weather outside's delightful..."

oops...

...here's what it should say/sing "O the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful, etc."
—"Let It Snow" (lyric Sammy Cahn, music Jule Styne, 1945)

my mom and sister (who def. have the Christmas spirit) would be disapointed...

generally i'm facinated by people who can retain and recite song lyrics...like my sister, my roommate, most girls...nothing NOTHING sticks with me...even the songs that mean/meant the most to me...can't remember a thing...like recently finding out that the lyric goes "shot through the heart and you're to blame..." and not, as i've been singing it my whole life "shot through the heart and you're to late..."...i'm hopelessly complacent with just humming or using nonce-words depending on my mood to fillout the song...

...i'm a mess...

shrinkage...

high of 7 degrees low of -5 degrees tommorow...

ouch...

yamas Naropa...

today i attend the final class of my Naropa career...
...next semester is thesis semester which means NO campus hours...just lot's and lot's of trolling away under the bridge of my desk trying to articulate and answer that questions for the ages..."what IS the Analytic Lyric...?"

for now i'm going with lyric of contention a la Silliman via Temblor...

ACTS in contention...

kalioraxi!!!

The Islands

STOMACHION

the strips of paper could be assembled in the shape
of a Penobscot
with a sort of prince superior
in rank in the chase, in fishing,
in the design and dignity of the BAY in battle.

Dec 5, 2005

at the rumor mill...

okay...so i'm a HUGE Neil Gaiman dork...i thought i read something on yahoo news a few months ago (i could have been hallucinating) about Gaiman writing the Hollywood script of Beowulf (which translation!) to be produced and released in the near (couple years) future...?...am i wrong?...am i on ketamine...?

...if this is true...i'm gurpin'...

The Islands

NO ONE SHALL BE OF LESS THAN TWENTY-ONE or THE GREAT FIRE COUNCIL

PIEL SAKKIS was the boss
in favor to OLD TOWN/ the O.
the fixer, a large cross not only
Father Bapst the bishop
“with the exception of the few wicked”
re
Buked them, the NEW PARTY
bishop of Boston

BOSS SAKKIS said
that to cut down your pole first
would be known as the old party
the arms of BOSS SAKKIS were
told to reach across the TransAmerica building
when the brawny of Maine
mentioned California states and evil spirits.

the Rach...

Levitsky just called mid-whiskey, mid-Eligh bump...poor woman freezing in Brooklyn with a deader car waiting for AAA to give her a jump passing time calling peeps...

...to all the Bay folks, Rachel is giving a reading at The New Yipes reading series in Oakland (21 Grand) Dec. 18th with Bill Luoma...should be super fun...

she REALLY wants a Concord tour...so, if you'd like to tag along to the "New Jersey" of the Bay Area (where i'm from) for an afternoon hit me up...

"it's all about the footnote!!!"
—R. Levitsky

BOTH BOTH series needs artists...

anyone know any visual artists (any medium) that would be interested in submitting work to be considered for the January (and future months) cover of BOTH BOTH series...

prominant as well as up and coming artists featured so far have included Daniel Fleres (SF), Lauren Kohne (SF), David Larsen (SF)...

if you know anyone who might be interested tell them to submit their work within the next 4 weeks (for January) to my email address at merkoneus@yahoo.com...

furthering the Modest Mouse theme...Good News For People Who Love Bad News...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who have an alcoholic drink or two a day may have a lower risk of becoming obese than either teetotalers or heavy drinkers, a study published Monday suggests. Researchers found that among more than 8,200 U.S. adults, those who said they enjoyed a drink every day were 54 percent less likely than non-drinkers to be obese. Similarly, those who drank a little more (two drinks per day) or a little less (a few drinks per week) had a lower risk of obesity than teetotalers did.

...SO, let's stay thin people... who's up for whiskey this week...

the moon and...

Colorado is experiencing extremely rare Arctic weather this week...tommorow's low is expected to dip to 7 degrees...throw in the wind storms we get in the Foothills and you're in for a chilly ride...

...perfect vicodin and Six Feet Under weather...if only i had the former...

Hollander's Vigilance

Benjamin Hollander's new book Vigilance is just out from Beyond Baroque Books...probably more important to me than any other poetry book published in the last 5 years...Hollander has an ear like no other poet i've read...they're going pretty quick on SPD so order one while you can...

you can order from Small Press Distribution here: http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=1892184176

The Islands

Didi’s Kids Brandon (B.B.) says “SYRACUSE” parties before mentioned at of the Penobscot tribe as if “you were of these agents” that we would spend time thinking about our time becoming a joke about birds (certain years were for many years) sitting on our balcony becoming/ township/ an Green omen of these agents we were pretending to identify as the new party and decadent of drunkenness to an account of “that one bird in the street of that island who was trying to kill itself by its present walking in the ‘horio’ road under the rib of his loyal Baron, a bad omen.”

Johnny Headquarters (J.S.) says “SPRAGUE’S JOURNAL” who as us of these agents arrived on that PAROS island during his pleasure looking for the lead on BARON in the lead by time as their history asking if was a “dancer, because of the way you sit” massaged had a bad followers that only villagers and old people drink this stuff when we were walking from beach to beach looking for agents to beach the law said we could do it in only a few hours which meants since they were IRISH being known as INDIAN only meant an half hour of twelve miles above the sea of walking, from dock to dock, though when we stopped to piss those birds showed up to(o), you’re right, say we’re finished, ever since the bounties are paid and our colors are to every INDIAN an crops rarely raised by them.

Dec 4, 2005

(Otto Make That) Riff Staccato...

more and more realizing that Duke Ellington is the only Jazz musician i enjoy listening to...

oh well okay...sometimes Davis (typical), sometimes Brubek (go Concord!), sometimes Mingus (but mostly Money Jungle which is actually listed as an Ellington record)...

i think i started disliking Jazz as a genre when i started seriously writing poetry...had to sit through too many bad Jazz poems...it started to affect the way i listened to the music...and then "spontaneous bop prosody" which is great...i just hate hearing hippie-folk talk about it...

a bad Jazz poem of the prototypical ilk:

Mingus on the strings
while the Duke
strokes his keys
i smoke a cigarette
after a cigarette
and imagine this life
without JAZZ
imagine this JAZZ without
life...

red and blue...

people seem more three-dimensional on somedays than others...

maybe it's these 8 mile hike/ bike trips i've been taking lately deep into the Rocky's in below freezing, snow-capped weather, that's been tweaking my spatial extent gauge...

everything seems so goddamned present...it's intrusive...

Gregory Pokarney...

a new piece, "Octopus,"by Mr. Pokarney over at Detumescence...

http://detumescence.com/e-books/greg-pokarney/

and then check out the uber-oblique holographic-action-photo-thingy(?) collabo, "The Autobiography Of The Big Gimme," by Armand C. and Gregory Pokarney...

The Islands

of Maine,
which chapter,

of six members thereof shall
by, so called, six members
by the new party
so called
at separate meetings

St. Croix not that they were related
his son Aselm de Castin
also at Pleasant Point
though this was found in the paid
to every Indian agents for these
appointed by the Governor
backwoods sketches
in the month

face off...

"The partial face was donated by the family of a woman who was declared brain dead."

Dec 3, 2005

The Islands

Naxos

move if you can makeout her mouth sort of miming to B.B. happy birthday and handing him a bottle which is to illustrate the progress of civilization up to the present day that I was there when bought in greek four packets of Karelia’s virginia and brought back a big bottle fit for treason, stratagem, and spoils knocking the ball against the little house where I was born beginning to see that “two ugly make a pretty” moving upwards of a crooked village road not ten miles from the mud baths we read about as well as a foundry, coal-breaker, machine-shops, and light-house

Head and Shoulders...

i have some poetry in the current issue of Shampoo #25...you can peep it here : http://www.shampoopoetry.com/ShampooTwentyfive/sakkis.html

Bramble on...

Ron Silliman wrote a nice piece about Joseph Massey's new chapbook Bramble on his blog yesterday...Silliman rightly praised the book arts quality of Hot Whiskey Press's job well done, comparing the quality to the careful craftsmanship of Chax Press...a HUGE deserved compliment...go Hot Whiskey!!!

Dec 1, 2005

hot whiskey says....

hey guys...Michael Koshkin over at the Hot whiskey Press blog (http://hotwhiskeyblog.blogspot.com/) just wrote/ featured a nice piece on BOTH BOTH in his ongoing "small press activity in Boulder" column...go check it out...


thanks hotwhiskey!

speaking of which...who's up for drinks tonight...either catacombs for vodka, or downer for whiskey...

newbier newbies...

hey everyone (all 2 of you)...the great gentlemen (and lady) of House Press have started a blog...if you don't know them go check them out here: http://housepress.blogspot.com/

...they're also linked to this blog justified left margin...

DRILL up in the hizz!!!

EUREKA...

Robin Blaser writes in his afterword to The Collected Books Of Jack Spicer "The Practice Of The Outside," that [Spicer] "taught a recognition of disgust as a key to the dramatic transformation of sensuality in the poem so that oppulance of feeling became disturbed and longing appeared..."

and then i immediatly think of Spicer's "Love Poems"...

Kyger on Spicer...

currently at work digitizing a workshop lecture, "Beat And Other Rebel Angels," given by Joanne Kyger at Naropa October 1991.

...Kyger's speaks a bit about Spicer's "recognition of disgust." that is, a poem's trancendence (beit beauty et al.) being explicitly bound to a recognizing of the un-beautiful, or disgusting qualities imbued in the work...or perhaps imbued in the practice of working...

...i'm not sure how to enter Spicer's "disgust" outside of thinking Spicer disgusting...which is clever but probably not what he was getting at...i need to hear more...can anyone find material regarding Spicer's "disgust...?" i've read the biography, criticism and poems but don't recollect a thing...

associations...which led me to Alan Gilbert's notion of the "grotesque" in poetry citing the Canadian Rapper Buck 65's song "The Centaur" as a primary example...if you've never heard "The Centaur" you're missing out...basically a ditty about the bane of being endowed with a huge centaur penis..."of couse my cock is bigger than your's i'm a centaur for Christ's sake..."

a lovely quote from Kyger regarding the Spicer circle "the poetry politics of those groups was excitingly back stabbing..."

anyway...i love my job...

how low can you go!!!

in yahoo news this morning..."the Pope may abolish 'limbo'"

and then they quote from Dante:

"Great grief seized on my own heart when this I heard, because some people of much worthiness I knew, who in limbo were suspended."

one step for mankind...

Naropa University's The Jack Kerouac School has just taken a HUGE step forward in appointing Junior Burke as acting chair of the department...

the chair controversy has been a long, bitter, outstanding fight between students, who feel that the chair position represents more than just a figure-head of the School (though we shouldn't downplay the idea of a figure-head in academia) and faculty who felt/ feel that a "collective chair" including all of the core and adjunct faculty was the most progressive way to represent the School...in the end the faculty's preference for collective chair proved inefficient and confusing to both students and the University in general...kudos go to the president of the University Tom Coburn and Anne Waldman who were both unwavering in their support for student concerns regarding the future of the Kerouac School program...

Junior Burke's newest novel "Something Gorgeous" published by Farfalla Press (05') is available here: http://farfallapress.net/something_gorgeous1.htm