Giants Idol..

for all the haters...

Barry Bonds as Paula Abdul (opposites do indeed attract)...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060301/ap_en_tv/bbn_giants_bonds

Go Baseball!!! Go Giants!!! go Mark Sweeny for organizing...

...currently listening to Scarub Heavenbound...

...

i just got the best news of my life from a family friend, Truman...

i've been suffering through a major family issue today...and i just got news from Truman that all is well...i'm crying right now...i don't even know why i'm blogging this, i fear i'm belittling it somehow...i'm not going to go into details...but, this is the biggest weight off my chest i've ever experienced...

thank you to all those friends in SF who were loyal to me and mine...you have no idea what it means...i love you...

...currently listening to Scarub A Fact Of The Matter...

"Oedipus goes 'gangsta' in hip-hop musical!" (yahoo)

some rapper/playwright from San Francisco, Will Power (never heard of him), wrote a hip hop adaptation of Oedipus Rex...i guess it's playing off Broadway and getting good reviews...

joined Lucipo Poetics List this morning...am enjoying the sudden stream of new dialogue...fun fun...

looking at the post below me and realizing that when i drink whiskey i use a lot of superlatives...

to workout this morning or not to workout this morning?

those earplugs are a godsend...i'm actually sleeping in past 6-7:30 am...love it...

Hellraiser VI: Hell Seeker- probably one of the best Hellraiser flicks qualitatively...good acting, good story, good directing, not very scary but Hellraiser hasn't been scary since the second installment...

...currently listening to Sasha Global Underground Ibiza...

good news!

...three things:

1. Brandon Brown's (woof) new chapbook is coming out from Dana Ward's inimitable Cy Press (title unknown, but bound to be fun!)
2. Michael Koshkin's (Hot Whiskey) new chapbook Parade Rain is coming out from Maureen Thorson's bountiful Big Game press
2. Me, John Sakkis' old chapbook (2002), he, don Juan, a translation, is being reprinted by Armand C.'s interactive Detumescence press

fun fun fun all around!!!

more fun...in the mail tonight from the uncontainable Stephanie Young...CD's, (beautifully sandwiched between pretty sky-blue cardboard and Hotel 17 225 East 17th Street/ New York, N.Y. 1003 stationary!!!)

1. Keyshia Cole- The Way It Is
2. Mary J.- Breakthrough
3. Adam Green- Garfield
4. Kelis- Tasty

thanks Stephanie...

i don't know about you, but i'm most excited about the Kelis CD...MILKSHAKE like what?!

in the mail tomorrow, Wedding Crashers...

...currently listening to Sage Francis Still Sick...Urine Trouble...

tap/type that ass...

this afternoon someone from The Netherlands found there way to this blog by googling "oiled butts"...


checked out Ronald Johnson's Ark from the library today...


...currently listening to Sage Francis Personal Journals...

boring stuff/ not boring stuff...

currently at work on a lecture given by Roger Walsh all about Transpersonal Psychology...yadda yadda...shaman's, Ken Wilber, Lucid Dreaming, Yogi's...yadda yadda...

went digging at Left Hand Books yesterday afternoon...had some good finds...

all used...

1. The Shirt Weapon-Brandon Downing
2. Post (Pink)- kari edwards
3. Under The Sun- Rachel Levitsky (read it a couple summer's back, loved it, strangely fabelistic use of narrative)
4. Meat Air- Ron Loewinsohn (can't believe i found this for only $6...and this is why digging is so much fun (correlative in record digging), after hours spent, the ultimate find...)
5. Speculative Primative- Chris Stroffolino
6. 5 Is The Perfect Number- Igort (Italian graphic novel)
7. Happy Ending- Dark Horse Maverick (a great anthology of great comics writers/artists)
8. Batman Evolution- Greg Rucka
9. Batman Anarchy- Alan Grant
10. No Love Lost- Ariel Bordeaux (think Ghostworld in Quebec)
11. Portraits From Life- David Collier

...and can i just say that Drawn & Quarterly is my favorite Comics publisher...currently making my way through the Drawn & Quarterly Review #4...finished the beautiful bio-comic on Herge, the creator of Tin Tin, last night...

preliminary draft of thesis due this friday...you can find me at the bar on any given night this week working on it...

...i've had about 300 hits since Friday from people google searching Apollo Anton Ohno...other searches as of late that have brought people to this blog, verbatim, "bode miller sucks," "psuedo scorpian," and "brazil"...

...check out Alan Gilbert's Village Voice piece on the new collected prose of Sparrow...
http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0607,gilbert,72147,10.html

Mt. Sanitas hike photo diary...

wow...okay...whew...that was a rough rough beautiful hike...so without further ado...




okay. am i really going to do this, here we go



okay...half way there, feeling pretty good albeit a bit out of breath, can't seem to close my mouth



OMG! i'm so tired...but wait...snow...yeah, this is where my lung capacity was cut in half due to altitude (i'm WAY up there) and the temperature dropped about 30 degrees...fun!



wow! that there lichen sure is pretty...





OMG! 3/4 of the way there...almost there...can't turn back...can't close mouth...can't feel brain working...blegh





OMG! okay...whew...gotta catch my breath and eat lunch...yum yum lunch a la Gary Snyder



wow! that branch is probably pretty cool looking...i can't realy tell because my head is frozen and my heart is about to explode...oh, i know, i'll take a picture so i can appreaciate it when i get home...must. keep. climbing...



OMG! OMG! i made it! i'm at the top...what a view...OMG! it's freezing, look at the frozen sweat beads on my forehead





because i'm a genius i decided to hike down the face of the Mt...i didn't realize that the face of the Mt. this time of year is trecherous and frozen (this is where i almost fell off the mountain trail and died)



and then after all of that i still had a 2 mile bike ride home...

...oh yeah, i almost forgot, currently listening to Television Marquee Moon...

party at Feliz's tonight...

Jabes...

just finished the Jabes portion of my thesis...that feels good...

my friends ditched me last night so i watched The Grudge and went to bed (con ear plugs)...

The Grudge- kick ass! really really creepy...though it sort of fell apart at the end (wrapped up to quickly)...otherwise a really good scare flick...

i'm thinking of going on a hike this afternoon, up the Mt. Sanitas trail...

...currently listening to Saafir The Hit List...

morning movie...

movies...

The Aviator- wow! now that's how a bio-pic/ epic is supposed to be done...succeeded in everyway Gangs of New York failed...i really liked this movie...

Armand C has an interesting new piece up over at detumescence http://detumescence.com/wp-content/pppp.JPG (i just printed one out, going to put it on my wall)

some new flickr photos up (mostly books i'm reading/using for my thesis)...

i think i may have finished the last movement of Mouf...i think...anyway, the books a mess, can't wait to start spring cleaning...

have you submitted to Hair Flip yet?

deleted my "Figure Skating Is Not A Sport" rant because, well, it wasn't a very well thought out rant...let's leave it at this, figure skating is my favorite Winter Olympic event...

i'm really tired, it's warm outside...

...currently listening to Rush Chronicles...

the Rev. is back...

and not too soon!...http://brandonbrown.blogspot.com/ (BB throws his hat in the wind)

speaking of aggression doesn't Armand want to box poet's...didn't he box Katie Webb last week...?

currently at work on an Alan Gilbert reading from 2004...from More Morphine "a baby only smells like a baby when they're in Pampers"...

"nightmare on my street"...

wow! i had THE mother of all nightmares last night...it was awsome!

huge, complicated story but basically the "final" scene was a combination of the situations seen in Saw, the cenobites from Hellraiser and the torture scenes from Hostel...and i survived!!! for some reason the cenobites (Pin-Head was there as was Chatterer as was the girl with the neck wires) decided to help me against evils of Jay Hernandez (actor from Hostel)...i can't remember any other details though...i just remember i kept waking up throughout the night and then falling back asleep into the same dream where it left off...

like i said in a previous post, i rarely ever get "monster" nightmares, and if i do it's ususally Leatherface...so, being a fan of horror movies i get excited when "monsters" from my favorite horror flicks show up in my dreams to try and wipe me out...i feel flattered if you will...my own little mini-movie...


...currently at work on a Rachel Levitsky reading from 2004...she reads a bunch from Neighbor...i can't get enough of that manuscript...i want it finished and published so i can own it...

R.I.P. Gennady Aygi (1934-2006)...

Hair Flip!

hey everybody,

two of my best Naropa friends, two of best Naropa poetry friends, Sabrina Calle and Feliz Molina, are seeking submissions for their they brand new magazine Hair Flip...so, submit, submit, submit...

"2/22/2006

Dear diary,

I've been wanting to put out a magazine that has really cool stuff in it.

Submission Guidelines for Hair Flip: Succession

We are currently looking for submissions to the first issue of Hair Flip: Succession Issue for this coming April 2006. Hair Flip Magazine is welcome to all genres of writing including poetry, prose, visual/written essays, art, photography, film, all of which any kind of _expression reflects the topic: Succession.

For this issue, it is up to you to decide what succession means in however any way that you want to describe it as a gesture, noise, object, theory, font type, mannerism, thing, whatever.

Submission Deadline: March 15th 2006

First Issue release: April

Please send your work in Microsoft Word to fmolina@naropa.net or check out Sabrina Calle's MySpace page.

Poetry: 1-5 pgs.

Prose: 1-5 pgs.

Visual/Written Essays: 5-10 pgs.

Art/Photography: 1-5 images.

Film: 5-10 minutes.

P.S. Today in class, one of the words on the vocabulary test was "succession". What does that mean?
XO,

Sabrina Calle & Feliz Molina

Editors"

...

Girl With A Pearl Earring- pretty good, yeah, i liked it...though you can't really tell if Scarlett is good or not...she has two looks throughout the entire film, her submissive look (pouty) and her curious look (wide-eyed)...plus she probably has a total of 5 minutes of dialogue...when she does speak it's with a sort of muddied English-American dialect (think Kevin Costner in Robin Hood), which is strange being that she's supposed to be a 17th century Dutch maid...

turns out my landlord didn't warn the upstairs girls for the second time, he told me he's saving it (because it's one step to eviction), going to let me decide when to give it, play it by ear (pun)...oh the power...in the meantime, like a good neighbor i went to the drug store and bought ear plugs...really, i'm not one for getting two 18 year old Naropa freshman evicted from their first apartment...what kind of person do you think i am...?...unless of course, they persist with their ruckus ways...

"Bring the mother/ bring the motherfuckin' ruckus/ bring the motherfuckin' ruckus"
-Wu-Tang Clan

"and i'll get you evicted"
—onlymerk!!!

...currently listening to Restiform Bodies Restiform Bodies and/or Rjd2 Dead Ringer...

toothy...

had some strange dreams last night...i was wearing a mouth guard to straighten my teeth (my teeth are super straight in waking life by the way, wouldn't want to give you the wrong impression, 6 years of braces and retainer as a kid), but instead of straightening them it made them mash together...i remember looking for my "two front teeth" in the bathroom mirror but only finding a toothy car crash of a mouth...i remember ripping out a tooth from the top-middle of my mouth...it was all meaty with the root still attached, then i started gushing blood...end dream (i forget, what do teeth dreams mean again? anxiety right?)...and then i was both IN the television program Gray's Anatomy and WATCHING it...Meredith and the shaggy haired intern had slept with each other...skip to: the whole gang, sandra oh, the good looking guy, the model, Meredith and the shaggy haired intern were eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria...meredith and shaggy haired intern couldn't stop laughing at the fact that they had slept with each other, really juvenile penis and vagina jokes...end dream (yeah, boring, waste of dream time for sure)...

yesterday read Jessica Smith's bird-book and the second issue of Jon Leon's now defunct mag Wherever We Put Our Hats...both excellent...

went to the bar last night to work on Jabes...got a ton done...finally mustered the balls to introduce myself to Ricki, a bartender i have a crush on (sort of, i think i just like saying that more than feeling it)...she then bought me my next drink...nice...

i can't tell if the girls upstairs are tweekers or really energetic insomniacs...they're consistently up all night, pacing, droping hard objects on the floor, falling down (?), tumbling, moving furniture, having parties, having screaming contests, blasting The Doors, having sing alongs, talking, running, racing and generally annoying the shit out of me...i've made two complaints already (but i only did this AFTER i wrote them a really nice neighborly letter welcoming them to the complex and explaining that because the building is old the floors are thin and that i am a thesis student who works from home so please keep it down after 10 and if you need anything feel free to ask)...the letter had no affect...a noise complaint in my complex is taken with a pound of salt...a serious thing...i live in the Snow Lions complex where "mindful" living is paramount...these girls def. ain't "mindful" of anything but blasting The Doors 24/7...so, they were super loud on friday, i made a complaint...the landlord warned them...saturday night they were, surprise, super loud, i made a complaint...the landlord sternly warned them...last night, pretty loud...i'm not going to make a complaint...they'll get evicted if i do...yeah, it's taken that seriously in this complex...a sort of three strikes rule...so, i'm going to talk to them and let them know that if they persist with their noisy behavior i'll feel it necessary to make a complaint and that in turn our landlord will deem it necessary to evict them...hopefully this will drill it home that they need to shut the fuck up...we'll see...

i think i'll finish up the Jabes portion of my thesis this morning/afternoon...then move onto Palmer's Sun as a book...

Girl With A Pearl Earring movie review coming up later...yum yum Scarlett Johansson...though i have a sneaking suspicion that she's a REALLY bad actress...like, she hasn't really varied character since Ghostworld...she was good in Lost In Translation but i suspect that had more to do with Sophia's skill as a director/writer than Scarlett's acting ability...like the part was writtern for Scarlett's slightly awkward, aloof and delayed acting skills...and i only think this because of her horrendous performance in that horrendous movie Good Company with Topher Grace and Dennis "The Coke-head Rookie" Quaid...i mean, it was as if she never left Tokyo and brought the Lost In Translation character over to a romantic comedy...wha?...in Ghostworld and Lost in Translation her flighty obliqueness came off as charming, myterious, real...in Good Company it came off airheaded and boring...so, we'll see if she can muster the ability to play a Vermeer painting later this afternoon...

i might of woken up on the wrong side of the bed...

...currently listening to The Rapture Echoes...and/or Richard Buckner Impasse...

photos...

lot's of new flickr photos up...

workout, shower, post office, read, notes...

...currently listening to Radiohead No Surprises/ Running From Demons EP...

stillwater...

good morrow...

but first, movie review...

Dark Water- not entertaining (total waste of time)

okay, today BB is mailing...

mild outside, mid thirties...

i think i'll go to the library today and do a bunch of Jabes work...preliminay final draft of thesis due March 3rd...

who want's to go on a snowhike later?

god. nothing to say this morning. not even a dream report. um...when baseball season starts go Giants...hmmm...if i have nothing to say why do i feel compelled to blog (i should take cue from Brandon and blog like 3 times a year something amazing)? like Dark Water i'm probably wasting your time...okay then...

...currently listening to Radiohead Hail To The Thief

all about the Washingtons...

oops! it's President's Day, no BOTH BOTH mailing today...so, tomorrow then...

until then, two things i really like/ two things i really hate...

like

1. the sound of brick a brack being sucked into the vacuum cleaner
2. cracking my jaw (though i realize i look like a tweeked out thizz-head when i do it)

hate
1. group participation anything...like the happy birthday song...
2. Q & A sessions

...currently listening to Quannum Projects Quannum Spectrum...

AMBOS AMBOS...

holy crap! this is awsome...BOTH BOTH translated into Spanish...

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=es&sl=en&u=http://bothbothseries.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_bothbothseries_archive.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dprice

somebody in Lima, Lima Argentina was looking at the blog...it's funny, around Dec. (05) i started getting tons of hits from South America (?)...and then strangely lot's of hits from the Middle East as well (?!)...i had my first hit from Greece last week (!!)...

...currently listening to Dizzee Rascal Boy In Da Corner...(go iPod in the workplace!)

"i wear my trousers ridiculously low!"
—Dizzee Rascal

stuff...

i got a letter from SUNY Buffalo on friday...it seems they've heard of BOTH BOTH and want to order a subscription for their Rare Books Collection...kick ass! go SUNY Buffalo...i have a sneaking suspision Michael Slosek had something to do with this...

speaking of BOTH BOTH, the new issue featuring Steve Dickison and Murat Nemet-Nejat with cover art by Angelos Sakkis (my theo, Bay Area artist, http://asgallery.net/) is mailing today...

movie reviews:

Hellraiser V: Inferno- entertaining (since i was 14 my ab fav horror franchise)
The Manchurian Candidate (remake)- entertaining (amazing du jour political thriller, amazing)

...currently at work on a lecture, "The Ear Of The Poet in the Mouth of the Performer," delivered by Carla Harryman at Naropa June 25, 2003...a quote totally out of context, "I basically hate theater..."

Kasey gives the end all on Flarf...
Ron waxes nostalgic on careerism w/regards to fashion and Project Runway...(and a side note to a seperate post: Ruth Witt Diamont founded The Poetry Center at SF State not Madeline Gleason as Ron states...update: he doesn't agree)
Hot Whiskey needs a warehouse space...
Jessica ponders the nature of syndication...
Stephanie on LRSN's letter to John Huston...
Joyelle on Drew Gardner...
Kaplan on 24 (the series)
Amy on Basquiat (is he passe?)...
Tony on blog hits...
David Harrison on Subpress Collective...

...decided not to write about Cesar Vallejo...i think Celan and Jabes as precursors to the AL should suffice...

CO is finally thawing out of the deep artic freeze we've been subjected to for the last 3 days...friday -13, saturday -6, sunday -3...it feels about 25 out right now...warm...

"So, You're a Poet," Presents
AN OPEN POETRY READING
featuring Jack Collom & Reed Bye

The Laughing Goat Coffee House
1709 Pearl Street
Boulder, Colorado USA
8pm to 11pm

next door to the "beat book shop"

more later...

R.I.P. Richard Bright...

Richard Bright, an actor who appeared in all three The Godfather movies (mob enforcer Al Neri) was struck and killed by a bus in his Manhattan neighborhood last night...

here's a quote from yahoo news..."Bright was arrested in 1965 on an obscenity charge for language he used in a San Francisco production of poet Michael McClure's two-person play "The Beard," which was shut down."

i'm at work, more in a bit...

Barbara Guest R.I.P.

40oz to freedom...

my boss, Tim Hawkins is quoting, as i type this, Ice Cube lyrics about 40oz malt liquor...this all stems from my other boss Joe Conway, asking the office what the difference between regular beer and malt liquor is...this is giving me a toothy smile...

i'm in a good mood now...no longer vomity...

for an incredibly good dose of hip hop psychedelia go here http://www.anticon.com/sixeslast.mov (an absolutly amazing Alias video by First Avenue Machine)...and i might add, for all those who've always wondered what acid is like...well, it's sort of exactly this...


love John

thank god for Bound To Get Fuller...

"Close To Me" is sort of getting me through the morning...

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=40243031

...currently at work on a lecture given by Jena Osman July 1 2003...all about "Anne Waldman as Performer and Collaborator"

...currently listening to Bound To Get Fuller...

gorf...

oof...at work right now working on a Robin Blaser tape from '03...i'd rather be in bed...i went out last night with Sabrina and her mom (and brother and Mya)...Sabrina's mom (God bless her) was buying me all this top shelf whiskey at the bar...i drank way too much...i think i'm still drunk...at least i can hide in my office all afternoon, don't' know what i'd do if had to actually interact with other humans...

huge snow storm just moved through CO...beautiful outside, about a foot of snow...20 outside today...

...currently listening to the sound of my stomach bubblin'...

star wars...

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith- not entertaining...though the fact that baby Luke Skywalker's adoptive mom at the end of the movie looked a lot like Elizabeth Robinson was...

got the Paul Celan portion of my thesis done this morning...

picked up a used copy of Civil Disobediences Poetics and Politics in Action edited by Anne Waldman and Lisa Birman (Coffee House)...the newest anthology (though not THAT new by now) from Coffee House filled with Naropa lectures/talks/interviews and essays...

...currently listening to Prefuse 73 One Word Extinguisher...

netflix ratings...

okay, so i've decided to forego the movie ratings system as outlined below for an even simpler one...here goes: entertaining/ not entertaining...

so:

Saw- entertaining
Million Dollar Baby- entertaining

stand by for my rating of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith later this evening...

...currently listening Poligiros Music The Six Fountains...

computer wars III: revenge of the appleworks...

yeah okay, the title to this post is lame (don't hold it against me, Revenge of the Sith is coming in the mail today so i got Star Wars on the brain bub)...if you could have seen what i went through today...i mean SEEN, like sat down and watched it like a movie with a silly Hannah Barbara cartoon soundtrack...you'd sympathize...this morning=thesis gone, this morning=all my past appleworks books/ manuscripts/ poems/ essays/ reviews/ translations et al (ALL my word processing files) GONE...something like 500 pages of original work...poof, gone, cue ACME anvil and/or Baby Grand Piano to the head...so, i'm on the phone with the applehotline guys for the first half of the morning to early afternoon, and on my feet and bike for the second...i JUST got back to the apartment to settle in...i've been in and out of the house since 9 AM running to campus, to computer lab to post office to the mac guys shop to campus to the library to mac guys shop to to to to OMG!...but, proverbial light at the end of the proverbial tunnel (doesn't that mean i'm dead though?)...mac dude, in an act of extreme generosity somehow figured out the problem (he was REALLY stumped, hell, the apple hotline people couldn't even figure it out) and fixed it pro bono...that's right, those 500 pages that were missing are now back...i can't relay how relieved i am...but you're all poets/writers so you can imagine i sure...

...so, i signed up for netflix...in the mail today is Saw, Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, and Million Dollar Baby...

don't you dare get on me for renting what some might consider fluf...i LOVE fluf, i defend and champion fluf every chance i get...in Greece, Moschovakis and i had a long conversation about fluf vs. non fluf...you should have seen the look on her face when i professed my love for all things Nick Cage esp. Con Air and The Rock...so there, i mostly just like to veg out to movies...sometimes i like to think, but have realized recently that movies aren't my thinking medium...i just want to be entertained (though i'd settle for KRS-ONE's edutaiment)...i mean, you should have seen me as a late teen, typical pretentious film nerd...like, i owned half of Antonioni's filmography, as well as Fellini's, as well as Truffaut's as well as a huge collection of really obscure Japanese cinema...B.O.R.I.N.G....to me at least...i mean serioulsy, that shit's boring, and that's why it's all gone, don't own it anymore, sold it all within the last couple years...i'd rather watch Saw than a Godard film anyday of the week...and that's that...

...oh, and because of this whole new netflix thing maybe i'll rate each movie...bad=bad, okay=so so/ can't really tell if i like it or not, good=good and great=great...that's easy enough...

tonight i'm doing nothing but relaxing, drinking whiskey and watching my movies...

...so, as a preface to what i'm listening to currently i'll list all the things i've been listening to all day while stressing out on the computer...Outkast The Love Below, Owen Ashworth W/ Jason Quever Pocket Symphonies For Lonesome Subway Cars, Passage Passage, Peaches The Teaches Of Peaches, Pedestrian Unindian Songs: Volume 1, Art Pepper Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section, Philip Glass Koyaanisqatsi, The Pixies At The BBC...

Philip Glass is performing tonight at the Boulder theater...

...currently listening to The Pixies Doolittle...

folkers...

currently really into the Bay Area's nascent new folk scene...i've heard it being compared to NY's Garage renaissance of a few years back...though personally i think it has a bit more substance and sustainability...

some of my favs: Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Faun Fables, Rogue Wave and Jolie Holland...

i've had the good fortune to see Newsom play a bunch...she used to do gigs (do people still say gigs?) at Momi Tobi's cafe in Hayes Valley a bunch with my friend, singer-songwriter ORTH/ Shivshark...Momi Tobi's is where almost every young poet in SF works presently or has worked in the past...tangent: BB and i ran into Joanna and her ex-boyfriend (Noah, from The Pleased) in the East Village outside of a cafe during the Marlins/ Yankees World Series (go Marlins!...um...i mean, anyone but the Yankees!)...that was a strage trip, the East Village was a total vortex that week...no joke, we randomly ran into Joanna and Noah (who we knew from SF), some punk dude BB was friends with (from KC), Parker Zane Allen and Micah (who we were really good friends with from SF), this tweeker dude named Jon from one of our SF State poetry classes...and this was all within 4 days of being in NY, and this was all within a 4 block radius...truely truely strange...who ever said you're anonymous in New York is a liar...

...Devendra is ufin' rad...hippie grad of the SFAI (where Bill Berkson teaches)...and the ONLY hippie i'm a fan of...

...Holland...well, two words, her song "Darlin Ukelele"...it totally kills me...

oh yeah, though not from SF (though he did live there for a year) check out the music of singer-songwriter John Greiner, one of my very best friend's from Kansas City MO...he recently opened up for y'alternative super star Richard Bucnker (who also lived and made music in SF for a while)...if you're in the city (SF) John's going to be playing at The Makeout Room really soon...here's his page http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=26732028

and wait, did i hear something about Brandon Brown and Alli Warren's folk/hip hop/happy hardcore outfit Bound To Get Fuller billed to open up for Edmund Berrigan's alternative folk-hop group in the coming months in SF...?

...i just bought my first i tunes song for 99 cents!...Keak Da Sneak's "Super Hyphie" from his brand new album That's My Word...

...currently listening to Ol' Dirty Bastard Return To The 36 Chambers...


Scout...

just got done watching/ listening/ looking at Norma's Scout (Krupskaya 2005)...my mom bought it for me for christmas but i couldn't watch it until now because of my well documented computer problems...the book's format/media, photo collage with Norma's audio, is phenomenal...literarly in the phainesthai, to appear sense of the word...the seemingly banal city and suburb-scapes that bleed in and out through the reading are a bit unsettling, though unsettling is the wrong word choice... i'm still trying to think of the right one...contracted (stairways, portraits, signs) and expansive (skies, windows, portraits, oceans, books) at once, it's hard to localize the effect without being vague...beautiful somehow doesn't cut it...

after watching the disc once all the way through i decided to experiment...i qued The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld album to begin playing at the exact moment Scout begins...and guess what, eureka! a perfect match! who would of thought Norma Cole's Scout is to The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld as The Wizard Of Oz is to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon?!...so, where the microdots at!?

this week is Cesar Vallejo week...5 pages here i come...

...currently listening to Odd Nosdam No More Wig For Ohio...

a coffee-river runs through it...

ha! i'm back...okay what else...

um yeah, so i met Noah and his partner Sarah Veglahn at his Left Hand reading...nice to finally put voice to work...he gave a robust (?) reading...lot's from his Tougher Disguises book, The Frequencies, as well as new work...i'm not sure if it was his reading style or the work itself but the word anthemic comes to mind...like some great Eddie Van Halen solo for a half an hour...check out his hilariously astute city-report on Denver over at Fascicle...

Michael Friedman (of Shiny) read from his new novel...science fiction right up Naropa's alley a la Chip Delany...a quote "they were the Archie and Veronica of Naropa"...really funny stuff...i'll have photos of both readers up on flickr within the next few days...also a picture of that cute tumbler right before i put it into my backpack...

okay, i should probably get back to work...Blaser here i come!

ps. check out the new all women's issue of MIPOESIAS http://www.mipoesias.com/

pps. Sweet' cemetery, home to Keats, Shelley, crumbling in Rome (up at yahoo news just now) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060213/ts_afp/afplifestyleitaly

summer of love...

so, those hippie squirrels were back this morning...perched in the same spot above my head...above the Harry Smith cottage...like the hippies that trained them they're total exhibitionists...if squirrels could smile i swear that's what they did, then they started humping...humping?! right in front of me...i'm like, for shame!...so i start backing off, they start making weird squirrel noises (gutteral groan/chirps), i run to the archives embarrassed, and now i'm blogging...

currenlty at work on an Elizabeth Robinson/ Kenneth Irby/ Robin Blaser reading at Naropa 6/ 14/ 03...

watched the hell out of the Olympics this weekend...check Jessica Smith's blog for cross-over Olympic obsession notes...

i sort of feel shady about it now...i stole a cute mini tumbler on satruday night from a sushi restaurant...

go to kasey's page for a polysemous take on the state of the poetry/publishing scene in its multiple incarnations...


that egomaniacal chump, Bodi Miller totally blew it on the downhill yesterday...poor Bodi...in other news, that lovable young short track skater Anton Apollo Ohno from Colorado Springs, bailed during the qualifiers yesterday afternoon...that sucks...speaking of Anton, have you seen that great Coca-Cola commercial where a bunch of guys in short track tights are lined up in a living room practicing their chant of "Ohno here comes Apollo, Oh Yes!" "Ohno here comes Apollo, Oh Yes!"...it's pretty great...

i really have to pee right now...i'll be back...

i'm so full of love...

sorry Joe Cooper for missing your reading tonight with Andrew Schelling and Anselm Hollo...i'm in one of those can't leave the apartment just gonna watch the Olympics moods...i'm sure you were fab...

submitted a bunch today...felt good, haven't done that for about 5 months...

mac dude fixed the i tunes, fixed the printer, fixed the hard drive, offered to fix him a whiskey while he worked but he declined...

the whole Bombay Gin bio thing is starting to get on my nerves...

the Olympics is the beat...sort of my favorite thing in the world...i get real patriotic in every good sense of the word, on the verge of weeping perpetually...it's like the World Series for 2 weeks...i remember during the Athens games i fell in love with Carli Patterson and wrote a slim poem cycle devoted/dedicated to her every move in the media...for instance, i found out that her teammates nicknamed her "Snarly" and her favorite book is Are You There God? It's Me Margaret...i wrote a poem about that...

the Feb. issue of BOTH BOTH should be done by the end of next week, and then mailing...by the way, the Jan. issue featured the work of Stephanie Young and Larry Kearney with cover art by Margaret Tedesco...per usual the next issue is a surprise to both you AND the writers included...go surprise...

finally met Noah Eli Gordon last night at his reading at Left Hand...but more on that in the coming days...


...currently listening to Octavius Audio Noir...

Fascicle 2!!!

hey guys, the second issue of Tony Tost's amazing mag Fascicle is out this afternoon...i have some translations of Demosthenes Agrafiotis' work included (http://www.fascicle.com/issue02/main/issue02_frameset.htm)...

Dear Friend,

You are invited to check out the second issue of Fascicle
(http://www.fascicle.com), an online journal that focuses on a global
and historical view of innovative poetry. Included in its 400+ pages:

* A portfolio of new poems from China edited by Zhang Er, from the
forthcoming Talisman Anthology of Chinese poetry. Focusing on poets born
since 1960, this portfolio also features some of the most interesting
contemporary poets as contributing translators, including Charles
Borkhuis, Caroline Crumpacker, Mark Wallace, Rachel Levitsky and Joseph
Donahue.

* A supplement to Jed Rasula and Steve McCaffery's Imagining Language
(MIT Press 1998), one of the most fascinating and distinctive
anthologies of recent memory. The supplement, compiled by Tony Tost, includes an
interview with Jed Rasula, as well as poetry, prose and art by Ronald
Johnson, Kurt Schwitters, Andre Breton, Edna Sarah Beardsley, Jacob
Boehme, Eugene Jolas and others.

* A selection of new collaborative work by Lyn Hejinian & Anne Tardos,
Aaron McCollough & Kent Johnson, Geraldine Monk & John Donne, Hank
Lazer & Pak, Brian Howe & Marcus Slease, among others.

* Critical essays and prose, including Lisa Jarnot on Robert Duncan;
Tom Orange on Clark Coolidge; Dodie Bellamy on Narrative & Body Language;
Laura Moriarty on A Tonalist Thinking; Clayton Eshleman on Hart Crane,
Andrew Joron & Jeff Clark; Stan Mir on Brian Kim Stefans; Nate Pritts
on Robert Penn Warren; Graham Foust on Poetry's Neighborly Enemy Mind;
Morgan Lucas Schuldt on Harryette Mullen; and more.

* Peter Cole interviewed by Leonard Schwartz.

* Visual work by Anne Tardos, Buck Downs, Cathy Eisenhower, and Michael
Winkler.

* Plays by Chris Vitiello and Andrew Schelling.

* Translations of Francis Ponge (tr. Serge Gavronsky), Laura Solórzano
(tr. Jen Hofer), Ernst Herbeck (tr. Gary Sullivan), Bertolt Brecht (tr.
Pauline Fan), Andrea Zanzotto (tr. Wayne Chambliss), Hans Thill (tr.
Tony Frazer), among others.

* Poetry and prose by Andrew Joron, Laura Moriarty, Lee Ann Brown,
Stephanie Young, Rodrigo Toscano, Brenda Coultas, JL Jacobs, Mary Burger,
Carl Martin, Matthew Henriksen, Brenda Iijima, Mairead Byrne, Lance
Phillips, and many others.


Hope you'll enjoy!

Sincerely,

Tony Tost


...currently listening to The Notwist Neon Golden...

...

i'll see you tonight at 8 at the Noah Eli Gordon/ Michael Friedman reading at Left Hand Books...

...i think i'm going to sign up for netflix if not just to finish the last season of Six Feet Under...oh, i also want to see Saw II...and am i the only one who's excited about Final Destination 3?...the first two were so much fun, horror that uses Rube Goldberg machine theory HAS to be a hoot!

...dream: i met John Elway by the bike cage next to my apartment, he told me he'd give me a new BMX bike if i tried out for kicker position on the Broncos...later on in the dream i was riding a BMX bike, i tried to cross Canyon St. but the chain fell off...

about 6 inches of snow this morning...beautiful outside...

...

hayessurprise25,
originally uploaded by John Sakkis.

instead of doing more of this...

...

hayessurprise15,
originally uploaded by John Sakkis.

i'm going to go meet Sabrina and do more of this...

it's sort of snowing outside...or, excessive blogging never did nobody no good...

okay! just got back from the bar where i got about 3 pages written on Celan's poem "Einmal" ("Once") from BREATHTURN(ATEMWENDE)...

Einmal,
da horte ich ihn,
da wusch er die Welt,
ungesehn, nachtlang,
wirklich.

Eins und Unendlich,
vernichtet,
ichten.

Licht war. Rettung.

translated by John Felstinger

Once,
I heard him,
he was washing the world,
unseen, nightlong,
real.

One and infinite,
annihilated,
they I'ed.

Light was. Salvation.

mostly investigating the second stanza's "ichten," or, "I'ed," with regards to what Pierre Joris calls in his introduction to his translation of Threadsuns, "word transformations..."

also, HUGE thanks to Andrew Joron for getting back to me so quickly on Celan's "ichten"...side note: i met Andrew when we were casted together in Kevin K.'s production (production? well, Poet's Theater SF anyways) of Jack Spicer's play "Troilus" (03')...i played Aeneas to Joron's_______(ooo i forget...for shame!)...we all wore red...that was really fun...

okay! two poems i wrote at the bar for Mouf...


so the stone was
silent too, it was
quiet on the left
—came, came big
on the right
along like nowhere
the right is pink
blooming wild/
no eyes, the cousins
God help us
they've got eyes
and meets another
the borrowed one
went into the
veil will recall
hang in front

...

not lost, yet
in spite of this
in their eyes
are and mouth
with glaciers
the Green-and-White there
I hear on this
underserved
the veil I
that was burning
on the stone where I
cousin, here we're
frozen I with
the Turk's-cap on left
you there we with
our sticks, our names
does intervene, but it's
the same the creature
has on on the left
those not loved
—who said "surging, glittering"
"coat and trousers"

...so i got home, had a message, from Sabrina Calle, she's at the bar...i'm not sure if i shoud venture back out...my mom sent me chocolates and toffee in the mail today for Valentine's Day...there's probably something good on primetime...esch...what is one to do?


...currently listening to nothing seeing that my itunes library is totally jacked...(mac guy tomorrow at 6:30 PM should fix that right up...he'd better, i'm paying a grip)

books! hip hop! translation! and depressing movies in the morning...

just some brick a brac...

1. never ever ever ever watch The Hours as the first thing you do in the morning...it's incredibly bleak and depressing albeit beautiful and will confusingly depress and uplift you all afternoon possibly into the night...
2. this afternoon while listening to Boulder 1190 and eating my lunch of smoked oysters in cottonseed oil i noticed an unusual number of shell bits...more than i've ever noticed before...made me feel like i was actually eating little animals rather than something out of a can...yum!
3. and speaking of Boulder 1190, it's sort of the best radio station i've ever had the pleasure of coming across...and it's hard for me to admit but WAY better than ANYTHING in the Bay Area...and yes, that includes KPFA, 90.1 and all the college radio stations...the difference is consistency...1190 is the beat all day...which is really hard to do...their dj's play really eclectic mixes, for example this afternoon i heard Too Short to Cat Power to The Fugs to Zion I to My Morning Jacket to some 60's soul to The Flying Lizards to to to to...i mean for God's sake that's a pretty great listening session (and not rare at all)...another thing, being a self admitted Bay Area snob, is that they seem to play a hell've a lot from the Bay...tons of Hip Hop FROM the Bay not even PLAYED in the Bay get plenty of air time in Boulder...just as an example, over the last two days i've heard songs from such Bay Area hip hoppers as Crown City Rockers, Zion I, Living Legends, Why?, Z-Man, Octavius, Doseone, Andre Nickatina, Heiro, Too Short et al. (!!!), if you're a fan of any of these groups you'd know what a strange pleasure it is to hear them on the radio...i love it...

...just as a side note to all those Bay Area marks who talk about "undergroud this/ underground that"...shhhhh...sorry, there is no underground anymore...at least not in hip hop...total vent...but people keep resurrecting the word to describe what they do without realizing that "underground" refers to a very specific moment in Bay Area hip hop...specifically Too Short's "out the trunk" (poetics? Ed Sanders and Too Short would probably get along), to Bas 1 (Style Elements) and the Mystik Journeymen putting it down at the 4001 warehouse in East Oakland and then on to The Outhouse...roughly the period of 91' to 99'...i was lucky enough to catch a bit of it (97'-99')...and then it ended...the Bay got really expensive (dotcom ad infinitum) and everyone moved away...LL gone, Peanut Butter Wolf gone, Mystik Journeymen gone, Shingo2 gone, M.O.S. gone, Safari gone, everybody moved away and took their labels with them...either downsouth or east for the cheap rents...so basically if you say "underground" you're chauncy...so there...

"we independent...independent as fuck/ we can walk into an A&R and say 'yo what's up'/ grab a pen Mystik Journeymen we wanna sign you/ 400,000 whatcha gonna do?/ i hit that fool in the head with my shoe!/ how do you suppose i sell my life away to you hoe's/ oh no!"
—Sunspot Jonz (imagine this being yelled though)


picked up some books for thesis reading:

1. Trilce- Cesar Vallejo trans. Clayton Eshleman
2. The Complete Posthumous Poetry- Cesar Vallejo trans. Clayton Eshleman
3. Selected Poems And Prose Of Paul Celan- Paul Celan trans. John Felstiner
4. Threadsuns- Paul Celan trans. Pierre Joris
5. Poems of Paul Celan- Paul Celan trans. Michael Hamburger
6. Paul Celan A Biography Of His Youth- Israel Chalfen
7. Self-Destruction- Laura Moriarity
8. The Penguin Book Of German Verse- ed. Leanord Forster

wow...that German Verse book...what a stinker...i checked it out because it was the only text not checked out or lost with work by Holderlin...published in 1957, in my own reading experience an absolutly dreadful decade for classics and pre-modern translations...for some reason translators/publishers got it into their collective pea-brain's that taking poetry and translating it into prose was a super idea...so with the Holderlin we end up with this...

Abendphantasie

Von seiner Hutte ruhig im Schattenn sitzt
Der Pfluger, dem Genugsamen raucht sein Herd.
Gastfreundlich tont dem Wanderer im
Friedlichen Dorfe die Abendglocke.


...being turned into this...

Evening Fantasy

The ploughman is sitting quietly in front of his cottage in the shade, the smoke goes up from the frugal man's hearth. In the peaceful village the evening bell is sounding a welcoming note to the traveller.

blegh...and no translator's name to give credit to...

off to the bar for Celan reading...

happy hour is happy...

kisses...

addendum...

wow! that was a really great talk...

...Graverholz was as gossipy as i'd hoped he would be...

...lot's about Billy Burrougs Jr.
...lot's about the infamous Rinpoche/ Merwin incident...i need to get ahold of Tom Clark's The Great Naropa Poetry Wars...

lot's about the infamous Boulderado Hotel...prostitutes, boozers, Alan Davies editing magazines from Le Bar downstairs (now the corner bar...where i go to work on my thesis...how romantic...)

"if you wanted to see a bunch of intellectuals drunk in the middle of the afternoon Le Bar under the Boulderado was the place to go..."
—James Graverholz

...also, where the half Brazilian half Jewish girl was staying...

lot's about Liquor Mart in its earliest days...

"where can i buy a 40 in this town...oh yeah Liquor Mart?!"
—James Graverholz

some names: John Steinbeck Jr. (yes THE Steinbeck's son), Margaret Kearney, Jim Jarmusch, Anne Waldman et al./ their relationship with Naropa in general and Billy Burroughs in specific...

...currently listening to Steve Benson over at Penn Sound...interrogative reading...ha, you like that? worked my new favorite word in...

"can everyone hear me/ can you hear my shirt ruffling"
—Steve Benson

polyglot...

woo hoo! Ann Hunter just brought over a gaggle of new tapes for me to dig into...here's what i've got going over the next week...

1. 6/17/03 lecture given by James Graverholz "Naropa: The Good ol' Days" (i'm doing this one today...sounded like fun)
2. 6/14/03 reading/ Bobbie Louise Hawkins introduces Robin Blaser/ Robin Blaser reads
3. 6/19/04 faculty reading/ Eleni Sikelianos introduces Eliot Katz/ Eliot Katz reads/ Jack Collom introduces Rachel Levitsky/ Rachel Levitsky reads
4. 6/19/04 faculty reading/ Eleni Sikelianos introduces Alan Gilbert/ Alan Gilbert reads/ Jack Collom introduces Laird Hunt/ Laird Hunt reads

i was at the latter two readings...my first SWP...

hop to it!

nothin' like a squirrel lunging at your head to wake you up in the morning...

...see, the gross hippies at Naropa (they're a few) like to feed the squirrels bagels and chips and curry and patchouli-stink, or whatever they have in their homemade fanny packs and/or stuck in their hair...so, the squirrels no no fear when it comes to humans...in fact they get down right ornery...it's scary, like this morning, i'm smoking a cig in front of the archives, i hear a noise above my head, i look up, they're two pissed off looking squirrels perched about a foot above me on the lowest branch of the tree...they're super ready to pounce...so i back off, one of the squirrels evidently looses interest but the other one jumps down from the tree and runs up on me/ totally stalking mode...i'm like "oh shit" so i start backing off...then it jumps on the picnic table next to me (mere inches!) and starts chirping it's scary chirp...so i run to the archives and lock the door behind me and now i'm here blogging...

this IS NOT my week...

i'm not even going to get into the computer stuff...seriously i was getting panic attacks last night...i had to read a bunch of Batman comics to calm me down...i'm finally giving in and droping $125 to have a mac specialist pay me a house call...just take the money dude and make all my computer problems go away...eck...

but there seems to be some sort of light at the end of the tunnel...Stephanie Young is burning me a bunch of new cd's (!!!)...

AND Justin Lacour over at Kulturevulture ( http://www.kulturevulture.org ) solicited me for some work for the next issue...that rocks...

oh yeah, i almost forgot, more bad, i woke up an hour early this morning for work...6:45 instead of 7:45...i only realized in the shower while listening to Prince Best Of The B-sides...

go to Stephanie Young's page for thoughts on blogging and flarf...

go to Pierre Joris' page for thoughts on the Muslim cartoon crises...

i'm going to smoke another smoke then start work (an hour early)...

i love you all, this has not been my week...

ps. i sort of sound like a dick when i say "solicited me for work" huh? i should just say "asked me for work..."

pps. to all the Bay Area homies (as if you didn't alreay know and need someone landlocked in Boulder to tell you), go see Brandon Brown read tonight at the Blue Danube in the Richmond...Larry Kearney's reading series...

ppps. i just smoked a cig without being threatened by hippie trained squirrels...looks like my luck might be turning around...

...

...finished Palmer's Sun yesterday afternoon...then read his The Circular Gates ('74 Black Sparrow Press) then read his The Danish Notebook ('00 Avec)...surprised at how well The Danish Notebook and Sun compliment each other...esp. for my thesis...esp. for the vague distinctions between the analytic lyric vs. the lyric analytic...also read a bit from The Middle English Lyric anthology put out by Oxford...and a bit of Jabes' The Book Of Questions...

...in an interview with Cross-Cultural Poetics radio host Leonard Schwartz (just after In The Company Of Moths was published) Palmer used the word interrogative to describe Jabes' work (book of questions duh)...that's the beat...and exactly the sort of adjective i was looking for to write about the DuPlessis/ Palmer Analytic Lyric...so, if that's okay with you i'm gonna steal that in part...

also watched a Pierre Joris reading from SF State's The Poetry Center 02 (?) this afternoon (i was at the reading) over Summer Sausage salami, sharp deli chedder cheese, homemade honey-mustard and a Fuji apple...nothin' like watching Pierre chop it up about Dante and Nimrod with a litttle honey-mustard zing in the mouth!

and because i have no computer at the moment (thanks Hot Whiskey for towing me up the hill!) i'm at the computer lab right now...though when i get my computer back it's going to be 10 times improved...i bought a bunch of new ram plus dudes are going to update all my software/firmware gratis...

also because i don't have a computer at the moment i've been getting some creative work done (on Mouf)...which hasn't happend since before the x-mas break (not totally true, just mostly)...and that's actually why i'm at the lab, not to blog, but to type/revise/print that new work...the bulk side of Mouf (that is, the untouched initial writing of it) is just about complete...possibly one more movement of about 15 pages then major reworking...Mouf is also my creative thesis so there's impetus...

...currently listening to the inimitable hum of 100 computers...

onward and outward!

okay...got the tiger X 4.3 OS...lo and behold, it's a DVD...lo and behold my disc drive doesn't support DVDs...so, i'm going to take my computer to the Mac Guys on the Hill where they will hook up an external firewire DVD drive and install for me ($70)...saving me $250 on buying my own firewire DVD drive...only thing is, i ride a skateboard...so, i'm going to get offline right now and call the Boulder folkers with cars to see if they feel like towing me and my gimpy ass computer up the hill...eh...eh...herm...why can't this all just be done with?

...currently listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan The Final Studio Recordings...

because i've been spending a lot of time with Kyger and Blaser...

swp122,
originally uploaded by John Sakkis.

Joanne signed my skateboard "hello from Bo"...

because i've been spending a lot of time with Kyger and Blaser...

swp80,
originally uploaded by John Sakkis.

my man!

currently...

at work digitizing a lecture delivered by Robin Blaser at Naropa June 27, 2001. Blaser's talk is focused on what he terms "cultural despair."

Blaser spends a lot of time discussing a bi-polar forgiveness vs. awareness poetics/philosophy...if you're aware of Blaser's recent preoccupations you'd know this has a LOT to do with Agamben...see his chapbook from Nomados, The Irreparable...not to be too histrionic but i remember reading The Irreparable a couple summer's back and nearly weeping my eyes out...i guess the vodka could've had something to do with that as well...whatever...

also a bunch on Arendt on Nietche with regards to the etymological pathetic...that is, in it's original meaning, to have "strong emotion"...this all has to do with Blaser's libretto in which he re-tells the story of the last supper and esp. Judas in the 20th century...

...and then a bit on Artaud's Theater Of Cruelty with regards to "shit of the spirit"...

a fantastic story of Blaser, Duncan and Spicer soliciting Laura Riding for poetry for a magazine during their Berkeley years...and Riding summarily writing back to the big three "give it up [poetry], it's a dead end," and then Blaser's "and she wouldn't even let us publish that!!!"...

and then coming at the end of the lecture, directed at Chip Delany, an obliquely weird quote "glossolalias are like raves i guess..."

i love Robin...i've never met a man so comfortable in his own skin...or someone so genuine he literally radiates love (see his wonderful essay/lecture "Language Is Love")...seriously, the man fucking glows with compassion...

...check out my interview with him in The Poker #5 (http://www.durationpress.com/thepoker/5.htm)...


...currently listening to Blaser and audience listening to a BBC recording of Blaser's libretto...

toot dat ole horn...

hey look what i found...an old review KK wrote about an old chapbook of mine (2002) posted on the University of Buffalo Poetics List...

"Can I recommend yet another book of new poetry? John Sakkis is a student
at the MFA Writing Program at SF State, and they must be teaching them
something right over there. Sakkis (whose name I think is pronounced with
an accent on the last syllable, like Weldon Kees) has written a book called
"He, Don Juan, a Translation," which didn’t sound too promising at first
light but which I have reread several times over the last few weeks, liking
it more each time. "He Don Juan" is a translation in a peculiar sense, it
re-makes the highly colored anthropology of Carlos Castaneda into a serial
poem in the Spicer tradition. At first it seems coincidence that Castaneda
and Spicer were working out of Berkeley at the same time, but as Sakkis
sees it isn't a coincidence exactly, more a form of magic. The poems are
dated with dates that remind me of the dates of composition of several of
Spicer's major works, from The Holy Grail through Language, and each is
"spoken" by the naif little pleasure-loving chump who, hypnotized by the
sorcerer Don Juan, becomes more and more like him in every way, until their
languages become interpenetrable and their existences rise into question
like so much marijuana smoke. There are some attractive drawings by
another local, SF artist Matthew Arnone. It's a book about apprenticing
oneself to a master and the risks that entails, risks emotional, physical,
financial romantic, pronomial. "We were in the morning. I felt I was
speaking 'I don't know,' then was saying 'I don't want it now,' he, don
Juan didn't speak. This is when I knew he was going to evade it, that
question, so I was waiting for him to mention it." There's a lot going on
in this work and I need the help of a whole team of field researchers to
help me decipher it. Ha ha, whatever it is that John Sakkis is on, I want
some of it. People who are interested in this book can send 5 dollars to
the publisher, Beets & Gasoline Press, 947 Geary Street #5, San Francisco,
CA, 94109. Tell them KEVIN KILLIAN sent you."

...currently listening to Non Prophets aka Joey Beats & Sage Francis Hope...

John Sakkis Exeunts Stage Persued by Leatherface...

...blegh...had my reoccuring nightmare last night...ever since i saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the first time when i was 14 i've had these "monster" nightmares involving Leatherface and his family of inbred-deformed-canabalistic goons...like last nights, they usually last all night and involve a complex story of the backwoods, pick-up trucks, logging camps, meat, meat-hooks, arm-hooks, aprons and chainsaws...i'm also usually with/ part of a group of people i don't recognize in my waking life though i seem to be close to in my unconscious life...most of them usually don't last the night...i usually survive...sometimes i don't...last night i did...

Go Steelers!...i'm going to say 27-13 Steelers...

(in a few hours) Pabst Blue Ribbon and Kentucky Fried Chicken here i come...


...currently listening to Nirvana MTV Unplugged In New York...

kill your blog...

seems as though Stephanie and Kasey are in the midst of it...

check out Stephanie's "50 Reasons To Kill Your Blog" here http://stephanieyoung.org/blog/#

...i slept really hard last night...and had disgusting nightmares due to that Dateline expose on child molesters (that WAY got into my head)...(non disgusting part of the dream) i remember picking roasted chest nuts off some kind of devistatingly tall conifer tree, the chestnuts were also figs though...

i think i may get dressed and go to work, make up those hours i lost on Thursday...if i do i'll let you know what i'm working on from there...if i remember, lot's and lot's of good stuff in the new box Ann brought to the office...

...Jeremiah and Akilah are coming over tomorrow for the Super Bowl, we're going to eat fried chicken and drink Pabst (gotta go pick up the 30 pack this afternoon/ CO is dry on Sunday's)...

...currently listening to Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral...

...

wow. she was half brazilian half jewish. she had amazing olive skin and beautiful long black hair. she was wearing super sneaks. super pants. she's was a NY'er via SF via Chicago. she was a New School MFA graduate. she was an alternative radio DJ. she played me one of her shows. we were into the same music. her last name was Sontag. she just got on an Amtrack train headed for Oakland.

...currently listening to Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine...

Brandon Brown looking sexy reading from My Life As A Lover at the translator's Symposium (House Of Literature Paros 05')

P1010353,
originally uploaded by John Sakkis.

Jack Kimball says some great things about Brandon's great book My Life As A Lover here:
http://pantaloons.blogspot.com/

...My Life As A Lover available for free downloads at the press site www.detumescence.com...

oof.ick.poof.ack.herm...eneutics...

okay! just got done (about an hour ago) with writing 5 pages of my thesis on this Michael Palmer poem from his 1974 book The Circular Gates...

The Whale

The whale
A jar disintegrates
or breaks. I pick up the pieces
of the second voice

and the other pieces
more slowly
since we're leaving
A blue marker

and a rounded Japanese
flower. The pieces
have almost disappeared
behind the key

I pick up the pieces
of one and three
They fit
as if they

were made for it
from a dark liquid
gone hazy at the edge
They fit

...i'm not going to talk about it anymore, i just wanted to post it...okay, well, basically i focused on Palmer's letting the poem unfold the subject with regards to Olson's notion of the "lyrical interference of the ego" and Palmer's own "It’s an act of dicipline of attention...incorporation of the immediate and the rupture of the single unitary voice, and the rupture of any unitary mode-tone, subject, and so on." (Pavement 7. Palmer)...boom...

so, broke down and finally ordered MAC OS X.3 Tiger from apple...i got it on student discount for 70 bucks...not bad...now i'll finally be able to print AND use my ipod...

now i must do a quick workout and then shower...

...currently listening to Neutral Milk Hotel In An Aeroplane Over The Sea...

2 1/2 men or 3 dreams...

first.

Murat Nemet-Nejat, me and Charlie Sheen are in Greece at the Paros translation Symposium...Murat and i are traveling to Istambul later that afternoon...we're all eating lunch (tabouli?) at three different round tables that are triangulated and over looking dramatic sea-cliffs (more Santorini than Paros in that respect)...i get up and pat Sheen on the back and say "hey Charlie" to which he replies "hey John, how you doin'?" to which i reply "i'm good Charlie, i'm real good..."

next.

Brandon Brown and i are wading through a submerged parking lot at SF State looking for my car (it is understood that i had left it there back in 2004 after i graduated)...we can't find it and decide it must have been either towed or stolen, we both agree that wading through the parking lot is not fun and decide never to do it again...

last.

this one was REALLY strange...something about Jesus Christ's crucifiction being a fiction proved by Jeremiah Bowen by using forensic evidence provided by the cross used for execution that was to the right of Jesus' own...i think Jesus (spirit/ ghost?) was in the dream, we were in a church, the crosses were small (about 3 feet tall), something about the Roman papacy trying to stop us from leaving the church (real Da Vinci Code)...and then, same dream i swear, something about Jeremiah and i argueing about what he thought he could and couldn't afford from Kentucky Fried Chicken for Super Bowl Sunday (this was all happening in the church in front of the Holy Ghost/ papacy)...

okay, refill coffee (first coffee in a week, tastes REALLY good, in lieu of coffee have been drinking hot water and lemon juice to soothe the throat, haven't had a smoke or whiskey since last Thursday, not really craving them either...but, i'm officially well as of this morning so abstinance is going to break...doncha just love these long parenthetical digressions?) then THESIS, THESIS, THESIS time...i'm going at it 5 pages a week this month...


...currently listening to Neu! Neu...