hot damn Sam Jells (nee Samantha Giles)!!! upcoming SPT Calendar just announced...

and check out me and Norma on NOV. 14th...and in case you missed it i made it bold and fuckin' huge...

"Dear Friends of Small Press Traffic,

While somewhat nestled in our foggy beds for the summer, SPT has been working diligently to once again create a season of programming to amaze, mystify, inspire and delight you.

As you well know, for over 35 years SPT has been at the heart of where experimentation and community intersect. This season we are excited to present what we're thinking of as a multi-pronged conversation. Components of this conversation include: class/warfare; translation; performance, and the Inverted I (which addresses memoir, lyric, identity). In addition, this season will feature the launch of Dialogues, talks and writing laboratories presented by visiting readers. Our hope is that a heightened sense of debate and investigation will ensue. You don’t want to miss it.

Our lineup is planned as follows:

Friday, September 11, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

CA Conrad and Frank Sherlock on Class/Warfare

Saturday September 12, 2009 at 1p.m

Dialogues with CA Conrad and Frank Sherlock: The New American Hybrid (co-sponsored by Non Site Collective)

Friday, September 18, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Brandon Brown and David Larsen on Translation

Saturday September 19, 2009 at 1p.m.

Dialogues with David Larsen: Translation as Conceptual Writing Practice

Friday, September 25, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Anne Tardos and Amina Cain on the Inverted I

Saturday September 26, 2009 at 1 p.m.

Dialogues with Anne Tardos: Mono- multi- and neolingual aspects of literary composition

Saturday, October 10, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

THE SMITH FAMILY: a play by Kevin Killian and Craig Goodman on Performance

Friday October 16^th, at 7:30 p.m.

An evening with Renee Gladman on the Inverted I

Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Kate Greenstreet and Brian Teare on the Inverted I

Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Mark Nowak, Reid Gomez and Rachel Loden on Class/Warfare

Friday, November 14, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Norma Cole and John Sakkis on Translation

Thursday November 19, 2009

Dialogues with Gail Scott: A Talk on Narrative and Identity

Co-sponsored with University San Francisco

Friday, November 20, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Gail Scott and Bruce Boone on the Inverted I

Friday, December 4, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Carla Harryman and Alan Bernheimer on Performance

Saturday December 5, 2009 at 1p.m.

Dialogues with Carla Harryman: Language and listening in performance

Friday, December 11, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Fred Moten and Steve Dickison on Performance

Our Fall 2009 season will, of course, will begin after you've been wow-ed by the brilliance of Bill Luoma's Oakdish (held before and during an Oakland As game at the Oakland Coliseum) on August 22nd, for which there are still spaces. Visit oakdish.blogspot.com for more information or sign up at smallpresstraffic@gmail.com.

It should go without saying that there is not better time to become a member of SPT. As we push to make it through another year with it's own set of unique funding challenges, and hear of a different arts organization each day that closes its doors, we are heartened by the fact that it is our community that will sustain us.

If you value SPT and the incredible writers we showcase, show your support by becoming a member (or, if you already are, by making an additional donation) today.

I am humbled and honored to be a part of Small Press Traffic. I hope you are too.

See you soon!
Samantha

CHICAGO POEM by Lew WELCH for Logan Ryan SMITH on the eve of his departure from SF to CHI...

"I lived here nearly 5 years before I could
meet the middle western day with anything approaching
Dignity. It's a place that lets you
understand why the Bible is the way it is:
Proud people cannot live here.

The land's too flat. Ugly, sullent and big it
pounds men down past humbleness. They
Stoop at 35 possibly cringing from the heavy and
terrible sky. In country like this there
Can be no God but Jahweh.

In the mills and refineries of its south side Chicago
passes its natural gas in flames
Bouncing like bunsens from stacks a hundred feet high.
The stench stabs at your eyeballs.
The whole sky green and yellow backdrop for the skeleton
steel of a bombed-out town..."

gonna miss you dude...wish you weren't going...good luck in that "bombed-out town"!

RUDE GIRL page is up...book available soon.

DOPPELGANGER SORT OF...

doesn't this kind of look like a circa 2003 Logan Ryan Smith doppelganger? apparently it's a portrait of some novelist named Kirk Curnutt...sounds like a fake name.

UPDATE: maybe it's just the Matrix glasses...

i got six out of ten Rorschach Test answers (the most common) incorrect...below are the images i misidentified (according to the most common answers)...under each image is my answer, followed by the most common answer in parenthesis...i wasn't trying to be clever with my answers...just honestly identifying what first came to mind...

woman in fur coat (correct: animal hide)
wizard casting spell (correct: crab/spider/lobster)
respiratory system (correct: animal)
robot bunnies (correct: human heads)
man lying down (correct: animal skin)

i think my answers make way more sense...and i have no idea how #3 is supposed to look like an "animal"...i think the closest i got was #4 with my "robot bunnies" resembling their "human heads," only those "human heads" very obviously have "bunny ears," so why would anyone respond with "human heads" and not with "bunny heads?" humans don't have ears like that... and even more to the point why wouldn't they respond with "robot bunnies" because for real, those look like synthetic-factory-made-having-a-staring-contest-robot-bunny-heads...

...the hell?

BART (photo by Jay)

RUDE GIRL COVER PREVIEW!!!

(click to enlarge)

here's the cover to my forthcoming book Rude Girl...

publisher tells me it should be out by the end of August! the photo is titled "Anna, 2006" by the amazing Ian Whitmore from his Channels series...and the cover design is by Matthew Arnone...

and i love it...

...tomorrow...

hey there, i'm DJ'ing at DALVA tonight at 10...stop on by! 3121 16th and Mission...

Carl: yeah, you know those Six Flags commercials with the old guy dancing around with the Corrado Soprano glasses...?

Jason: yeah...

Carl: yeah, that's me...

Jason: i don't...

Carl: like, that's me, i'm that guy...i'm a dancer and...

Jason: that's...

Carl: no i know...it's fucked up...

UNIVERSITY FALLS for STEPHANIE YOUNG

UPDATE AGAIN: THIS PHONE IS REALLY CRAPPY...CAN'T DEAL WITH IT...GOING BACK TO THE STORE TODAY TO GET A BETTER ONE. WISH THEY STILL SOLD RAZR'S.

UPDATE: I HAVE A NEW SHITTY LITTLE PHONE THAT COST 70 DOLLARS LESS THAN MY NOW OBSOLETE MODEL RAZR...SO TEXT ME YOUR NUMBER WITH YOUR NAME SO I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

MY PHONE IS DEAD...NEED TO GET ANOTHER ONE TODAY AFTER WORK...SPENDING HELLA MONEY I DON'T HAVE...HOORAY! IF YOU NEED TO GET A HOLD OF ME, EMAIL AT MERKONEUS@YAHOO.COM...YES I'M YELLING.

recently read...

1. The Complete Poems Of Cavafy- trans. Rae Dalven

2. The Space Of Half An Hour- Keith Waldrop

3. Lives Of The Poets [Congreve To Gray]- Samuel Johnson

4. The Sandman The Wake- Neil Gaiman

5. American Born Chinese- Gene Luen Yang

6. Collected Poems- George Oppen

7. This Eating And Walking At The Same Time Is Associated All Right- Leslie Scalapino

8. Utopic- Claudia Rankine

9. The Woman Who Could Read The Minds Of Dogs- Leslie Scalapino

10. 23 Chromosomes- Sara Larsen

11. Try- December

12. El Tsunami- Kevin Opstedal

13. The Climax Forest- Peter Culley

14. The Wasteland And Other Poems- T.S. Eliot

new roommate, welcome home STEVE!

voice mail: what does "to page this person, press 5 now..." even mean? has anybody ever tried it? what happened? i don't know, makes me nervous...

okay, speaking of FASHION (cause that's what poets are talking about this week...hi Brandon, Nada, Laura and Lindsey) have y'all checked out David HIGHSMITH'S flickr?
cause THAT'S FASHION...David tells me that he has a couple hundred more photos forthcoming...

FASHIONFASHIONFASHIONFASHIONFASHIONFASHION

HELLO LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE'RE THE TRANSLATORS AND WELCOME TO FUUUUNLAND!!! A-1-2-3-4!!!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

celebrity musician / poet doppelganger thingy...

Brian WEITZ



and

Ara SHIRINYAN