Books Read 2011

31. Loquela- Allyssa Wolf

It's Allyssa with 2 "l"'s...it's Mathew Timmons with one "t"...the first time I met Allyssa we shared a bottle of red wine outside of The Commons in SOMA. Allyssa is probably the most interesting poet in the Bay Area that nobody (at least Oakland coterie) talks about.

32. The Tower Of Babel- Jack Spicer

I read this in my car on my lunch break. I wish Spicer finished it...the kitchen scene with the drunk Zen monk taking the piss out of the overeager white intellectuals had me in stitches.

33. Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury

I like how Bradbury presaged the iPod with the omnipresent "seashell" earbuds. Not so much the State did this to us as, look what we did to ourselves. Sometimes people stare at my cellphone with a bewildered look on their face, "how do you get by without a smart phone?"..."how do you know where you're going?!". I was talking with Anna Moschovakis about all this, not being on Facebook is not a heroic act, it's just, choosing not to pay attention to all of that anymore.

34. Night- Elie Wiesel

I read this at Heart & Dagger after an all day skate session at Lakeshore Elementary. It was overcast, I was drinking Trumer, I think I landed my first heel flip that day.

35. Luba- Gilbert Hernandez

see Attention Span 2011

36. Sulfur #6

Hey, Mikey likes it!

37. Chariots Of The Gods?- Erich Von Daniken

Fun bathroom book in a Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls early-70s kitschy charm/ picked up a copy for a nickel at the Goodwill on a lazy Sunday kind of way. And then suddenly in 2011 we have the History Channel's mostly ridiculous Ancient Astronauts program plus Ridley Scott inexplicably basing a lot of his Alien prequel'ish Prometheus on Von Daniken Ancient Astronaut theory. (Have you seen the Prometheus trailer? It's so so good, I get chills thinking about it, watch it HERE)

38. Acts #5

see Attention Span 2011

39. The Anatomy Of Oil- Marcella Durand

Actually, remember a couple posts back where I was being kind of snarky about oddly shaped books? I think this is actually the book I had in mind. Is this a Belladonna book? I think I remember the cover as being oppressively white. Isn't this the book with the beautiful typset rings running throughout the text? Or was that just on the cover. Marcella Durand is one of 4 or 5 people who wrote very popular poetry books within the last 5 years to have the word "Weather" in the title.

40. Selected Short Stories- D.H. Lawrence

Oh boy, is all of Lawrence like this? (kind of want to flip the script and call him D.H. (sometimes I forget how the phrase goes and say "flip the switch")) cause this shit was capital B B.o.r.i.n.g. I think every story ended in a wedding. I think someone's sister died in every story. I'd rather have a mosquito bite on top of a staph infection on my eardrum that read another D.H. story.