BOTH BOTH

Books Read 2011

2012-01-27T11:20:00.000-08:00

16. Meditations In An Emergency- Frank O'Hara

Hands down probably my favorite episode of Mad Men.

17. New Yipes Reader #4 edited by Rachel Levitsky/ Bill Luoma

I think Rachel was sick at this reading. I met Rachel at Naropa in 2005. I should say, Laura Jaramillo and I met Rachel at Naropa in 2005. For a while there I thought I was going to be the first boy published by Belladonna. I wrote a play with Laura that Summer. We gave it to Rachel hoping she would love it so much she would Belladonna the hell out of it. That didn't work out. Laura and I used to drink coffee on The Hill every day after class. The Streets were in town playing the Fox Theater. Laura and I were drinking coffee when Mike Skinner walked through the door. I said "ay, Mike Skinner...," he turned around and smiled at us. When I first got to Boulder I used to skateboard around town with a "small guy" of vodka in my backpack. I got so many bloody noses.

18. Laws- Jen Hofer

I hate oddly shaped books. I like book arts but hate oddly shaped books. I should say I hate oddly shaped books when it comes to my own library. I don't mind oddly shaped anything if I'm not the one having to figure out where to place it on a book shelf. Jen Hofer rides her bike in LA. It says so in all her bios.

19. Combo #8

Undoubtedly good cover.

20. Fourteen Hills Vol.9 #1

Blue and black MUNI transfer pass cover? And then there's that new lit mag called TRNSFR (or something like that), even though there already is a lit mag called Transfer (see Aesop Rock/ A$AP Rocky controversy). True story, for the longest time (oh, 2 months or so) I had no idea how to pronounce MSTRKRFT, I think in my head I was saying "Mister Cre-Foot"...and then Matthew Arnone started saying "OMG" and Brandon Brown started listening to tween pop music and saying "LOL" and Logan moved to Chicago to get away from it all, and Steve ORTH got married.

Books Read 2011

2012-01-26T10:17:00.000-08:00

11. Broadway 2- ed. James Schuyler/ Charles North

I think I thought this was a rare item when I bought it from Green Apple back in 2001. I knew James Schuyler was a rare item, I knew that he only gave like 3 readings throughout his entire life, one of them being a late, odd Poetry Center solo reading (late 90s?). I remember feeling really uncomfortable while watching my dubbed VHS copy of that reading on my TV/VCR-in-one. Jimmy seemed a bit overwhelmed, walking to microphone, not acknowledging the audience at all, never looking up from the page, and then after concluding his reading, exiting as suddenly as he started. It was baffling, I didn't know what to think. And then later with more biographical context, it made a lot more sense.

12. Live Girls- Beth Nugent

I bought this in 1999 at a DVC Bookstore clearance sale, snagged this one and a book called Formosa Straights for a dollar each. This was a fairly terrible book and I have nothing else to say about it. Oh, well, I liked the yellow cover.

13. Rosemary Stretch- Betsy Fagin

"Betsy" is a pretty good name, in the key of "Ruth" or "Bernice," something very F. Scott Fitzgerald about it. Every time I see "Rosemary Stretch" I think of Rosemary Griggs. Did you know that Rosmarie Waldrop spells her name "Rosmarie"? Every time I type her name I pronounce it in my head like "Ross-Marie"...

14. Sulfur #4

I remember Clayton's wife Caryl combing his hair for him right before he was set to take the stage at a Poetry Center reading back in 2002 (?). It wasn't a reading actually, it was a slide-lecture about Ice Age cave art in Southwestern France. I feel like it was an evening event, it was dark outside. I started reading Eshleman in earnest this year after being blown away by the "6 Writers On Eshleman" section in Temblor #6. I would like my wife to comb my hair in the presence of strangers someday. I would like to see Ice Age cave art someday. I really hated Herzog's Cave Of Forgotten dreams.

15. Combo #7

Every time a new issue of Combo would appear in the bathroom Steve Orth would say "ANOTHER issue of Combo?!" And I'd say "yep..." Combo had some of the best covers in the game.

2012-01-26T08:32:00.001-08:00

I may have eaten too much quiche.

2012-01-25T17:36:00.000-08:00

"Here's what I got from your profile:
I thought/think you're attractive but as I scanned through your photos I thought you may be bi/gay (which is totally fine, just confusing for the category of straight men seeking women). Then I clicked on your name and its bothboth...bi/gay vibe again
you've also got other men in all your pics. there's also a pic of you with a lady...is this a sister or an ex? I'm just sayin' it's confusing for us gals on the other side.
Also, it's sort of red flaggish the stuff with your brother...is there room in your life for a girl or is it a package deal? Does your brother go out with you on your dates?
As you can tell from my profile, I'm sort of in a cunt phase so you can message me back with any sort of retaliation you feel necessary. I just thought/think you're a good looking guy with something going on but may not entirely see/care how your profile in interpreted by us ladies.
As for my profile, I could give a shit about this site and I'm also aware of all my shortcomings but whatevs...let er rip
Best
v"

Books Read 2011

2012-01-25T10:58:00.000-08:00

6. The Daily Mirror- David Lehman

I once wrote a pretty terrible book called Quotidian. I once titled a pretty terrible book a pretty terrible title, "Quotidian." I can't remember if it was David Lehman or Bernadette Mayer who inspired me to write this terrible book. I'm pretty sure it was Mayer's 3:15 Experiment (a book I wanted to like a lot more than I did when I got around to reading it), though it could have been The Daily Mirror. That being said, The Daily Mirror was better than The Last Avante-Garde, but maybe equally horribly titled. Currently listening to !!! Louden Up Now.

7. Tract- Jon Leon

Jon used to edit a magazine called Wherever We Put Our Hats. I believe we traded a copy of BOTH BOTH for a copy of WWPOH back in the day. I was living in Boulder while Jon was living in SF. When I moved back to SF Jon moved to Georgia (maybe). I think Tract is from the first Dusie Kollectiv, of which I was also a participant. I don't think this is the book with the extremely-large-though-natural-looking-breasts-70s-porn woman on the cover. I believe Jon runs a marketing company for chapbook presses. Somebody recently mentioned Jon's name while formulating ideas around the "Boyesque." I should say that I like Jon's writing a lot. Last I heard Jon was working in the fashion industry in New York City.

8. Combo #6

Tod McCarty never aired my King Lear vs. Boom Bip mix on KGNU 88.5FM.

9. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy And Its Consequences- John Allen Paulos

I think I borrowed this book from my Dad in the 80s. There are roughly 5 billion people living today, every person has around 1 gallon of blood (women and children less), (5 x 10 to the 9th) = 5 billion gallons of blood. 7.5 gallons per cubic foot, so we get 6.7 x 10 to the 8th cubic feet of blood. The cube root of 6.7 x 10 to the 8th is 870. Thus, all the blood in the world would fit into a cube 870 feet on a side. And here's where it gets cool, "Central Park in New York has an area of 840 acres. If a wall were built around it, ALL THE BLOOD IN THE WORLD would cover the park to a depth of something under 20 feet." Don't try using this "all the blood in the world" business in a poem, I've already done it...

10. Visions Of The Daughters Of Albion- William Blake/ edited by Robert N. Essick

When I moved back to SF Brandon Brown asked me what it was about Blake that I liked so much. I think I said something about Cosmology, Contrariness, Politics, Myth, I might have mentioned something about the illuminated plates. In other words, I had a really hard time articulating what I loved about Blake. I have a hard time talking about anything I really like though. I can go on and on about how silly hats look on girls, or about how much I hate "street art" but ask me why I love George Oppen and I'm suddenly tongue tied. I was thinking of getting a Daughters Of Albion tattoo for a while, but realized that the piece would probably turn out looking like a pastel colored smear more than anything else...

Books Read 2011

2012-01-23T12:02:00.000-08:00

1. The Complete Poems 1927-1979- Elizabeth Bishop

Didn't I read somewhere in the recent past that EB was recognized by some committee somewhere in America to be the most important artist of the 20th Century? And by "artist" they meant The Whole Art: painting, writing, sculpture, movies et al. Am I making this up, misprision? This is that big pink book, I read this on my lunch break in my car. I hated this book. It wouldn't end. If there is one thing I really regret about college it's all the "complete works" books that I was forced to purchase (and now read). A lot of lounging around Brazil commenting on the indigent...The Fish is still a fun poem, "...coarse white flesh/ packed like feathers" is a fascinatingly disgusting image in the key of knee surgery or David Cronenberg. Kevin Killian recently participated in some kind of art show based on the work of Elizabeth Bishop (I missed it because my Gmail calendar was acting the Luddite), I wrote him at the time that I was having a hard time slogging through the Complete Poems, he didn't write me back.

2. There Are People Who Think That Painters Shouldn’t Talk A Guston Book- Patrick James Dunagan

I was walking down to Amber (now The Residence) with my brother (maybe), spotted Dunagan at the Church and Duboce MUNI tracks, was like "eeeeh yoooo..." and Patrick was all "oh, heeeey, man..." and then we bear hugged and vigorously shook hands (Dunagan has this great thing where his whole face lights up with smiles, his face turning beet-red)...I said "hey congrats on your book!" and he goes "what do you mean?" and I'm like "the Post-Apollo book...Lindsey told me they're going to do it..." and Dunagan is all "oh really? I haven't heard that...oh shit, seriously?" and I'm like "yeah that's kind of weird...no one told you?!" and he's like "I haven't heard anything...I mean, I gave them something to look at..." and I'm all "yeah dude, it's a done deal, they're doing the book...congrats" and he goes "awesome, but just in case it's not a done deal, I'm not going to get too excited..." and me "get excited, your book is a GO" and him "okay, I'm excited, but cautiously..." and me "ok..." and him "ok..."...

3. The Grand Piano Part 10

Brent Cunningham has a new book on Atelos called Journey To The Sun. I highly recommend it.

4. Area Sneaks #2

Joseph Mosconi and I spent a week together in Greece. We shared a room. I was in a miserable state. Mosconi spent a week listening to me vent about girls and relationships and fuckery...Mosconi even took walks with me through old Greek graveyards like a real mensch. Mosconi and I drank a lot of coffee together and I drank a lot of beer by myself. I swam in the Mediterranean a lot and didn't eat very much. Susan Gevirtz and Steve Dickison were also there, and along with Mosconi they handled my funk with compassionate aplomb. God I was such a bummer that summer. Here's a photo of Gevirtz, Me and Mosconi (photo by Dickison) on Paros (right before my backpack was swept out to sea only to be found the next morning by Thanasis Maskaleris during his morning swim, contents of backpack, destroyed...).

5. Temblor #4

Temblor is growing on me, sort of. Steve Dickison mentioned something about Temblor during my and Anna Moschovakis's Open Workshop at SFSU. About how the magazine was great because of how inclusive it was, lot's of different schools, lot's of personalities. I had to check myself, I'd never looked at Temblor that way, it had always seemed so safe in the kind of experimental literature it showcased (thus, really predictable and boring). So I'm trying to pay a more historical kind of attention while reading, hopefully it'll liven up the experience, cause I own, and am obligated to read, all 10 issues.

2012-01-22T19:44:00.000-08:00

Congrats New York Giants, I'll be rooting for you in the Superbowl.

But mostly congrats you Brooklyn busters, hey Jay Slack...

Go Giants, I guess...who cares though really, when does Spring Training start again?

Go San Francisco Giants!

xo

2012-01-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

Pappou's lucky 1980's era 49ers baseball hat...today, I eat fried chicken. Go 49ers...

And a smile for my Mom, hi mom!

2012-01-20T08:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Morgan. I can't tell if you're human or not. See you tonight.

2012-01-19T21:20:00.000-08:00

I'm not a gear-head I just floss a lot...

$11 Walgreen's Frank Gore t-shirt, pre dropping the girls off at the airport purchase...

Hello Law And Order SVU, Hello Peacock Lounge, Hello did you know that Shel Silverstein wrote "A Boy Named Sue," Hello first storm of the season.

2012-01-19T15:21:00.000-08:00

Who Dat Sunnylyn Thibodeaux!

What's the word, Avery Burns?

Ahoy, Erica Lewis, how you feelin'?

Oh hey, 'sup Julien Poirier...?

2012-01-19T08:25:00.000-08:00

oh hey look, this guy is blogging exactly like me...

sort of like when someone on that same site started doing "Literary Doppelgangers"...

I don't care about the weather.

Men are not The Problem.

When it comes to getting naked, always let the girl set the pace.

Here is a list of the 3 non-awkward poets I know:
1. John Sakkis
2. Susan Gevirtz
3. John Coletti

Last night, after downing a double Dickel and pickle juice, ORTH...

Alice Notley is such a fucking shaman.

People who over use the word "problematic"...

If you ever find yourself at a Pupuseria with a pretty girl, order the pupusas.

And here are some photos from last weekend.

2012-01-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

And here are two photos of me jubilant in front of Kazwell's giant pull down movie screen right after the 49ers beat the Saints in the last 13 seconds of the game. I wept a little then called my Dad. I mean, you're a cold and prickly person if you didn't find yourself getting a little weepy watching Vernon Davis make that cinematic, once in a generation game winning Catch, and then run over to the sidelines in little boy tears looking for head coach Jim Harbaugh where they man-bear hug embrace as the crowd goes absolutely bananas. I mean Jesus, have you seen the video, you should watch it if you haven't, here, I'm posting it below, watch it and weep...amazing.

2012-01-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

Hey look, here's an old photo of me from high school. I think this was Junior Year, so 1997? I'm not posing, I was having a terrible day...Billy (photographer) snuck up on me (he thought fightin'-Johnny-face was hilarious), stuck his camera in my grill and took the photo, then ran away for his life...

Plus, check out that sweet sweet Harry Osborne hair (+ chin strap beard!)...

2012-01-14T10:34:00.000-08:00

Plans For The Day:

1. 49ers
2. Early afternoon beers
3. Listen to 4 Soundgarden albums in a row
4. Eat a cheeseburger
5. 200 crunches

"I'm lookin' Californi-aaaaaaaa/ And feelin' Minnesot-aaaaaa/ Oh GHYEAAAAAA!"
—Soundgardern

Oh and hey, check out new Books Read 2011 postings from

Jason Morris

Sam Lohmann

Zack Haber

Nicholas James Whittington

2012-01-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

Christa is probably the worst name ever invented right?

I keep buying Creme Brulee coffee creamer thinking it's NOT going to taste like Gak (TM) this time around.

My friends are putting on a comedy about people who says things like "...Imperial Capitalist American Society and its inherent white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity..."...this Sunday at CounterPULSE.

I can't tell if I have gas or my liver is slowly exploding.

My dear Mom keeps calling me from Coscto asking if I want any fried chicken.

Can't believe there's not a Tumbler called "Hipster Girls Reading Joan Dideon"...

Last night I dreamt I was in Brooklyn, the only thing I packed were cadet caps and Forest Green turtle necks.

I can't believe we go to work everyday.

2012-01-11T13:32:00.000-08:00

Check out the new hammers over at Books Read 2011 blog...

Micah Ballard

John Bloomberg-Rissman

Patrick James Dunagan

Amy Berkowitz

Christie Ann Reynolds

Brian Ang

Nathaniel Otting

(if you'd like to contribute hit me up at john.sakkis@gmail.com)

2012-01-05T18:12:00.000-08:00

Hello people who read this blog, the new issue of BOTH BOTH is printed, collated and ready for love. This issue features two of my favorite poets, the bright and shinning star that is Rodney Koeneke paired and complimented by the enigmatic true Berkeley-blood wonder child Julien Poirier.

You know the deal, limited copies, no reprints, always free. So if you'd like a copy shoot me an email at john.sakkis@gmail.com, I'll be more than happy to send one along.

Currently listening to Nirvana Unplugged, contemplating white wine and John Schlesinger's Marathon Man. Salud!

2012-01-02T17:16:00.000-08:00

That's a photo of my new Bianchi San Jose. I just got back from my first ride around Uptown Oakland. I arrived back home with a tall Anchor and a tall Rouge Northwestern Beer. Now I'm going to watch the last 5 episodes of Bleak House.

Yesterday, after watching the 49ers win and then drinking leftover keg beers in a ghetto ass backyard in West Oakland, I headed to the City to hang out with a house full of hungover ass lesbians and 1 straight girl. We watched Scream, and Jeepers Creepers, and 16 Candles and the beginning of some movie staring Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried. I had no idea what was going on, from what I could surmise, Julianne Moore hired Amanda Seyfried to seduce her husband to see if he would cheat on her (who wouldn't with Amanda Seyfried though?), but then while Amanda Seyfried is seducing the husband, Julianne Moore realizes that she is in fact falling in love with Amanda Seyfried, but then Amanda Seyfried goes and spoils the whole thing by having sex with Julianne Moore and husband's son. I had to leave after that.

Today I drank Blue Bottle coffee from the Blue Bottle store for the first time, then walked around Hayes Valley for a bit. Then went and picked up Julia and Ashley and went for "breakfast" (it was 2:30pm) over at St. Frances. Inexplicably there was more than a lot of talk of placenta, Diva Cups (???), and last night's dreams, sheesh, girls right? I had the patty melt with mayo on the side.

RE: New Year's Eve, this is part of an email I wrote Orth and Otting:

"Morning Nathaniel, Steve,

...At this point it's around 11:38PM, I'm making my way across the courtyard, I stumble on a badly placed lounge chair, I pick up the lounge chair to move it to a less badly placed location so no one else might stumble, as I'm moving the chair I walk right into a small potted cactus plant dangling from a tree brach. I took the cactus to my mouth. It hurts. I reach up to my mouth with my fingers, touch my lips, and feels dozens of little cactus stingers sticking out of my lips. Fuck. It's almost midnight now and I need to find pretty-girl ___ so we can have a midnight kiss, but my mouth is full of cactus stingers. I grab my friend Brett, point at my mouth and beg for a helping hand, she laughs, says "oh shit Johnny," takes me aside into the light and very carefully, over about 5 minutes, goes about pulling and pinching all those goddamn cactus stingers out of my now puffy lips. It's kind of funny at this point, kind of. I make my way over to ___, light a couple sparklers, the whole courtyard on the countdown, happy new year, fun fun fun bright sparkly puffy lipped makeout to ring in 2012. Go 49ers."

another celebrity/ poet doppelganger thingy...

2011-12-31T08:30:00.000-08:00

Mickey AVALON

and

Frank O'HARA

2011-12-28T16:47:00.000-08:00

My friends say that I think I'm too cool for Santacon. Let it be known, I am too cool for Santacon.

2011-12-23T15:20:00.000-08:00

Christmas came early today. Derek Fenner of Bootstrap Press very graciously sent over some swag: the brand new, very lime-colored Bootstrap EYEFORMATION STUDIO designed t-shirt and canvas tote bag. Also, the now out of print I'm pretty sure book of John Wieners ephemera A Book of Prophecies. And the coup de grace, the very limited edition A New Book From Rome by John Weiners, this thing is stunning, check the deets, "High quality sewn hardcover • Scarlet cloth • Gilt-stamped on upper board and spine • Printed on library-quality paper • Small Quarto (5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches) • 160 Pages • Edition limited to 258 numbered copies • Three unpublished photographs of John Wieners • Includes ephemera"...

Heck yes right?

Oh and, while out Christmas shopping for my Mom today I found this awesome double VHS set of Hellraiser and Hellraiser II Hellbound for only $1. Forgone conclusion that I had to have it, so Merry Christmas Sakkis, more Hellraiser swag to add to your collection.

2011-12-21T08:10:00.001-08:00

B. Brown/ J. Coletti 2011

2011-12-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

a very long dream involving Anna Moschovakis, Rita Gonzalez, making Joseph Mosconi laugh, sculpture and a river.

Ended up on the 21st floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel at Harry Denton's Starlight Room Sunday night. Here's a photo I took of Union Square from the bar.

W. Herzog's Cave Of Forgotten Dreams was horrible.

2011-12-19T10:30:00.001-08:00

2011-12-15T17:54:00.000-08:00

Kevin Killian came up with a plan he hoped would help Dunagan and Downing reconcile over Thanksgiving dinner. Inspired by a pep talk he once heard Steve Orth give, Steve D. decided to continue his legacy. After overhearing a private conversation Micah Ballard was having, Sabrina Calle lit into her sister again about causing her recent problems. Downing hatched a scheme to show Dodie how "happy" he and Saidenberg were. Dodie tried to get out of spending the holiday with her family, knowing Downing and Saidenberg would be there, and she was furious when Kevin Killian demanded she reconcile with the couple. Susan showed up at dinner with Coletti, with whom Micah Ballard hoped to bury the hatchet. The rest of the family couldn't help notice rising tensions between Allyssa and Kenower, but Saidenberg and Dodie rekindled some loving feelings during a stolen moment alone.

2011-12-13T19:47:00.001-08:00

2011-12-12T08:30:00.001-08:00

My niece Marina is probably the most eccentric, hilarious, smart and fantastically weird little kid I've ever met. This is her Dear Santa letter...

"Dear Santa,

In this time of year, my family believes in
you and we all think you are a great person, going
off in the middle of the night and giving
presents to those who have been good. And, speaking of
that, would it be OK with you if I could have
a remote-controlled spy cam with a full-color
LCD video screen, a child-sized microscope, and
a NASA-Developed ant habitat, with delivered
ants? Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Love Marina,
P.S. If all of that is too expensive, just give me
the car. Thanks Santa!"

2011-12-11T21:18:00.000-08:00

wouldn't it be neat if humans turned gold in their "golden years"...?

and here's a few excerpts from a high school English class journal, I was 15-16, I got suspended 2 or 3 times for subject matter. Rereading the journal now I get the feeling that I was an asshole back then. I kind of was, but with a big heart. My sister is a high school teacher now. I'd like to apologize to Ms. T for putting her through hell with this journal, but still sort of feel like she got what was coming to her for making me read My Antonia.

"OCT 28th

This weekend I went to a party. While me and my friends were walking to the warehouse this guy ran up on us from out of nowhere, I could see that he had a gun. He asked my friends for money and when they said no he pistol whipped _____ in the face. They ran off so I was left alone with this crazy dude. He put the gun in my belly and said "give me your money motherfucker" I lied and said "I don't have any," he ran off yelling "what is this a fuckin' skinhead concert?"

"NOV 27th

Today is my birthday and so far I have gotten 2 packs of Skittle's and 15 dollars of gift certificate to Tower Records. It's the best birthday because I love Skittle's. No Thanksgiving because because we are poor. I hope I don't get jumped today by my friends. I changed the oil on my car this morning and I hugged Jennifer. I also talked to Deon and we are going to kick a girl's ass."

"DEC 2nd

This girl Gina kept on touching my d--- and acting all funny. She also asked me if I liked her a--, I said yes."

"JAN 30th

I can't wait to watch Braveheart with Leslie, it means a lot to me and I hope she likes it."

"FEB 3rd

Right now I'm teaching a Chinese kid to speak English. He is very cool and his name is Ty Pong. The teacher thought I was flipping her off, I was."

"FEB 20th

Leslie is sick right now with a cough. School is horrible. On Friday I went to a party called Five, the party was wack. Tons of ghetto-heads. Me and Steve were standing in line when the fools around us started getting rowdy. The cops couldn't handle it so they pepper sprayed the whole group. Steve and I got it pretty bad. Later on a cop hit me with his billy club because I was standing too close to the door. I saw Shira though."

"FEB 22nd

Shira called last night, I was surprised to hear from her again. She wants to hook up on Friday. She is so cute. Yesterday was my Pappou's 82nd birthday, she called after we had dinner. I wish she didn't live in Marin. The weird thing is, yesterday in chemistry, I drew a thing where Shira's name was circled, and around it I wrote things that I wanted. And it came true, she called. She is so fine."

"MAR 3rd

This weekend was very relaxing and it felt good. But _____ got arrested which put more stress on _____. He got arrested for breaking and entering."

"MAR 6th

Yesterday I messed up on my tape. Side A was good so I started to make Side B. But Side B dubbed over to Side A. So I have to make Side A all over again, I might just leave the dubbed version of Side B as it is. "

2011-12-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

it was co cold last night I kept repeating

"After dark, is gripping season
After dark it might happen for the wrong reasons
After dark, and it don't cease
until the break of dawn, I shoot the breeze"

'Lectric Collective to The Stork Club

2011-12-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

you know you're in trouble when you can smell your own snot.

you know you're bored when you're reading Fangora.

I like Jennifer Beal looking girls.

"I'm a simple man," I like avocado with salt and a spoon, space heaters, late night Law & Order SVU, Kentucky Bourbon.

I'm not enjoying this book of Civil War poetry I'm currently reading.

I'm not enjoying a life in warehouses.

Banana Republic sells fingerless gloves.

Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer.

2011-12-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

A Pavilion of Poets at the John Coletti, Alli Warren, Marianne Morris reading. From L-R: Jean Day, Alan Bernheimer, Cynthia Sailers, Alli Warren, Lauren Levin, Steven Farmer, Marianne Morris and Bill Luoma walking away.

And then check out our host Andrew Kenower on drums with his band The Horns Of Happiness at The Uptown (Oakland) closing out Art Murmer. (hat tip M. Cross for vid)

2011-12-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

Aesop Rock San Francisco banger-Beastie Boys style. Hail Mary Mallon "Grubstake"...

tis' very fresh.

2011-12-06T05:08:00.000-08:00

How many people have died at a birthday party from a pinata swing?

How many people have been pushed into Lake Merritt by a stranger?

You know how some people smell like BO when they don't shower, and others smell like Lay's Potato Chips?

I think the potato chip smell is worse. The BO smell is offensive and annoying, the potato chip smell is ambiguous, all dirty skin and Jack In The Box. I hold my breath in the presence of both, but hold it harder for potato chip smell.

I hate the phrase "so as not to..."...it's hyper-literary in a "I'm-a-rock-singer-using-language" kind of way. "So as not to" appear embarrassed Joanie pulled her hoodie over her ears as she walked through the quad." SOWAZNOTTOO. "So as not to" offend the dinner guests Harry The Dog was mindful of his flatulence."

2011-12-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

Kenower took some photos at the Coletti/ Warren/ Morris event. Orth and I were going for Run DMC
but ended up looking more "domestic partners"...

more fun to come...

2011-12-03T10:11:00.000-08:00

2011-12-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

people who mention TED Talks in their online profile.

"updo"

2011-12-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

Colter Jacobson and Coconut were on KUSF In Exile this morning.

Rodney Koeneke is in town reading at Condensery tonight.

I heard that John Coletti is in town and reading at Kenower's house tomorrow.

Sunday is SPD's Winter Open House. We're having a "Red Sale." All books with red covers are 40% off. Including my Chinese Notebook.

I miss obligatory electric guitars in the movies.

My co-worker thought I was being interviewed on KUSF in Exile this morning, turns out Rob Spector's (from SF band Bronze) voice is my voice's doppelganger.

Consonance and assonance to conjure the unheimlich.

Come one come all.

2011-11-30T20:17:00.000-08:00

I never beat The Legend Of Zelda for the NES (not even close).

I set up my Nintendo yesterday.

I just emailed myself the IGN FAQs Legend Of Zelda walkthrough.

I'm going to beat Zelda at 32 years old.

Happy Birthday Sakkis.

Before packing up giant suitcase sized tupperware leftovers for me after Thanksgiving my Mom marched me out to the garage, pointed at my childhood Nintendo themed "toy chest" and said "this is leaving with you..."

I was reluctant (running through my head "but Ma, there's no space in my apartment, you have a whole garage...'), but Mom just single handedly prepared a feast for 35 people, I wasn't about to bitch and moan. When I got home I cracked it open to find 40 dusty back issues Nintendo Power, a Power Glove (a la Fred Savage in The Wizard), and a smattering of cassette singles, including: Bon Jovi "Keep The Faith," Another Bad Creation "Playground,"Grand Royal Sampler, Boyz II Men "Motown Philly," Vanilla Ice "Ice Ice Baby," Sunz Of Man "And The Last Shall Be First," Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under The Bridge," Ice-T "New Jack Hustler," holy shit smells like 6th grade up in here!

But best of all I found this!

My Thrasher calendar from 1991. Check out baby Mr. September Mike Carroll doing a frontside blunt slide in "San Francisco, Embarcadero"...wait a minute, that's not the EMB!

But best of all, printed on the back of the calendar, it reads "Don't throw this calendar away! It is also good for the years 2002, 2013, 2019, 2047, 2069, 2075, 2086 & 2097." Now you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you that in 1991 (I was 11) I actually had the foresight to store this sucker away in anticipation of being able to use it again. I swear to God I remember thinking, "wow, 2002, I wonder where I'll be then..." I was a weird kid I guess? A collector and saver since a wee lad. But I missed 2002, so now looking forward to pinning this on the wall in 2013, and yeah, right now I'm definitely thinking "wonder where I'll be in a year..."

Moral of the story, thanks for making me schlep my junk out of your house Mom!
xoxo

2011-11-29T17:29:00.000-08:00

While my friend Pisha (NSFW) was staying with me last weekend she remarked that the trunk of my car looked like the trunk of a 16 year olds car, moted. Skateboard, sleeping bag, camping chair, couple pairs of beater Vans sneakers, and about a million loose cassettes strewn haphazardly about. Pish scolded me for treating my tape collection so carelessly. And she was right, I'd been neglecting my mid-90s Bay Area Hip Hop tape-treasure for too long, banished to the trunk a couple years ago during an apartment move and quickly forgotten, the tapes have weathered extreme SF heat (hahaha) and damp SF summers. I'm an idiot. So today after work, with Pisha and slump-beats in mind, I rescued the tapes from "out the trunk" --Too Short. I'm crossing my fingers for a negative on heat or water damage. It took me years to build up this collection, rap tape culture in the Bay Area in the mid-90s was huge, 4 tracks were king, dubs were everywhere, rare and limited editions popping up from various crews almost daily. I fiended for tapes, bought a couple a week for a couple years (my first purchase being MURS's now-ultra rare cassette EP Back For No Good Reason). We would post up in front of Ms. Fields or Blondies on Telegraph almost every weekend, slanging tapes, buying tapes, listening and trading, portable boombox on hand. Sadly, these tapes only represent maybe 1/3 of what I used to own, lost long ago to hothothot Concord summers and evil tape eating ghetto blasters. What was that Bizarro lyric? "My collection of tapes/ and now they're all gone.../ I collect tapes and now they're all gone/ What happened to my collection of tapes?"

2011-11-24T10:55:00.001-08:00

2011-11-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

Michael Palmer book release party @ Norma Cole's house...

2011-11-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

Rob introducing Palmer.

Had to get a shot of my book nestled between Dahlen and Cross's on Norma's living room shelf...

Reenacting the backcover of Acts #5 with a photo of the back of Michael Palmer's head (reading from his new book Thread)...

tonight.

2011-11-11T08:11:00.000-08:00

• Friday NOV 11
"Does the Secret Mind Whisper?"
Will Alexander, Maria Damon and Justin Desmangles
a symposium on Bob Kaufman, Black surrealism, and cultural poetics
7:30 pm @ Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell Street, $10

Co-sponsored with Before Columbus Foundation

“…the ‘secret mind’ represents the convergence of multiple cultural trajectories. It is the political unconscious of the US, which registers all the ‘secret, terrible hurts’ (Kaufman, “Bagel Shop Jazz”) visited upon people who belong to an ‘America not on any map’ (Will Alexander), the disenfranchised who may ruminate silently on these social, spiritual and bodily injuries but who may speak of them openly only at their peril.”

—Maria Damon, Jacket2, “Poetry in 1960, A Symposium”

"Does the Secret Mind Whisper?" was the gnomic open question posed by poet Bob Kaufman in an early City Lights broadside by that title. In collaboration with the Before Columbus Foundation, the Poetry Center hosts an evening symposium under that rubric, in order to take up the nature of Kaufman's legacy and practice, and its extensions into the 21st Century. Featured guests include poet-scholars Will Alexander and Maria Damon, in conversation with Bay Area writer, radio host/dj and cultural worker Justin Desmangles.

BOB KAUFMAN (1925–1986) was a key participant in the 1950s San Francisco poetry renaissance and the Beat movement. Author of three renowned poetry broadsides, Abomunist Manfesto, Second April, and Does the Secret Mind Whisper?, published in the late 1950s by City Lights Books, his poetry in print remained elusive until two collections came out in the mid-1960s. The landmark Solitudes Crowded With Loneliness (1965), published by New Directions, has remained in print for better than four decades. Golden Sardine (1967) became a signature City Lights Pocket Poets volume alongside the works of renowned contemporaries Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. During Kaufman's last decade, editor Raymond Foye assembled the volume of fugitive works, Ancient Rain: Poems 1956–1978 (New Directions, 1981). The posthumous collection, Cranial Guitar: Selected Poems, appeared in 1996 (Coffee House Press). Following Kaufman's death in 1986, a two-hour feature program, Bob Kaufman, Poet, was produced by David Henderson for KPFA-FM and aired nationally through the Pacifica network. Regarded in France as "the American Rimbaud," Bob Kaufman has been celebrated internationally for his particular mode of Surrealism, permeated by a profound affinity for the outcasts of American society, the poor and punished. The late saxophonist and jazz song composer Steve Lacy called Kaufman "the greatest jazz poet, and the beatest of the Beats."

WILL ALEXANDER (see bio above) has previously published the essay "Bob Kaufman: The Footnotes Exploded" in Conjunctions 29: Tributes.

MARIA DAMON (see bio above) his written on Bob Kaufman, extensively in her early book The Dark End of the Street: Margins in American Vanguard Poetry (University of Minnesota) and more recently online at Jacket2.

JUSTIN DESMANGLES hosts the radio program New Day Jazz, currently at KDVS-90.3 FM, and available online, a heady blend of music and cultural commentary, focused on the African-American cultural continuum. Frequent guests offer a largesse of inquiring and informed commentary. Recent conversations have featured, e.g., scholars William W. Cook and James Tatum on African American Writers and Classical Tradition; A. James Arnold and Clayton Eshlemen on their collaborative translation of Aimé Césaire's Solar Throat Slashed; Robin D.G. Kelley on his stellar biography Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original; and jazz pianist Matthew Shipp on the legacy of Bud Powell. Chair of the Before Columbus Foundation, which hosts the annual American Book Award, Justin Desmangles has organized numerous public programs, at San Francisco Public Library and Yoshi's jazz club in San Francisco's Fillmore neighborhood, among other venues.

In a series of public programs on the life and legacy of Bob Kaufman under the title "Does the Secret Mind Whisper?" he recently brought together AACM co-founder Roscoe Mitchell with Kaufman's poetry in performances of original compositions. An upcoming November 14 Benefit for the Before Columbus Foundation at Yoshi's San Francisco will reunite Roscoe Mitchell and Amiri Baraka in duo performance, and feature the new Ishmael Reed Band.

2011-11-08T08:23:00.000-08:00

2011-11-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

embarrassed as a 40 year old man in designer jeans looks.

2011-11-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

SPD was closed Wednesday in solidarity w/ the General Strike. Rather than joining the Million Message March I decided to check out the Kurt Schwitters: Color And Collage exhibit over at the Berkeley Art Museum.

MERZbau reconstruction at BAM from Mona Caron on Vimeo.

Here's a video of the reconstruction of the Merzbau at BAM.

Collage work spanning 1923-47 filled out the rest of the show. I was literally the only person at both the Merzbau (basement level) and the Collage And Color exhibits (6th floor). It was a fantastic way to experience the show: quiet, meandering from piece to piece, close up, an immersive afternoon. Is the BAM always that empty? And only $10, definitely looking forward to future shows. Can't say I was particularly drawn to any of the collage pieces, muted gauzey colors schemes, abstract geometric arrangement, found bric a brac. The lineage is very much on display though, and that was interesting to me, what Schwitters presaged. Kurt Schwitters Color And Collage runs until Nov. 27th.

So downstairs to find a restroom, turn a corner and run into a Theresa Hak Kyung Cha display; her 1975 video Mouth To Mouth running on loop with 2 copies of Dictee wire-bound to a table display.

On the table was a piece of paper outlining a lesson plan based on the video

"What does the title Mouth to Mouth evoke?

How does the close-up disorient as well as focus you?

What about the video static, or "snow--what expressive purpose might it have?"

Why do you think Cha chose the sound of running water for parts of the soundtrack (instead of a voice, or music, or silence)?

What kind of mood or feeling does Mouth To Mouth evoke in you?

Why do you think Cha chose the medium of video?

What do you think of this kind of art that leaves so much to your imagination, to your own interpretation? (Cha thought of her audience--you!--as completing her art)"

All in all a great afternoon, went home and boxed for an hour, watched the coverage of the Port Of Oakland protests, recognized a few faces on TV (been happening a lot lately, makes you feel like the world revolves around your small social circle, i.e., paranoia), read Allen Ginsberg's Composed On The Tongue for a couple hours, went to bed and had a fraught dream about rollerblading, woke up, poured cofeee, turned on the TV to reports that a bunch of Occuposeurs had rioted throughout Downtown Oakland the night before. Thought, WAY TO GO, BRAVO, WELL DONE! The Whole World Is Watching (...us intimidate small business owners). Todos Somos WHATEVER!

2011-10-30T19:44:00.000-07:00

Carl Craig Remixed "Bolero"

I'm Still Eating Leftovers From [last] Sunday

Bashar-Al Assad!/ BART Police!

2011-10-24T09:30:00.001-07:00

the Poetry Center
presents ANNA MOSCHOVAKIS AND JOHN SAKKIS

Thursday OCT 27
Anna Moschovakis and John Sakkis Open Workshop
4:30 pm @ the Poetry Center, HUM 512, SFSU, free

Saturday OCT 29
Anna Moschovakis and John Sakkis reading their work
7:30 pm @ Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell Street, $10
SFSU students and Poetry Center members free
reduced low-income admission; no one turned away for lack of funds

Thursday afternoon Open Workshop will include brief readings, a discussion regarding the poets' recent work and poetics, and a conversation with the audience. Saturday night will feature full-length Readings by both poets.

ANNA MOSCHOVAKIS's recent publications include You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake (Coffee House Press, 2011), her second book of poetry, recently selected for the prestigious James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets.

"But this ambitious and compassionate book also believes -- or hopes -- that mindful attention to language might happily lead us elsewhere, toward other economies, other ways of being here together. 'One letter at a time we build relationships,' Moschovakis declares, 'even though the letter is only a virtual letter and the labor, such as it is, is free.'" (Brian Teare, Award Judge)

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22502

Her translations from the French include Egyptian writer Albert Cossery's novel The Jokers, and The Engagement, one of Georges Simenon's extraordinary "romans durs" (both from New York Review of Books). Based in Brooklyn and in upstate New York, she is an editor at Ugly Duckling Presse, and teaches at Pratt Institute and in Bard's interdisciplinary MFA program.

JOHN SAKKIS is the author of Rude Girl (BlazeVOX Books), and with Angelos Sakkis he has translated two books by Athenian poet and multi-media artist Demosthenes Agrafiotis -- Maribor (The Post-Apollo Press), awarded the 2011 Northern California Book Award for Poetry in Translation, and Chinese Notebook (Ugly Duckling Presse). Under the moniker BOTH BOTH he has curated various projects including: blog, reading series, music collaboration, and since 2005 a magazine. A graduate of SFSU and Naropa University, he lives in Oakland and works for Small Press Distribution.

wherever particles spoken
into my nerves
I hear outer voice
and Love
peeling away hunger
within months of walking
I refer to myself
nerves in vibration
and not vice versa

(from Rude Girl)

"Sakkis travels across time, space, meaning, rule, principle, mode, listening acutely and carving away all excess. . . . Rather than write about it, all I want to do is quote this exquisite book whose 'fatty sheets of rainbow' speak for themselves." (Susan Gevirtz)

"The lyricism of this book is suspended on a threshold of surplus and excess -- terms which cue the melancholy of its unique version of human loss and the fragility of whoever's left to report. This book disturbs me -- it disturbs my participation in the dissipating, breakable ecologies I participate in: the woods, tunnels, streets; the 'reified house' with its 'barking economy.'" (Brandon Brown)

2011-10-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

that last earthquake sucked, I'm sleeping with my shoes next to the bed tonight.

glad the Rangers won, it's a phenomenal thing, going to the World Series 2 years in a row.

Bill Luoma looks like Nolan Ryan, I wonder if that is weird for him.

currently reading Michael Rumaker's turgid Robert Duncan In San Francisco.

I got a haircut today, my barber asked me what my favorite Thanksgiving dish was, I told her "stuffing"...

2011-10-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

These Are My Google Searches Over The Last Couple Weeks

How often should I get a haircut?

What if I only ate pickles?

The Actualists.

Pus is a good thing.

Baby's on fire.

The Handshake.

L'Avventura is boring as shit.

And we're glowing like metal on the...

OMG what happened to Carmella Bing?

Kemet.

Jessica Alba and Obama talk immigration?

Why do white people think that playing 45s at 33BPM is interesting?

Wildcats/ Aliens crossover.

Nary a reply.

Hellraiser Revelations.

Annie waits for the last time.

How the fuck do you pronounce asystole?

Onanism means masturbation.

Knockoff Wayfairers for my huge head.

Jello Biafra stabbed for selling out.

"Thou shalt not kill...unless you're abroad?"

Fed the homeless a soup he make out of his dismembered girlfriend.

Chinese food Grand Ave.

2011-10-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

3 Bad Camera Phone Photos

Brandon Brown introducing Monica Peck and Michael Gottlieb at Books And Bookshelves.

Monica Peck

Michael Gottlieb

2011-10-18T08:27:00.001-07:00

2011-10-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

Steve and I saw a car, we bought the car, then we wrecked the car, in Downtown Oakland, in celebration of the Brewers beating the dreaded Cardinals...we're both safe and sound.

2011-10-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

Charles Kruger from Litseen on my and Lynn's reading at Bird And Beckett...

So on Monday, September 19, I made my way to an edition of POETS! featuring John Sakkis and Lynn Xu, hosted by Jerry Ferraz.
Mr. Sakkis and Ms. Xu are two exceptional poets. Both of them have reputations as translators, and this was certainly reflected in the elegant diction and surprising technical expertise they displayed.
Their entire sets can be found here and here.
Below, I have selected a sample from each reader to whet your appetite.
_________________________________________________________________
For the second half of his set, John Sakkis presented a remarkable series of poems seemingly inspired by science fiction TV. They are so closely knit, I felt it would be an injustice to break the set down further, so here follows seven minutes worth of this interesting poet.

For Lynn Xu, I have selected a lovely poem dedicated to (and in the style of) Gerard Manley Hopkins. This poem is remarkable for it’s evocative language, depth of feeling, and the utilization of the difficult “sprung rhythm” metrical style of her model. This is a very short excerpt, but its density cannot be overestimated.

2011-09-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

Morning Both Both(ers), y'all ready for Autumn? me neither...

The new issue of BOTH BOTH is all printed/collated/stapled and ready to be read. This issue features

THE REJECTION GROUP

If you don't know now you now...and if you still don't know you'll have to read the issue.

Like a copy to call your own? This one is going fast, only 20 left, just email me with your address @ john.sakkis@gmail.com and I'll be happy to send along.

Love you, thanks,
J

2011-09-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

Kevin Killian introduces the Fran Herndon retrospective at Altman Siegel Gallery, SF (9/24).

folks I recognize in the photo surrounding Fran (from the left): Kevin Killian, Avery Burns, Norma Cole, George Albon, Fran Herndon, Elizabeth Robinson and Colleen Lookingbill (and Laura Moriarty standing in the background left)

And then off to Zeitgeist to meet up with friends. Spent the rest of the weekend with Kim and Andrea hanging out in backyards and on stoops.

And Kazwell and Virginia and my brother.

2011-09-21T09:55:00.000-07:00

it's like all the honkies in the Bay Area just discovered "screwing"...

dear Oakland, what is up with the rockabilly meets tribal stretched earlobes?

i hung out with Gavin Hardkiss last Friday.

welcome to the Bay Area all you ex-East Coast poets: Ben Mirov, Nicole Trigg, Amanda Nadelberg, Sara Wintz.

2011-09-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

that never gets old.

2011-09-19T15:22:00.000-07:00

My ATTENTION SPAN 2011 list (head on over to Third Factory for the first of the lists, thanks again to Steve Evans for curating this fantastic project)

Bernadette Mayer | Midwinter Day | New Directions | 1999

If the legend is true, it’s a crime this book doesn’t have its own Wikipedia page. Written in 1 Epic day. Seriously? It took me two days to read the book, not quite on par with Mayer, but who is ever on par with Mayer? I feel like Eric Drooker’s talents would have been better spent illustrating Midwinter Day.

Gilbert Hernandez | Luba | Fantagraphics | 2009

It’s hard for me to read Los Bros Hernandez in the key of anything other than elegy, especially with middle brother Gilbert. The kind of elegy that is less about the passing of persons than the passing of time. Luba has aged since Palomar and we’ve aged with her. Telenovela as descriptor is sort of a lazy cliché. I’ve never cared more about a comic book character or the world they inhabit. The only thing missing are rockets.

Jim Goad | Shit Magnet: One Man’s Miraculous Ability To Absorb The World’s Guilt | Feral House | 2002

Controversial polemical writer Jim Goad gets very polemical in this aptly titled autobiography. Extremely raw, pissed off, beautifully disturbing soap boxing prose from PC public enemy #1. Jim Goad is a bit of a martyr/ cult figure who uses facts and stats to back his controversial castigations. I’m a JG fan, it’s not a popular stance but so what? Get lost.

Julien Poirier | El Golpe Chileno | Ugly Duckling | 2010

“I told Micah last night that my new book would be a haunted house.” Berkeley-based poet Julian Poirier’s El Golpe Chileño is filled with the ghosts of past and present. Essentially a bildungsroman, it tracks Poirier’s protagonist’s growth from youthful journeyman into adulthood though a kind of mixed-genre Theatre of the Absurd. Vaudeville, comics, memoir, film pitch, epistolary, failed novel, poetry, the carnival, and travelogue are all wielded brilliantly in the hands of Poirier, making for a phantasmagoric reading experience where the whole emerges defiantly greater than the sum of its parts. Poirier writes, “I turned my whole brain into a city and wrote down everything I saw happening there.” And indeed it certainly feels that way—the book is ripe with the names of places, of friends living and dead; with lists of dates and years; and with drawings and photographs, making up what Poirier somewhat obliquely labels “The Stolen Universe.” El Golpe Chileño is truly a success of form and content, of the high and low, of pop and elegy.

Ted Berrigan | The Collected Poems Of Ted Berrigan | California | 2007

Iconic LA radio DJ Rodney Bingenheimer over uses the term God-Head to the point of parody. I have never colloquially used the term God-Head. Ted Berrigan is a God-Head. Call me corny but jeez-Louise TB is the real deal Yahweh-Dome. He makes “saturation job” as sexy a thing as it sounds, which is exactly what the Collected Poems begs of you. Hands down this is my “if you were stranded on an island and you could only have one book….”

Matthew Stokoe | Cows | Akashic | 2011

I very seriously almost puked 3 times while reading this masterpiece of gore and perversity. You know how the “dinner table scene” in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre makes you want to take a cold shower with your eyes closed while reciting the Lord’s Prayer? Well, there are multiple dinner table scenes in Cows that would give Leatherface that need-to-scrub-my-body-with-a-Brillo-Pad kind of feeling. “Hagbeast.”

Cedar Sigo | Stranger In Town | City Lights | 2010

I went to the book release party at City Lights with Lindsey Boldt and Steve Orth. Cedar read with Andrew Joron. A totally packed house with a full staircase bleed over to boot. Afterwards everyone went to Specs across the street for drinks. Sitting at the round table next to us, and totally unrelated to our after party were Jack Hirschman, Sarah Menefee and I think Neeli Cherkovoski. North Beach really felt like “North Beach” that night.

Ronaldo Wilson | Poems Of The Black Object | Futurepoem | 2009

I read this book in Miami. I was in Miami in November and I was sweating. I have a photo buried somewhere on Flickr with POTBO firmly clenched between my teeth. It’s the kind of book that induces some serious Bruxism. The kind of teeth gnashing you do at 3AM in a warehouse in Oakland with your best friends, not the kind that takes you to the dentist. Plus, break dancing poems!

Scott Walker | In 5 Easy Pieces | Ume Imports | 2006

I was talking with KUSF (in Exile) DJ Zoe Brezsny today about how you either love SW or hate him. About how I could completely understand/hear how some people hate him, and how you maybe just had to be vibing a certain kind of vibration to really dig him, and how the both of us were absolutely vibrational for Mr. Walker. I think if I knew about Scott Walker as a teenager I might have skipped the whole Jim Morrison “American Poet” thing. I recently ordered a Scott Walker t-shirt online and I’m not embarrassed by it. I’m a fan boy all over again. SW freaks me out with his brilliance, and then keeps freaking me out again and again. Have you ever heard “Lullaby By by by”? If there was ever a song for headphones this is it, an absolutely haunted masterpiece.

David Levi Strauss and Benjamin Hollander, eds. | Acts #5 | 1986

Because of this interview called “Dear Lexicon” with Michael Palmer by Benjamin Hollander and David Levi Strauss. I need to get a hold of MP/BH/DLS to see if I can republish as an issue of BOTH BOTH. An incredibly discursive conversation around the Analytic Lyric, this has been a primary source text for my poetics over the last 10 years. If you’d like a photocopied version please email me at john.sakkis@gmail.com and I’d be more than stoked to send along.

Patrick James Dunagan | There Are People Who Think That Painters Shouldn’t Talk: A Gustonbook | Post-Apollo | 2011

Me and Micah and Logan Koreber and Patrick Dunagan were planning on making a skateboard movie called Pushing Mongo. It will be a day-in-the-life of movie. We’ll skate from the Safeway curb, to SOMA down Market on the clickity-bricks, down to the EMB, up and along the Piers all the way to AT&T Park back up to the Mission for burritos then off the skateboards hiking up the hill to grab a beer in Bernal Heights at Wild Side West. Then bombing back down the hill heading towards 16th, almost getting hit by a USPS carrier van, Logan and I will get separated from Micah and Dunagan, but we’ll all end up somehow at Kilowatt for more beers, bros and brouhaha. It’s going to be an epic movie with a happy ending.”

§
John Sakkis is the author of Rude Girl. His translation of Demosthenes Agrafiotis’s Maribor won the 2011 Northern California Book Award (NCBA) for poetry in Translation. Under the moniker BOTH BOTH he has curated various projects including: blog, reading series, music collaboration and since 2005 a magazine. He lives in the Oakland, CA.

2011-09-17T16:44:00.001-07:00

after we ate beef schwerma I found myself defending Ronnie from Jersey Shore.

2011-09-16T15:25:00.000-07:00

are all these girls on OKCupid really bi-sexual? haven't come across so many (fake) bisexuals since the mid-90s.

2011-09-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

2011-09-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

let me quickly seek the tracks if you can bind the bow and sleep it all off then take the train to Constantine, I promise that we will find our way whenever we can, it is better to avenge if you can, better to slip your way down the street than chew your house to pieces and as you know moths have flown into people's ears throughout history bearing the bloody cabinets you open when moving anywhere you thought you'd never be but it's only now that we have the means to remove them in the depths this day we're naming our children after our saints who are our fathers and mothers but only with patience along the peninsula when ears are technology and this all becomes rope-thin, figs are flowers and your good name will live on long after this weird patience bears our bloody wax men following their ears are shapely and extended towards the neighborhoods moving in and about this proximity of family as nowhere else seems to settle the stomach as much as organs identifying themselves at first impression

2011-09-15T06:43:00.000-07:00

2011-09-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

The Short Fuze Short Films: NOTHING! from Logan Ryan Smith on Vimeo.

2011-09-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend up in Grass Valley at my friend Alyssa's family's house. It was an incredibly good time, we swam, we BBQd, we boozed, we kissed, we slept outside, we talked baseball and politics, hot tubs and friends, it got weird and then it got funny, it was a great way to say farewell to the fading summer. Here are a few camera phone photos, I think my brother is in almost every shot.

2011-09-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

exercise is manufactured labor

when I run the track I work the field

I dreamed "I love you so much baby"
A married girl, you're at least three women

If I step in mud I make this sound
like my jaw grinding every morning
my podcast is blowing up I think
your poems are too poppy you should
just write rap lyrics

I'm a man now, I have no mythology
The track could be a form, the labyrinth
is a form chasing its tail

The mechanical bull bucks this trend
My wife is my body falling down
It's a suffocating decision to make in the morning

another celebrity/ celebrity doppelganger thingy...

2011-09-02T12:20:00.000-07:00

Grace Zabriskie

and

Lauren Bowels

2011-08-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

Stan APPS reviews Chinese Notebook in the Los Angeles Review Of Books...

CN for purchase

2011-08-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

Moths have
flown into
people's ears
throughout history,
it's only now
we have the means
to remove them.

How am I supposed to know how to pronounce Adironacks?

Ears are technology.

Figs are flowers.

2011-08-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Kathleen Fraser drank all my sizzurp.

I was descending through the bowels of a slave ship.

Jean-Claude Van Damme was King Richard The Lionheart.

I misremembered a thong leotard.

I woke up at 4AM shouting Aguirre: The Wrath Of God!

I thought Tuesday night's earthquake was an old woman trying to climb through my bedroom window.

Fran Herndon is everywhere lately.

I've never been invited to read at the Bay Area Poetry Marathon. Blessing?

Clayton Eshleman will be in the Bay Area.

What's wrong with being masculine? What's wrong with loving "Lynch, Cronenberg, and Jodorowsky?"

I'm still eating leftovers from Sunday.

I love these photos of Frances Bean Cobain.

Bashar as-Assad, Muammar Gaddafi, BART Police!

I hold an irrational disgust for Sal Castaneda, some people remind me of eggs, or pickle juice, he reminds me of bagel-farts and church slacks.

Is that synesthesia?

SPD's perpetual bestseller is a book about gardening.

I hope no one thinks I'm a creep when I run the Piedmont track.

Is The Maximus Poems really an Epic?

"The city" is not a character.

How many Bay Areans does it take to screw in a light bulb? Hella've em.

2011-08-22T15:33:00.000-07:00

Santa Cruz.

2011-08-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Just watched the Giants get crushed by the Houston Astros 6-0. Gosh, aren't the Astros like 34 and 90? Mark DeRosa got a base hit, that was sort of neat. Not fun folks, not fun.

And then I sent out a text message that said something like "I wonder what it feels like to have a woman's butt, there's just so much there..."

Some responses:

haha, I'll ask around

it's not that buttery, maybe soft. sometimes it can hurt though if you sit too hard

you wish you had my butt?

i want to photoshop my butt onto your body

OMG eat a cheeseburger

ay you better ride the giant dipper tomorrow, after scoring some heroin in the beach flats that is. god santa cruz is so witch haus

well i know for me i have a smart ass that sits up as soon as it sits down

...

i went to the store and bought some bread

i called AT&T cause my internet connection sucks, and then i got a call from the tech guy, i picked up and said "hello?" and the tech guy said "is this Johnny Sakkis?" i said "yeah, is this AT&T?" and the tech guy said "what's up motherfucker?!!! this is P. Constantinos!!!!" and i was all "Saun?" and the tech guy was all "yeah, dude, this is Saun, i got assigned to your house, what the fuck is going on?"so Saun came over and we listened to Beck's Stereopathic Soulmanure while he drilled into my phone jack and fixed my internet connection. i spent the entirely of last weekend listening to David Banner drinking beers and sweating balls sleeping in the back of Saun's truck on the Eel River. and then on the way home, taking a short cut of course, we got into a car accident. the moral of the story is that Greeks gotta stay together.

Oriana Small (Ashley Blue) came into SPD today. it was great to meet her. she was with her husband Dave Naz. she told this great story about drawing a mustache on a dude's penis at Booksmith last night. and then she also autographed someone's butthole. i read her book GirlVERT in two days in my office a couple months ago. i played some Rolling Stones classics while she signed a bunch of books. SPD can be weird sometimes.

i just got a text message from A. that said "well i was going to leave you a message but my friend called, probably for the better. see you tomorrow." i feel like i should eat a ton of salt water taffy tomorrow, or at least a bag of Kettle Chips and a pint of ice cream.

currently listening to Gavin Bryers The Sinking Of The Titanic, again and again and again.

have a good night. i'll see you on the Astral.

2011-08-19T09:00:00.001-07:00

Hey folks who have lived in Oakland longer than me, is this really what our Summers are like? It's freezing, and has been for weeks, what a gip...

I'm heading to Santa Cruz with a lady tomorrow. It will be warm. It will be picnic.

Anybody know Kent Johnson's email? Can you send it to me at john.sakkis@gmail.com? Thanks. This would work a lot better if I was still on Facebook.

I listened to Ted Berrigan's New Langton Arts (1981) reading yesterday afternoon.

I finished reading Berrigan's Collected Poems 2 days ago.

I'm currently reading Hymns Of St. Bridgett by Frank O'Hara and Bill Berkson.

Because of this blog, if you Google "Lil' Debbie rapper" you'll find an image of Ariana Reines. This is meta-Doppel. I wonder how long that will last.

I slept for 9.5 hours last night.

2011-08-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

I hung out with my friends this weekend. It was sunny out for the first time in weeks. San Francisco/ Oakland POV.

This looks staged but it wasn't. My brother looks like he's directed at least 2 well received Ryan Gosling features.

It wasn't me who titled this photo"hookers and bros."

Julia D. likes to talk about how long her butt crack is.

Amor Eterno/ Bruce Lee's house, East Oakland.

We ripped these "lounge chairs" out of a broken down minivan abandoned in the parking lot behind the studio.

Mosswood Park does not entertain attractive girls.

2011-08-12T06:29:00.000-07:00

looking forward to reading with one of my favorite poeple, Anna Moschovakis. This Poetry Center season is looking pretty fantastic.

2011-07-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

Oh Hey, what's up? So, my magazine BOTH BOTH is back. First issue since 2006. Allyssa Wolf and Evan Kennedy are rocking the bells this time around. I've always distributed with an "out the trunk" business model, i.e., I pass out copies at readings/parties in the Bay Area. But if you live outside the Bay Area, or don't usually attend readings/parties within and would still like a copy for yourself, I'm more than happy to send one USPS along. Just hit me up at john.sakkis@gmail.com with your mailing address request. Thanks for reading.

XOXO

2011-07-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

A giant globe of ice I was beating with the back of my hand

A falling into Hell with a female cenobite, ice crystals and razors

Larry Bird the immortal

A monster gestating in a bathtub on a balcony

The monster was the theme, there was chronology

Strange motorcycles without wheels, red UFOs

I saw Omar Souleyman at the Echo in LA, I woke up on Tuesday and drove to LA

I watched the All-Star Game in a crummy bar next to the Dresden on Vermont St.

Drank beers with J. Mosconi and Rita in Echo Park

I quit Facebook, we're all so boring I couldn't stand it

Waited to get into a famous sushi restaurant for an hour with Billy and Meg

Hung out pretty hard with a girl for 5 days straight, decided on Friday that we'd rather just throw the ball around

I want to start tagging "WHITE PRIVILEGE"/ white privilege as the internet's most pervasive meme

my car overheated on West Macarthur BLVD.

It's called the Baader-Meinhof effect

ended up at a hot tub party in the Lower Haight full of tits and whiskey and wine

slept on a couch after making out with a very random person in Duboce Park at 1:30 in the morning

new issue of BOTH BOTH is done, I have copies for everyone

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 6 is very good

Martyrs was very dumb, it's easy to create a victim blah blah

Recently Googled "Crystal Deodorant bullshit"

all the female energy that surrounds me when I sleep

I didn't eat In-N-Out on the way down or the way up

Kaneda's Theme almost always does the trick

Thee Oh Sees are playing at the Uptown on the 28th

I talk about myself way too much and I apologize, I'm very self-centered, everything is about me and I'm aware of this

I like to let girls order sushi for me, I don't know what I'm doing

Is the women's World Cup on regular TV today?

Damon Bruce said that watching woman's team sports is like watching men play in 3 feet of water

I keep having sex dreams about inappropriate girls

The taboo is what really turns us on

I miss too many people to name

The monster's head was shaped like a dolphin's, though not a dolphin head

The 5 stages of dating:

1. Hanging Out
2. Talking
3. Seeing Each Other
4. Dating
5. Boyfriend Girlfriend

"Language Poetry" is an anagram for Ugly Reagan Poet

All the blood in the world would submerge Golden Gate Park 20 feet

I spit moths, my pubic hair is a chubby white caterpillar

Ant heads look like dick heads

Brazilian Wax = Vagina Dentata

"Todos somos child molesters who shoot at cops!!!"

I wrote and recorded this song in the key of Leonard Cohen with BOTH BOTH the other day

I'm your stubbed toe, lover
Your Ramona the Pest, brother
Your nickel n' dimed sweet supper

I'm your wrinkles n' cream, stutter
I'm your hightops in bed, clutter
make a wishes n' dreams, mother

feel free to bleed, father
can't believe make believe, lover
full time job, I can't suffer
hold my heart, kiss my lips, don't bother

sew my heart to your sleeve, I trust her
making love to the beat of each other

This other song I wrote, "Oh, Mary," was recently played on Israeli radio

I've got a new kitchen table, I make my bed for myself, my vacation is over

I love my friends I hope to die, I love my friends I love my friends

xoxo

2011-07-11T11:44:00.000-07:00

Just now realizing that every white girl in America dressed up as a Dia De Los Muertos skull for Halloween last year. Why I ask, and how can we prevent this from happening again?

2011-07-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

Couldn't find the water-hole so we stopped at this lake for summer swims and beach brews. Later that night camped down in Lotus where a Grateful Dead cover band played Fire On The Mountain while my brother chatted with all his former river rat rafting buddies. I'm on vacation for another week. Currently listening to The Animals croon "on a warm San Franciscan night...".

2011-07-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July 2011 BBQ at Kim's backyard Oakland, CA under the giant fig tree...

2011-06-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

2011-06-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

Noah's Ark wasn't a "DNA bank"

I'm sitting here in my boxer shorts eating watermelon

hung out last night with Jacques Brautbar at Bollyhood

Stephanie Young and Estee Schwartz were good, everyone else needs to slow their roll

it's been a heat wave this week

I ate Mcdonald's for lunch today, I ate cold fried chicken and Greek salad for dinner

my problem is retention

BOTH BOTH the magazine returns next month

Steve Orth is my only friend

out the trunk feel the funk

2011-06-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

got stuck in Santa Cruz last night with Erin Morrill.

we were harassed by police officers.

we hid under a Huba ledge drinking vodka.

(just found this lovely photo of Erin and I getting swerved under the Huba apparently taken by Jennifer Manzano who I guess was also there? holy shmoly what a debauch!)

2011-06-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

'Leectric Collective talks about their upcoming road trip. Hat tip to Kelsa Trom for reading a poem from Rude Girl.

...

another celebrity/ poet doppelganger thingy...

2011-06-16T16:35:00.000-07:00

Monica Vitti

and

Allyssa Wolf

2011-06-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

hearted followed by that Orson Welles slow clap gif.

2011-06-13T09:01:00.001-07:00

me and Blake Lively were the oldest people at the party

your reply is a bit too Orphic for me

BOOKS READ 2010

2011-06-11T15:03:00.001-07:00

1. Concord- Joel A. Harris

One of those Arcadia Publishing books. Full of amazing archival photos of the city where I grew up, Concord, CA. Used to be called Todos Santos (better) which used to be called Drunken Indian (even better). Concord’s history is all about Native Americans, Spanish Settlers, Mexican Californios and Anglo-Gold Rush settlers. I love where I grew up.

2. Crayon #3

This is the Fernando Pessoa issue, I bought it after Steve Dickison talked about the heteronyms in one of his The Poetry Center classes back in 2002. I just got around to reading it this year. It’s a thick issue, and as with all issues of Crayon, a bit daunting. Reads more like an anthology than a magazine, which I usually don’t like. Crayon #3 works though. Well done Crayon.

3. Tooth Fairy- Brandon Brown

I read this little book in the bathroom. I think Brandon put this out, along with 2 or 3 others, on his own OMG Press. I’m having a hard time remembering this book specifically. I know I loved it. I remember saying to Brandon “dude, I loved Tooth Fairy” late one night at his house drinking beers probably on the back staircase or maybe maxing in “the Boat House” listening to some horrible tween music that Brandon was invariably singing along to.

4. The Grand Piano part 8

I’ve loved every part. Nothing better than 70’s SF nostalgia. The neighborhoods, the bars, the drama. I probably enjoy Silliman, Benson and Robbinson a lot lot lot more than Harryman, Watten and Pearson.

5. Room Are Never Finished- Agha Shahid Ali

Bought this book for a Peter Weltner class at SFSU (or was it for a Susan Browne class at DVC?) . Brandon Brown was in that class too, in fact took the class on the basis of Brandon's high recommendation of Weltner (a very good hard-asssed teacher with a New Critical style). I read this during a particularly bad cold last Jan. I don’t remember anything about this book.

6. The Grand Piano part 9

See above The Grand Piano Part 8

7. Blast 1- Wyndham Lewis

Finished Wyndham Lewis's BLAST yesterday. Still have no idea what Vorticism is. Some of the things I do know about Vorticism don't really point me towards anything useful. I know that Vorticism eschews the romanticism of the past (Impressionism) as much as what Lewis saw as the romanticism of the future (Futurism) ("[Futurism] an accelerated form of Impressionism"-p. 158). You'd think this would point to "the present" as being primary to the Vorticists; e.g., "the new vortex plunges to the heart of the Present" and "with our Vortex the Present is the only active thing." Ah yes now I'm starting to get it...but then almost immediately from the same page (p. 147) "there is no Present—there is Past and Future, and there is Art" and "this impure Present our Vortex despises and ignores"...okay...so what the EF? The Future is romantic and fetishized, the Past is romantic and fallacious and the Present is impure and negated. But the present is also "Art" and thus viola, Vorticism! and what the hell am i supposed to make of that? I guess I'm just not at all clear on how Lewis is defining the Present/Art. And BLAST is 160 pages. I feel like I should be a little closer to understanding what the hell Vorticism is all about after 160 pages. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

8. Stranger In Town- Cedar Sigo

I love this book. I went to the book release party at City Lights with Lindsey Boldt and Steve Orth. Cedar read with Andrew Joron. Cedar blew everyone away, a totally packed house with a full staircase as well. Afterwards everyone went to Specs across the street for drinks. Sitting at the round table next to us, and totally unrelated to our after party were Jack Hirschman and Sarah Menefee and I think Neeli Cherkovoski. North Beach really felt like “North Beach” that night. Took a cab home with Micah Ballard and Sunnylyn Thibodeaux.

9. Mascara- Will Skinker

For the longest time I thought Will’s last name with “Skinner.” I told him that when I met him at a Books & Bookshelves reading last year. Pretty sure this is an Auguste Press book? I love all AP books. One of the better presses in the Bay Area, and that’s saying a lot. They’re discreet, hand typed, stapled and impeccably edited by a couple of the loveliest poet’s in SF, Micah and Sunnylyn.

10. Morning Train- ed. Micah Ballard/ Sunnylyn Thibodeaux

Another Auguste Press project. This is a Magazine/Anthology. I remember really liking it drinking beers on a foggy Sunday afternoon listening to a lot of recently scavenged Gustav Holst records.

11. Avid Diva- Garrett Caples

Lew Gallery book by the great Garrett Caples. Short, musical poems. This may be the first thing I’ve seen from Caples since his amazing Narrow House CD, Surrealism’s Bad Rap (what up Sirois!). Garrett brings it.

12. Wild Schemes- Derek Fenner

Inimitable editor of Bootstrap Press, Fenner’s Lew Gallery chapbook was released at about the same time as my LG book RAVE ON! Kevin Opstedal micro-reviewed both…take it away Kevin! “Lew Gallery/Auguste Press strikes again with a beautiful pair of books. RAVE ON! by John Sakkis, and WILD SCHEMES by Derek Fenner. Whatever these poets are drinking I’ll have the same, & double up on it.

We find consecretion

and supplication

in Humulus Lupulus

along paths

hidden

by the misery of America. (Fenner)

Our sunset should be as muted as

my apartment (Sakkis)

Both of these poets have the chops, the workshed rudiments, & the attention, as the line is drawn. Whatever it is to be found, to be lost, to answer when your name is called. Or not. You can’t lip-synch your way through it. Well, you can, but against the oblique desire, pending comprehension. Here we have the songs & the risk taken. If you’re lucky enough to get hold of one or both of these little bokes you’ll know what I mean.

13. Life Of Crime- ed. Steve Lavoie/ Pat Nolan

This is the anti-The Grand Piano. One of my 11 selections for Steve Evans' Attention Span this year. I devoured this book, didn’t want it to end, but end it did, and too quickly. Steve Lavoie and Pat Nolan taking the piss out of everyone and anyone they felt like, totally un-PC, crass and hilarious. From what I hear, with the publication of LOC they made themselves public enemy #1 in SF (and we’re even reluctant to re-publish after all these years). Thank you Alistair Johnston from Poltroon Press for publishing this book, an important moment in Bay Area poetics (wars) that a lot of folks my age are just now hearing about.

14. Aevum- David Brazil

A little chapbook arrives in my office at work called Aevum by David Brazil. I don’t know how it got there and I don’t know who sent it (though I have ideas), I’m just glad they did. I think a little book called Our Insalvagable by Thom Donovan came my way under similar circumstances. Whoever you are Vigilance Society, keep em’ coming. I love these little mysterious chapbook poem objects.

15. The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Finally got around to reading it TGG, I liked it. A quicker read than I was expecting. I rented the movie. I remember liking the movie better in high school.

16. Sulfur #3

This might be the Charles Olson/ Edward Dahlberg correspondence issue. I love Sulfur. A real magazine, "feminine and tough." Olson and Dahlberg get into a really sad (yet entertaining) whine fest with each other. Sad because it's a document of a longstanding friendship coming to an end, and entertaining because these dudes really know how to write mean, spiteful, underhanded, passive aggressive letters... Dahlberg is super pissed that Olson won’t write a review of his book called The Flea Of Sodom. Olson is like “dude, I’m working on it…” and Dahlberg is like “I’m starving and I can’t feed my wife…hurry up with that review…if you were ever my friend you’d write that goddamn review…” and Olson is like “bro, chill the ef out…i’m a little busy right now with, you know, THE MAXIMUS POEMS…and I’m not even sure I like your book…” and Dahlberg is like “fuck you, your poetry sucks, remember when I came to visit you at your Mom's house, and she made dinner and offered you the biggest piece of roast chicken? and the last of the scotch? and you accepted them without so much as the slightest acknowledgment to me as your guest...I was starving and I had to sit there at your Mother's dinner table watching you shovel food and drink into your giant gaping maw...I’m not friends with you anymore!” and Olson is like “whatevs…your being retarded…smell you later skater…” etc etc etc…it was epic.

17. Try- Feb 21, 2010

There is nothing else to say about Try. It’s a better magazine than your magazine. as they say in the comic books 'nuff said.

18. The Carrier Of Ladders- W.S. Merwin

Logan Ryan Smith gave me this book a long time ago. I believe for my birthday, probably in 2002. He was still living at Park Merced out by SFSFU with Nick Buzanski. He loved Sharks hockey and Giants baseball. I think he told me that he met Merwin once at a City Lights reading. I want to say that Logan said he was a dick. But maybe Logan said that he was really sweet. I should probably refrain from guessing what Logan told me Merwin was like in 2002.

19. Temblor #1

Finished reading Temblor #3 this morning. I've read 4 issues of the magazine thus far. #1,2,3 and 8. I've had the same experience of dread upon starting each issue and then the same feeling of relief upon finishing each issue. i love [old] magazines. I collect old magazines. i own all 10 issues of Leland Hickman's groundbreaking [??] journal Temblor. i bought them from Green Apple in 2002. it was a big haul, each issue cost 8 dollars, George Albon who was working the counter gave me a complimentary Green Apple tote bag because it was such a large haul (I still use the tote today for produce shopping). Kevin Killian told me that all those Temblor's probably belonged to Lew Ellingham (which is neat). Over the years I've also scored an almost complete set of David Levi-Strauss and Benjamin Hollander's ACTS as well as a smattering of rare and lesser known mags like Steve Abbott's Soup, Cyanosis (out of Santa Rosa) and Aram Saroyan's Lines et al. So yeah, I really really love old po-magazines. But Temblor, man, Temblor is kind of a drag.

Temblor is a medical journal. It looks like one and it reads like one. Each issue is about 140-160 pages. All covers are a variation of 70's ranch house brown. Each issue is filled with a gaggle of poets that appeared in earlier issues (Language based mostly). Each issue contains anywhere from 4-6 "compleat" sections where the poets' work is featured at chapbook length. You'd think the "compleats" would rule, it's a pretty cool idea (and probably the first magazine to do it), but they don't, they are tedious (no matter how good the work)...I don't know if it's Hickman's editorial POV that wears on me, or that is seems like the same coterie of names appear in each issue, or the monotone-stucco design aesthetic that bums me out, or simply the daunting size of each issue that turns me off (poems bleeding into poems which in my experience often happens with oversize issues). Actually, it's all of these things, but it's also the knowledge that groundbreaking, rigorous AND entertaining magazines like Soup and Jimmy & Lucy's House Of "K" and Life Of Crime were contemporaneous with Temblor. Temblor is decidedly not entertaining.

So i finished Temblor #3 this morning and picked up Lines #5. The energy of the two magazines couldn't be further apart. Lines is a magazine - Temblor is a journal. I prefer magazines. If i had it my way I probably wouldn't read the remaining 7 issues of Temblor, but I don't really have it my way, my weird tics are going to make me finish the full run. And I'm glad about that. After all, as much as I don't like the journal, it has it's place in West Coast poetry history, and I'm experiencing that historical moment albeit 25 years later. And I appreciate that. I'm just not enjoying the experience.

20. Can Arboreal Knotwork Help Blackburn Out Of Frege's Abyss- Boyd Spahr

All I remember is that this is a Dusie Kollectiv book. From the 2nd round I believe. If I’m remembering correct I took part in the 1st and the 2nd Dusie Kollectiv chapbook exchange. Is this the book with all the photo’s in it? Shit, I wish I could remember.

21. O Pieces Of The Sky- Greg Fuchs

This is probably a Lew Gallery book. I remember really liking this book. I remember thinking that these poems almost feel like raps, or comic books. Something very city about them. Greg has a great last name.

22. Dispatch- Marci Nelligan/ Nicole Mauro

Maybe a Dusie Kollectiv book? I don’t remember anything about this book unfortunately.

23. Lola- Lyn Hejinian

I have no recollection of reading this book. It must be a chapbook though. I don’t think I’ve ever read a full length Hejinian. Unless Sight or Sunflower count. But those are collabos. Where the hecka would I have picked up a Hejinian chapbook? I know I haven't purchased a Hejinian chap recently. I mean, I see her sometimes at work, but I don't think she's ever given me anything. I remember she was sporting some awesome socks one afternoon, I think they were purple with stripes, and I wanted to say "hey Hejinian, nice socks...!" but I didn't. But if I DID, she would probably say "hey thanks, got em' for my birthday along with a new watch...hey John, have you seen my new book Lola...?" and she would hand me her new chapbook and I would promise to read it sometime in the future.

24. Hamlet- William Shakespeare

Re-read! I re-read along to Rodney Bennett’s version of the theatrical play streamed on Netflix. Derek Jacobi! Right? And then it was pretty neat realizing that Derek Jacobi played Hamlet’s father in the Kenneth Branagh version 20 years later. I plan on reading all forthcoming Shakespeare while streaming the theatrical play on Netflix from here on out. A great way to experience both worlds.

25. Theory Of Colors- Mercedes Roffe/ trans. Margaret Carson

I think this is a Belladonna chapbook. Rachel Levitsky sent me a ton of BD chapbooks while I was at Naropa. Just getting around to reading them. I alternate between backlog of Belladonna chapbooks, Dusie chapbooks, issues of Combo magazne and issues of Temblor magazine.

26. How Many Of You Are You- Philip Jenks

Actually I think this is the chapbook with the photos in it. I love this book. Another Dusie Kollectiv project if I’m not mistaken. A book that engages with what it means to call someplace your hometown. This book is gorgeous. It made me want to immediately write a response series to it. I wonder if this book ever made it out of the limited edition chapbook ghetto. I would kill to see this expanded as a full length.

27. Spy Wednesday- David Brazil

My favorite book of Brazil’s so far. A “day in the life of” epic. I remember Molotov’s, coffee, Greek, protest and arrest. A really beautiful elegy in the form of a notebook meticulously filled out and then reconfigured into a poem. But David’s notebooks are poetry in and of themselves. This is a TAXT book I’m pretty sure. You know, for free, Bay Area, get em’ if you can steez…I recommend your steez goes and gets it. Say “hi Suzanne Stein, Johnny sent me for your TAXT…”

28. Yale Younger Poets #1

Bought this from Moe’s in 1999 I think. Took a trip by myself to Berkeley specifically looking for experimental poetry. I had no idea what “experimental poetry” was, I just knew that I wanted to read stuff other than what they had us reading at DVC (eg. Kim Addonizio, Stephen Dobyns, Galway Kinnell, Raymond Carver). Mike And Dale’s Yale Younger immediately popped. I don’t think I’d ever seen a chapbook at that point, certainly didn’t know what a chapbook was. Picked it up not knowing anything about anybody listed in the table of contents, read a couple poems, maybe something by Duncan Mcnaughton? Fell in love…I also found an Alex Katz and Kenneth Koch collabo book called Interlocking Lives. I remember the guy at the register up front looked at the Katz/ Koch book and said “Where did you find this? Huge score…”…felt like the coolest dude on Telegraph Ave. Moe’s was one of the best places to score rare New College’y affiliated chapbooks/ books/ magazines back in the day (maybe because of Andrew Schelling?). Lots of Yale Younger, Gas magazine, a large assortment of Opstedal's Blue Press stuff, Skanky Possum...so many hard to find goodies. I haven't gone poetry digging at Moe's in over 10 years so I have no idea what used selection is like now.

29. Boston Vermont- William Corbett

Another Peter Weltner era purchase. Hardcover. Don’t remember if we touched on any of these poems in class. I write to Bill at work ordering Pressed Wafer books every couple of weeks. He’s pretty much the dude. He spends time in Boston, he spends time in Vermont. Voila. I enjoyed reading this book on my lunch break in my car in front of SPD on 7th St with KNBR playing in the background. Go Giants!

30. Combo #1

I was gifted a big set of Combo by my co-worker Todd McCarty while working as an audio technician at the Naropa Audio Archives back in 2006. He came in with a Ron Silliman book and 8 or 9 copies of Combo, said “you want these?, not my thing…”…said (while probably sitting at my work station fiddling about with ProTools cleaning up a John Weiners or Allen Ginsberg or Robert Creeley tape) “dude, for sure...”…Combo is a great magazine, just my type, fit, small, beautifully designed, leaves you wanting more, has an aesthetic point of view but isn't afraid of straying, just a really solid mag. Todd was supposed to air my Shakespearian mixtape “Merk’s Macbeth” on his radio program on late night KGNU. Not sure if he ever did (I play it in the warehouse at SPD every couple of months). I'm not sure why, but every time I read an issue of Combo, Rodney Koeneke posts a comment to my blog that reads simply "Combo!"...pretty much, Combo!

31. The Granite Pail- Lorine Niedecker

I think this was a Steve Dickison era book. I think Jenny Penberthy must have been reading at The Poetry Center that semester. Though I could be wrong, was this another Weltner book? This might have been a Weltner book. In fact, now that I’m typing, I’m pretty sure it was a Peter Weltner book. I remember close reading “Paean To Place” in class. What’s the line “fish fowl flood/ water lily mud/ my life.” Yeah, I remember a lot of us were tripping off of that line for a while. I think there is even a story from the old Geary St. apartment where Brandon Brown and Matthew Arnone, while drinking whiskey one night, read the entire book out loud to each other. Don’t mean to mythologize if I’m wrong about that, but pretty sure that happened.

32. Ghosts- Stephen Boyer

Don’t remember if Stephen sent me this book. Or if Bent Boy Books sent me this book. Or if Stephen handed it off to me in person. I think Bent Boy Books sent me this book. I love this chapbook, especially the Craigslist bars/clubs reviews. Cause it’s Stephen, and he actually posted these amazing reviews (nod to Killian) on Craigslist. Stephen invited me to read with him and Jennifer Blowdryer at Dog Eared Books for the release reading. I’ve never written about that reading and what took place afterward…but let me just say…there were beautiful girls, there were boys, there was a band playing in the Mission, there was an art opening, there was El Rio and The Makeout Room, there was an “appropriated” car on Market St, there was hot tubs, there was a lot of nudity, there was rooftops, there was missing pants, there was blackouts, there was making out and whiskey and a wet cab ride home with two of my best homies at 5 in the morning…and then a lot of hilarious text messages the next day/afternoon…pretty much the epic’ist after party to a poetry reading I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. There is a line in Stephen’s book that goes something like “I want to read poetry with Lindsey Lohan in the Hollywood Hills…”…it was like that. You should read Ghosts.

33. Befallen I- Erin Moure (Belladonna #74)

Another Belladonna book. I can’t say I remember this book. These BD chapbooks are so small. Forgive. I remember when Erin came to the poetry center to give a reading back in 2002 I think. I missed the reading for some reason. But I remember talking to Brandon about it later on. He was definitely on a post reading Team-Erin glow. And made me feel bad for missing an exceptional reading. I think Erin talked a lot about translation, and Brandon back then, as now, has a huge boner for Team-Translation. I remember Brandon trying to break down her PoCenter presentation to me. I remember thinking “not sure I know what you’re talking about broseph, but you seem really excited, so I’m excited for you/with you…”

34. from Compass And Men- Jill Magi

Possibly another Dusie chapbook. I don’t remember Jill’s book. I know I probably read it in the bathroom before hopping in the shower. So many Dusie books, so overwhelming. Jill has a great last name, almost don't believe it's real. Maybe "Magi" is a stage name, like Katy Perry born Katheryn Elizabeth, or Wynona Ryder born Winona Horowitz. I wonder what "Jill Magi's" real name is...

35. Lessons Of The Microscopist- Martine Bellen

Again, probably a Dusie chapbook. See my awful review of Jill Magi’s chapbook for context. But on the other hand, “Martine Bellen” sounds like a name that Belladonna might publish. So, I’m not sure how to orient. Probably read it in the bathroom before hopping in the shower.

36. Soup #3

Bought this at Green Apple back in 2003, I think I was with Brandon Brown. I’m pretty sure there were two issues of Soup on the rack, and I wanted them both, but Brandon snagged one before I could call dibs, I’m a bit of a hoarder. I don’t know which issue Brandon ended up with but I’m pretty sure Soup #3 defeats his issue. This one has that great Bruce Boone introduction/ essay about New Narrative writing. Not sure how “new” New Narrative was when he published it, but I’m pretty sure it was pretty damn new. I’m not sure how many issues of Soup Steve Abbott put out before his death. I’ve only seen #3, and Brandon’s issue but only fleetingly. Brandon came over to my apartment a few months ago for beers and records. We were listening to Nana Mouskouri on the turntable, he excused himself to the bathroom. When he came back he was holding my copy of Soup #3, he looked at me disapprovingly and said “dude, you shouldn’t have this in the bathroom, it’s probably worth money…”…and then sat down and proceeded to quote from the Boone essay. He’s right, I shouldn’t have had it in the bathroom. I don’t know if it’s worth any money, but it’s a hella’ve good read, and pretty rare, and one of the better finds I’ve ever had on magazine-digging-sesh.

37. She Talks To Herself In The Language Of An Educated Woman- Frances Jaffer

Frances Jaffer’s husband, Mark Linenthal (RIP), gave me a copy of this book at a reading I gave at The Poetry Center at SFSU. I had won SFSU’s 2002 Frances Jaffer Award for poetry and The Poetry Center was hosting an awards reading. After I read Mark introduced himself, shook my hand and handed me Frances’s book. I was completely overwhelmed, it was an emotional moment and a completely generous gesture from a man who probably had better places to be than a student's award reading. Cut to 6 years later (2008), Rob Halpern invited me to read at The Last Laugh Café in the Mission, a series he curated before leaving San Francisco. I of course agreed to the reading and asked if he had an idea of who he was planning on pairing me with, he said “Mark Linenthal.” I was blown away, and stoked, I told Rob about how I had won the Frances Jaffer award while at State, about Mark coming to my reading and giving me those books, about how much that meant to me as a young guy just coming up in the SF poetry scene. Rob was all “no way, I didn’t know that…I didn’t know anything about the award, or that you had met Mark before...you know I’m co-editing a new Frances Jaffer book right?” And I’m like “what dude? No I didn’t know that…” And he’s like “yeah, weird huh? This reading really was meant to happen!…” And I’m like “uh huh…totally weird.” At the reading I walked up to greet Mark Linenthal as he arrived at the Café, to reintroduce myself, tell him how much I was looking forward to his reading, about what an honor it was to be paired with him. I'm about halfway across the cafe when he spots me, smiles and says “you won the Frances Jaffer Award!...I want you to know, Frances is watching over our reading tonight…”

38. Practice: New Writing #1

I think the eds. put out 2 issues of Practice. I could be wrong; I’ve only seen 2 issues. I remember I got my copy of Practice for free. When the first issue came out you could write the eds. requesting a free copy. Not a review copy, just a straight up free copy. So I wrote, and boom, two weeks later arrived Practice #1. I liked it for the most part, something very “Iowa” about it if you know what I mean. Some good Graham Foust poems from a series I hadn’t seen before, I remember liking the featured art though I can’t remember any names. They had a call for submissions for visual work. I think they very clearly stated under their submission guidelines that they didn’t want to see any more than 3 hi res email attachments submitted at a time. I asked my artist friend Lauren Kohne if I could submit a few of her pieces. She agreed, and I really thought she had a good chance of being accepted. I think I started drinking vodka or whiskey, this was Boulder years, and started going through her work trying to pick out my favorite 3 images. As the night wore on, and the drinking continued I came to an impasse. I liked all of the images the same. So, I opened my email, wrote a long letter pleading my case about the genius of the work, about how I couldn’t just weed it down to 3 images, about how once they see the work they’ll understand why…and then I went ahead and attached 10 or 11 jpeg files and hit send. I never heard back from them.

39. Parish Krewes- Micah Ballard

If you’re friends with Micah then you know what it means to be “goosed.” The dude is the king of “goosing.” It’s uncomfortable, and weird, and confusing while at the same time fraternal and funny and just a wee bit sexy. Parish Krewes is at once a celebration (not elegy) for a city and state (NO, LO) and lyric poem comfortable amongst the poetry-ghosts of his adopted city (SF, CA). Me and Micah and Logan Koreber and Patrick Dunagan were planning on making a skateboard movie called Pushing Mongo. It will be a day-in-the-life of movie. We’ll skate from the Safeway curb, to SOMA down Market on the rack-a-rack-kac-bricks, down to the EMB, up and along the Piers all the way to AT&T park back up to the Mission for burritos then off the skateboards hiking up the hill to grab a beer in Bernal Heights at Wild Side West. Then bombing back down the hill heading towards 16^th, almost getting hit by a USPS carrier van, Logan and I will get separated from Micah and Dunagan, but we’ll all end up somehow at Kilowatt for more beers, bros and brouhaha. It’s going to be an epic movie with a happy ending.

40. Spirits And Anchors- Jason Morris

One of my favorite books of 2010 by one of my favorite people, Mr. Jason Morris... This book kills. If you can find this book you should pick it up, it’s hard to find but I’d recommend starting at Books & Bookshelves at 99 Sanchez. Auguste Press, limited copies, hand set and bound. Jason’s first full length right? This book goes well with a 40oz and a pack of smokes. With a Berrigan Collected and a blue Mead notebook on your lap. Read this book on a sunny Sunday afternoon with a view of Lone Mountain with plans on meeting up with your best friends later on. You’re going to want to talk about this book once you’ve finished. To smile about this book, to text Morris and be like “you motherfucker, Spirits And Anchors is the beat…you at the bar? I’m coming up…”

41. Ladybug Laws- Laura Moriarty

Laura is my boss. Laura gave me this new chapbook of hers a few months ago. I don’t remember who published this book. Laura is also my friend. It’s great when your boss is your friend. We take turns taking out the trash at SPD. We divide the labor by month. SPD has a staff of 8. So, every 8 months it’s my turn to take out the trash. I can never remember to take out the trash when my turn comes around. So far I’ve been through 2 chore-cycles and have failed miserably at my duties both times. Laura will come into my office and say “hey John, don’t forget to take out the trash…” and then I will forget. And then she’ll come back and say “hey John, you forgot to take out the trash…take out the trash, it’s full, and disgusting, and overflowing…” and I’ll say “sure thing Laura, so sorry, skipped my mind…” and then I’ll forget…Laura is a pretty patient woman. Laura writes fantastic books and is my favorite person to poetry gossip with this side of the Bay Bridge.

42. Her Friends Down At The French Cafe Had No English Words For Me- Patrick Dunagan

I think Push Press published this book? Patrick gave me a copy when we were hanging out at Mini Bar on Divis. We were out celebrating the publication of the new issue of Jason Morris’s magazine Big Bell. Jason Morris was there, Russ Dillon was there, Micah Ballard was there. We were all drinking whiskey and passing around poetry books. Every cover of Big Bell is unique. I think Jason and some of his artist friends create all the covers: hand painting, photocopying, drawing etc. Neato. I remember a drunk guy that Micah sort of knew sat down with us in the middle of a conversation. Micah looked annoyed so I had the green light to stink eye the bro. Later that night I saw a pretty girl and went to talk to her. I ended up talking to the bartender/owner instead. A few weeks later I saw the pretty girl again, this time we chatted and I asked for her number. She gave it to me and we made plans to go out the next week. I was excited, she was pretty, and weird and had those sexy "I'm a lil' crazy" vibes. I texted her the next Wednesday to make plans. She texted back "Sorry John, this just really isn't a good time for me...," oof, argh, blag. Onward!

43. The Last Avant-Garde The Making Of The New York School Of Poets- David Lehman

Got summoned for jury duty. Unlike most people I was stoked for jury duty. Did everything I could to get selected (acted like a norm, answered honestly but not too opinionated, gave the attorneys a blank slate). Voir Dire was super interesting. The jury pool went from 100 people to about 40. I was still hanging in there. Whittled down the pool from 40 to 19. I got selected as a primary juror, #11 i think. Stoked! A criminal case…dude was accused of stalking, threatening and stabbing his girlfriend in a low residency hotel in the Mission. Crazy right? The judge told us that the trial was projected to last about a week…a short trial for a criminal case. The book that I started, and finished in the week I spent at the court house was David Lehman’s The Last Avant-Garde. A big book I bought back at the SFSU bookstore in 2003. I was really excited to read what unfortunately turned out to be a long boring, messy behemoth. Not so much a cohesive biography on the NY movement, which I was hoping for, as a loose dissertation in 4 parts. Too much close reading and not enough gossip. I don’t care about Lehman close reading a Koch poem. But I do care about Koch. Too much about how Lehman feels about Ashbery’s poems and not enough about Ashbery. Super boo…started the book excited at the beginning of the trial, finished the book bummed on the last day of the trial. It did pass the time I guess, I just wish that time passing was more fun. We ended up finding the guy not guilty after deliberating for a couple days, we were all pretty sure the dude stabbed his girlfriend (in the leg), but the burden of proof wasn't met. The victim of the stabbing was an incredibly unreliable witness. She kept nodding off while testifying, she lied while on the stand to try to try and bolster her case, a lot of what she said contradicted earlier statements. It was hard to sit through, she shouldn't have been made to take the stand (but what else could they do I guess), this was a woman obviously dealing with addiction and mental issues, she was in no state to face her attacker let alone the judge, jury and courthouse. So in the end we were compelled to find him not guilty on the stabbing offense but found him guilty on 3 other felony offenses, including criminal stocking. The accused was already in county jail for another felony offense, and with our guilty verdict on the 3 lesser charges he’s going to remain there for a very long time. Was really glad for the experience, I would recommend everybody serve at least once.

44. United United- Sunnylyn Thibodeaux

Micah Ballard gave me a copy of Sunnylyn’s Lew Gallery chapbook the first time I went over to their apartment. Back then we were in the courting stage, new poetry friends with tons in common wanting to get to know each other more. Went over there to watch the new Alien Workshop video. Micah also skates. Brought them my The Moveable Ones chapbook, Gary Gygax and a copy of BOUT BOUT. In return Micah gave me a brand new World Industries skateboard!, a new set of Spitfire wheels, a misprint copy of United United, a ton of Auguste Press books and 4 or 5 Lew Gallery editions. We drank beers, and talked skating, and talked poetry and broke bread (burnt pizza). Since then Micah and Sunnylyn have become a couple of my dearest friends, poetry and otherwise. Hung out with Micah and Sunnylyn yesterday at Alamo Square Park. I finally got to meet their beautiful, brand new daughter Lorca. We had a few beers and talked skating, poetry, pregnancy, delivery and parenthood. The baby is a gem and so are her parents, I cherish days quiet days like that.

45. Luna #5

A Gulf War veteran poet named Sean gave me a copy of this journal (intentionally not calling it a magazine) back in 2003 at SFSU. I think he had just joined the editorial board or something and was handing out free copies to students in the program. I liked Sean a lot, nice guy if somewhat square. Does Ray Gonzalez edit Luna? I just pulled that name out of the sky, I have no idea if Ray Gonzalez is a real person. I don't like Luna journal at all. I feel bad about putting it that way, but what can I say? Luna is just really not my steelo at all. It just has a very safe aesthetic: a middle-aged Democracy Now listening, black and white photography of indigenous peoples vibe. Boring. I think Paul Hoover had some poems in this issue, but I can't remember anything else specific about the contents. In the end it's my fault and not Luna's, Ray Gonzalez is doing his thing, I just have zero interest in that thing.

46. Identity/ Crises- anonymous

I don't know who wrote/ conceptualized this. It arrived in the mail anonymously. Pretty sure it's a Dusie project. Silver-foil cover wrapped in a silver-foil band. Kind of like the infamous Issue #1 prank from a few years ago. Actually nothing like that at all. Identity/ Crises amalgamates lines from the Kollectiv participants, I think...I remember when I first read it I immediately scanned the entire thing looking for my name. Kind of like reading a new issue of The Project Project Newsletter (I'm 0 for 14 or something like that). Whoever wrote/ conceptualized Identity/ Crises didn't bother with me though. I did spot Logan Ryan Smith, can't remember from which book they excerpted, maybe The Singers, he's currently snowed in in Chicago. I just heard on KNBR that Lou Pinella is coming to work for the Giants in an advisory role. I guess him and Sabean go way back from their days with the Yankees. LRS works for GroupOn. Which is a company that is popular with people for some reason. He really likes his job.

47. New American Writing #13

This one has a really intensely boring baby blue cover featuring a landscape painting (very "viewer supported television" steez). Landscape painting? Hmmm...maybe. A Pastoral? A "NecroPastoral" (what does "Montevidayo" mean anyway? I really don't like the way it makes my mouth feel when saying it). I can't remember anything specific about this issue. I like New American Writing. I like Paul Hoover and Maxine Chernoff. When I was living in Boulder and Paul came to give a reading at CU, I remember I went to his reading, spotted tall ass Paul, and practically jumped on him with hugs. I was just happy to see the Bay Area again. And then Chernoff is solely responsible for me graduating from SFSU on time. She wields hella power hella benevolently. Things got a bit hairy my last semester there, but Chernoff stepped up saved my brisket. Thanks Maxine!

48. Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte

I was bored until page 100. Then I was stoked until page 300. Then I was totally bummed all the way until the end. I liked the middle act until Jane Eyre got all insufferable about her wedding and turned into a psycho-billy-yatch. Mr. Rochester needed to check himself. And then all that drama with her wandering the wild heaths of the dangerous British countryside. And then she almost starves to death, after just 3 days of traipsin' the trails! Grow a spine woman! I watched the BBC adaptation which was 5 hours long and satisfying in that languid BBC stage-drama'y way. I saw a preview for the new American adaptation, I noticed they used parts of Goblin's Suspiria theme, strange.

49. Lunch Poems- Frank O'hara

"Lana Turner we love you get up"

I read this on my lunch break in my car. Not so novel I know. I think most people who have read this book probably read it on their lunch breaks. It's the precious thing to do. I like Steve Orth's version best though..."Yeah, I keep Lunch Poems in my pocket at work, I'm always telling myself, 'today is the day I'm going to read Lunch Poems on my lunch break'...but when I take my lunch break I always just go on the internet instead..."

50. Soft Targets #1

Dan Hoy sent me a copy of the debut issue of his very pretty, very smart magazine years ago. I think there ended up being 2 very-phat, very generous issues? I remember this one came with a mini-disc attached at the back, a noise track by Teleseen called "Qassam." I've never met Dan Hoy, he lives in NYC. I have a feeling we would be thick as thieves though. I feel like Dan Hoy wears very smart suits often.

51. Late Returns A Memoir of Ted Berrigan- Tom Clark

I bought the UC Press Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan a couple years ago. I only got around to starting it late last year (and am still only on page 200 or so, I keep it under my nightstand, savoring it). Berrigan was almost immediately enshrined as a major god-head in my personal pantheon. I can't believe I waited this long to read Berrigan. Michael Koshkin (Hot Whiskey Press) used to have a huge thing for Berrigan, Jared Hayes and the rest of the Naropa Goons definitely had a huge thing for Berrigan. But unfortunately I kind of had an SF stick up my ass back then. I was reading a lot of Michael Palmer at the time. It's not that I had an aversion to NY School and 2nd Gen NYS writing, it's just that I was totally consumed with SF/ Bay Area poetry and poetics, frankly I thought anything NOT coming from the Bay Area wasn't worth my time, I was fucking retarded back then and have been reforming myself over the last few years. Late Returns is a good little, hard to find biography by Tom Clark (published in '85 by Tombouctou Books). I read it in an evening. Some interesting anecdotal stuff, some cool photos and correspondences. Anxiously waiting for the news that someone has been secretly working on a Berrigan biography for the last few years on the scale of Poet Be Like God. Cheers to fantasizing.

52. Zazil #1

Magazine I picked up from an SPD Open House 5 or 6 years ago. Did James Meetze edit this bad boy? Or just have poems in this issue? I want to say this was a Southern California based mag. I don't remember anything specific about this magazine besides reading it in the bathroom. Oh wait, I remember that my copy was misprinted, the back cover was printed as the front cover rendering a Japanese-style spine. I think Mark Wallace had some poems in this issue.

53. Jim Goad's Gigantic Book Of Sex- Jim Goad

The best kind of bathroom reading. A coffee table book of Goad's best sex writing. First started reading him on Street Carnage. Then found his website. Then bought The Redneck Manifesto (and read it while visiting a friend in Brooklyn!), then bought the Gigantic Book Of Sex (the kind of book where your legs fall asleep while reading for lack of position change), then bought Shit Magnet (which I started then put down, saving for a rainy day). If they sold Jim Goad t-shirts I would buy one. Now he's writing for Taki's and I'm checking in daily.

54. Ted A Personal Memoir Of Ted Berrigan- Ron Padgett

This is the more free form of the two Berrigan bios. Padgett spends a lot of time talking about Berrigan's time in Tulsa. His friends, his affairs, his habits and eventual move to NYC, and ultimately his death. Again, this is basically a one sitting read; a small, fun, anecdotal book written by one of Berrigan oldest poetry friends. I think this book is officially out of print.

55. Ted Berrigan- Bill Berkson and George Schneeman

This artist's book was put out by Kyle Schlesinger of Cuniform Press last year. It's a visual collaboration between Bill Berkson and George Schneeman. I snagged a damaged copy from SPD. Limited to 500 copies. I have this perched against a wall in my bedroom, right next to a giant William Everson chapbook. From the publisher "Ted Berrigan is a classic collaboration between Bill Berkson and George Schneeman, and an homage to the poet and painter's mutual friend produced as a unique book in real-time at George's studio on St. Mark's Place on March 5, 2006. Continuing in the tradition of New York School collaboration, Schneeman and Berkson's Ted Berrigan is a high-quality reproduction comprised of eight spreads where image and text fuse, bleed off the page and cross the gutter. Includes an afterword by Berkson and a note from the publisher."

56. Too Bright To See And Alma- Linda Greg

They should make a movie called The Marriage of Linda Greg and Jack Gilbert.

57. Combo #4

I've never had lunch with Bill Berkson. I have spoken with him on the phone a bunch though. Berkson once double parked his car in front of my building. He handed me a box filled with his new book. I think he was off to a museum or something.

58. Half Set- Logan Kroeber

Patrick Dunagan is in the new The Dodos video.

59. Moving Pictures- Greg Fuchs

The only Greg I've ever known was a bully. I doubt that Greg Fuchs is a bully.

60. Maybe A Painter- Christina Fisher

I have no recollection of reading this book.

61. The Squalicum Harbor Suite- Anselm Parlatore

Big gothic poems, I think the cover is a bit ugly, Jared Hayes could throw a baseball as hard as I've ever seen.

62. Picture Of The Basket- Sarah Mangold

Picture Of The Basket makes me think of Basket Case, an uneven horror-comedy.

63. Ted Berrigan An Annotated Checklist- Aaron Fischer

One of my staff picks at the last Open House, Alan Bernheimer bought two copies.

64. Bombay Gin #30

I almost tore my ACL skateboarding home from The Catacombs after making out with a girl with a shaved head. I decided not to buy nachos that night. Logan took me to the hospital the next morning.

65. Try- May 10, 2010

The best way to distribute your new poems is to publish them in Try. But you probably won't get contributor's copies. Or even see the issue your poems were published in. Which is pretty fantastic in a way.

66. Pastoral- Carl Phillips

I remember when Carl Phillips won $100,000 for some book he wrote.

67. Wilson- Daniel Clowes

I bought this from Comix Experience on Divis. I also bought white peaches, bananas and apples from the produce market next door. It was a Saturday. I think I also bought Big Baby by Charles Burns. For some reason I bought asparagus. I also bought the horrible Left Bank Gang by Jason. Here's a photo I took...

68. On: Contemporary Practice #1

Michael Cross invited me to contribute to issue #2, but I never got around to writing anything. Michael Cross has this great twinkle in his eye.

69. Combo #2

I have too many Combos. I finish one and pick up the next issue. It's starting to bother me.

70. Heads Up Fever Pile- Karen Weiser (Belladonna #77)

I'm currently reading Rachel Levitsky's New Yipes Reader. I have no idea what Elizabeth Grosz was talking about in that essay on nature and architecture.

71. Belleza Y Felicidad- Fernanda Laguna/ Gabriela Bejerman/ Cecilia Pavon- trans. Urayoan Noel

Some good sex poems. I like when the Beastie Boys talk about "sex raps." There might not be any sex poems in the book. It's entirely feasible that I'm projecting.

72. How To Read The Aura And Practice Psychometry, Telepathy and Clairvoyance- W.E. Butler

This book is mostly filled with bad advice. W.E. Butler was an interesting fellow though.

73. The Redneck Manifesto- Jim Goad

A polemic on the white working class. I read it on an airplane on the way to NYC for a little R&R.

74. Il Cuore: The Heart Selected Poems- Kathleen Fraser

Finished Il Cuore in the waiting room at the doctor's office. I had my lungs x-rayed by a doctor who smelled like Chunky's Pea Soup.

75. Transfer #61

Jesus Christ I can't believe I'm still reading Transfer.

76. Torn Awake- Forrest Gander

Forrest Gander looks like he should work for the YMCA. He looks like he would know how to tie some complicated knots.

77. Zephyrus Image: A Bibliography- Alastair Johnston

Teeter Holbrook and Michael Myers were the dudes. I tried to ask David Highsmith about them, he obliquely avoided the question. Highsmith let's me use his restroom walking back from Dolores Park.

78. Temblor #2

I dislike Temblor enormously. Was this the issue with the mind-numbingly, never going to end, my eye balls are bleeding puss and piss, prose experimentation piece by Johanna Drucker? Yeah, I didn't like this issue.

79. Hyper Glossia- Stacy Szymaszek (Belladonna #80)

I remember Stacy used to take a lot of self portraits. Doesn't she own a dog too? I feel like a lot of her self portraits were staged in her bathtub.

80. You But For The Body Fell Against- Nathalie Stephens (Belladonna #81)

I don't like this title. Reminds me of that Johanna Drucker piece from Temblor.

81. from Human Resources- Rachel Zolf (Belladonna #82)

I didn't meet Rachel when she read at Condensory a few months ago. I don't even remember what she looks like.

82. The Beekeeper's Departure- Jennifer Chapis

Sounds like it should have been written by Margaret Atwood.

83. Lines #5

Aram Saroyan smoked hella weed.

84. New American Writing #13

Didn't I already do a write up about this issue? I bought too many magazines as a lad.

85. ACTS #4

Benjamin Hollander wouldn't blurb my book.

86. Combo #3

Fuck, not Combo again!

87. Been Raw Diction- David B. Goldstein

I also really don't like this title. Reminds me of Scott Walker's "Of Cossacks."

88. Poems Of The Black Object- Ronaldo Wilson

Among lot's of other things, Ronaldo knows how to write about Hip Hop without coming off as an awful person. No easy feat.

89. My Vocabulary Did This To Me The Collected Poetry Of Jack Spicer- Jack Spicer

I remember Peter Gizzi cursing pretty loudly in the Bancroft Library. I remember Kevin Killian disinterestedly listening to the Giants/ Marlins game with me in my car on the way to Berkeley.

90. Ben-Hur- Lew Wallace

Top 5 worst novels I've ever read. I'm not sure what the other 4 would be, so maybe this is the #1 worst novel I've ever read.

91. Stranger In Town- Cedar Sigo

Cedar is sad that I'm moving from SF. This makes me happy. That he cares enough to be sad. I'm only moving to Oakland Cedar! We'll just have to plan some sleepovers.

92. The Great Fires- Jack Gilbert

They should make a movie about Jack Gilbert's despair. They should call it Jack Gilbert's Despair.

93. Shiny #12

Denver is not an impressive city. I really liked the High Dive though. Everyone was so nice and snowboard'y.

94. The History Of Hell- Alice K. Turner

I know more about the history of Hell than you do.

95. Combo #5

ACK!

96. 26 #B

I was reading Andrew Joron's antiwar essay on my lunch break, and when I looked up from the book I spotted Andrew walking down 7th St. with Laura Moriarty. A very Jungian moment, like plum pudding or Alice In Wonderland.

97. Cows- Matthew Stokoe

I really did almost throw up 3 times while reading this book. Hagbeast. Hagbeast. Hagbeast.

98. Evangeline Down- Micah Ballard

Micah texted me a "sup" on a Sunday while I was in the middle of reading ED. A very Jungian moment, like plum pudding or Alice In Wonderland.

99. Selected Mistakes- Chris Martin

Chris Martin and I talked about Anticon for half an hour in Jason Morris's kitchen. I haven't talked about Anticon since.

100. El Golpe Chileno- Julien Poirier

My book of the year! I think I'm starting to creep Julian out with my praises. I feel like all of Julian's friends have fake names: Filip Marinovich and Eugene Ostashevsky especially. I'm not sure I believe those names belong to real people.

101. Medium Raw- Anthony Bourdain

I'm not sure how I feel about Anthony's wife. I like that if you watch enough No Reservations you start to catch on that Tony is a bit of a poseur. And that endears him to me even more.

another rapper/ poet doppelganger thingy...

2011-06-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

Lil' Debbie ((on the left) White Girl Mob))

and

Ariana Reines

2011-06-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

a lot of rare Jazz vinyl burned up when the world ended

somebody was watching The Princess And The Frog when the world ended

a man was eating a sourdough jack when the world ended

Americans eat tuna melts. Do Mexicans eat tuna melts? Do the Irish eat tuna melts? Lindsey Boldt gave me The Hobbit soundtrack for Christmas. I'm currently listening to that watching the Giants vs. Naropa Rockies on some hair of the dog Coors steez. If the Giants lose blame me for drinking Coors. Last night Jessica cut my hair in a house in the Lower Haight. I drank all her vodka and talked about balls.

If you have the audacity.

My brother was sincerely into the WWF growing up. He was a Hulkamaniac. He'd plop down on saturday morning with his action figures nuzzling his Hulk Hogan plush toy while my mom made pancakes. He just turned 29. Must be so weird being a mom, knowing that a Hulkamaniac (or whatever) came out of your vagina. He uses my Netflix queue so I get to see his viewing history. He just watched "WWE 50 Greatest Stars Of All Time"...

RIP Buster Posey.

2011-06-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

PERV-FACE

2011-06-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

when people type "like" instead of just clicking "like"

when people type "done and done"

every time a girl uses an emoticon i think she's being sarcastic

2011-06-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

I'm wearing boxer briefs for the first time. I must admit I look amazing. But it feels like I'm wearing panties. I just did that magical move that girls do where they run their pointer fingers along the ridge of their ass cheeks to pull their bikini bottoms from their butt cracks. I've never done that before. Super confused this morning...

I was doing laundry at my parent's house recently. Well, my Mom was doing my laundry for me. And then we were folding my laundry together on the couch. And then there were suddenly all of these duplicates of my boxer shorts. But I didn't own duplicates. And then we realized that the duplicates were actually my Dad's identical underwear mixed in with mine. And it freaked me out. Right? I mean, gross...We were both sporting cheap ass (pun intended) Macy's Tommy Hilfiger boxers. I'm 31 and my Dad is 73, No Good, I can't share underwear styleez with my Pop. So now I'm wearing man panties. I feel like Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham. My wind up is getting kinky by the minute. I'm told that I'll get used to it. A bunch of men and women were all "yayaya" on facebook...so I'm thinking this is the right move. Yeah? Yeah...

2011-06-01T20:44:00.001-07:00

because i've been reading Ray Bradbury all day

Welcome (to Deathrow)...

and if it was not the three walls
an hour across town
an hour and tore the breath from his mouth
when they stepped out of the car
she had seashells stuffed into her ears

they could not touch through the glass
a hundred miles an hour across town
soon to be four
and it was indeed remarkable
tearing her ears from his mouth
only the wind blowing
at least keep it a tiny musical
because facts of that sort don't change
she was a time bomb

2011-05-27T16:43:00.001-07:00

LOL, look at my sun burnt shoulder. Looks like Easter lamb. HAHA. Cancer.

2011-05-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

We went on a trip to Truckee, Tahoe. My brother's 29th birthday. "Hot tubs" roughing it.

2011-05-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

there is no normalizing the word MILF. i wish pop culture would stop trying.

i could care less about animals but have you guys ever seen a stub nosed monkey? they look like elves. or michael jackson. or princess mononoke.

it's really not fair though, the only songs ever sung on MUNI sound like halitosis infected with Hep C wearing a vomit and E&J stained dirty Duster style trench coat...

“Jesus Christmas, holy Jesus God damn, Jesus jumping Christmas shit”

it smells like field-porn outside...

you've aged as well as a Paul Frank t-shirt...

i'm so emotional today. cried during This Week In Baseball. cried during the Kentucky Derby. cried 3 times in 1 episode of Friday Night Lights. crycrycry, that's all i ever do.

Madmartigan

can't stand people who stretch in front of me. want to throw up in their lap.

no hulu hoops allowed...

John Sakkis flaunts (flaunts!) his bikini body/ baby bump...

"John is fixing his toilet so he will be arriving late. "

Senior Frogs.

i'm a studio gangster...

Ryan Vogelsong don't be an asshole.

roller coaster ride enthusiast.

the death of Gavroche!

I'm off to the Peninsula to eat an entire lamb with my family.

i strained my neck this morning puffing on my asthma inhaler. i feel like Revenge Of The Nerds II: Nerds In Paradise...

which poet do you think is going to write the inevitable over-thinking it blog post/ essay defending the new Lady Gaga album cover? willing to bet whoever it is references Zizek, Kitsch, Glam...

the most interesting thing you can do to a wall nowadays is buff it...stencil-art is an oxymoron. saying "street art" is like rocking JNKOs in 2011. i don't care about your fucking mural.

Portes, Plakoto, Fevga.

Ashley Judd calls Rap music misogynistic gets called a racist by feminists...

streaming Eat Pray Love might have not been such a good idea. currently at the part where Julia Roberts eats a really good plate of spaghetti...now i'm on the part where Julia Roberts eats a really good cantaloupe...

now i'm on the part where Julia Roberts eats a really good slice of pizza in Naples, FML.

now i'm on the part where Julia Roberts takes a cab in India.

pimps in the woods. i dreamt about pimps in the woods.

Jezebel is mad because Sleigh Bells sang about "dumb whores"...only they didn't, they sang about "devil horns"...

I'm not a shit-head i just flush a lot.

Cholombians are the new Juggalos.

Hurricane but you can call me Slurricane...

and now we're going to Libya! cause it's totally our business to win a revolution for them! sweet!

‎"Are clams alive?" "Yes/ No" "This answer is: Irrelevant Little important Somewhat important Very important Mandatory"

dreamt i was landing so many heel flips.

is Kurt Loder still on MTV?

for I have dined on honeydew!

my band is called BOTH BOTH...

heyhey, reading at Condensery at the end of the month...

2011-05-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

We are pleased to invite to our series this month for the readings of:

Julia Drescher, CJ Martin and John Sakkis

on Saturday May 28th

Doors at 7:30, reading will begin promptly at 8

Condensery takes place at:

604 56th at Shattuck
in Oakland

The reading is free.
Some wine and snacks will be served.
BYOB as always.
Street parking / porch for bikes.

Pen/cil us in. We hope to see you then!

Zack Tuck and Jack Frost