The Jeff Koons piece of Michael Jackson with Bubbles was more special than I could have imagined.

I am sick, but I don't think it's because of last weekend, when Mark and I went up to LA to visit with Joseph and Rita, see a lot of art, hear a lot of poetry, and eat a lot of good food.

What we saw:

• The Museum of Jurassic Technology
• The Franz West, Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures , and the Broad Contemporary Art Museum--all at LACMA.
• The Dan Graham retrospective at MOCA.

What we ate:

• Purple pickled eggs, chili, potato salad, pickles, and sandwiches at Philippe's. Mark had a classic beef dip with swiss cheese, and Joseph and I had lamb dips with blue cheese. We went at the height of the lunch rush; but we persevered, and the meal carried us all the way to dinner.
  
• Burgers and onion rings at Umami Burger. Both were amazing, but the waiters were grumpy and inefficient. I'd go back for lunch in a heartbeat, though.
• Brunch at Larkin's: I had "Maggie's Mess": Potatoes, scrambled eggs, onions,peppers, bacon hot links & chicken--pieces of fried chicken--with a bit of gravy and a biscuit.
  
• Sausages and beer at Wurstküche.

What we heard at the Poetic Research Bureau:

• Will Alexander
• Guy Bennett
• Paul Vangelisti
• Diane Ward
• Ben Ehrenreich
• Ara Shirinyan
• Andrew Maxwell
• Sesshu Foster
• Douglas Kearny
• Roberto Leni
• David Lloyd
• Estrella del Valle
• Seth Michelson
• Dennis Philips
• Saba Razvi
• Martha Ronk
• Matthew Shenoda
• Daniel Tiffany
• Molly Bendall

Back at Home

I'm happy, tired, and a bit overwrought.

LA + Poetry + Poet Friends + Art + Armenian Food + New People + Me + Mark =

Big, big love.

And I love the sleepy, somehow not quite hungover train ride back to north county, too.

It was a good party

Charred Camp Pendleton from the train


People dance and are blurry


I am content after the party and late-night tacos in Pasadena


Grab shot outside of LA from the train the next morning

We're going to LA tomorrow for a party

to celebrate Joseph and Rita's recent marriage. I'm excited, it will be a fun party, with many people I know and don't know from a variety of contexts.

I made hamburgers this evening. My interest in red meat always corresponds with chemical shifts in my body. Oh well. Lester had some burger too--it was probably only the second time he'd ever had beef, and he liked it.

I've decided that I don't like riding the bus in the middle of the day. Perhaps it's bad luck, but thus far, the mid-day bus drivers have either been crazy or mean. I'm mentioning this to remind myself to blog about it later. I'm used to encountering crazy passengers, but yesterday the bus driver was crazy, too. A new development.

Blogger thought this blog was a spam blog, so I couldn't post for a few days.

The reading in LA was great. I've hung out with Dana Ward in a number of cities, but I'd never heard him read--it seems like he's playing around with a variety of tones at the moment, though all very much within a kind of experimental lyric context. And I don't want to write like Susanne Dyckman, but I felt like I learned a lot from her extremely precise images and use of texture--I enjoyed both their readings.

Plus, Michelle Detoire and her partner came down for the reading! Yay!

I'm starting to feel familiar enough with LA audiences that I'm a bit more comfortable and relaxed reading, although a certain amount of nervous energy is essential to the way I perform. I was also glad to be able to see Stan before he heads off to Tampa for the foreseeable future. I read a brief section from See it Everywhere about a swimming, leaping iguana in honor of Stan and Tampa (and canals and Florida rivers).

To blog about later:

1. My little sister Sarah and her love of coconut shells and how she (like I used to and probable many other people) projects her longing onto seemingly bizarre objects.

2. How I never fantasized about my future wedding or house as a child or teenager, but I did spend hours diagramming the perfect horse barn, or cat jungle gym. So the fact that I have been fantasizing about building Lester a cage that is both inside and outside is nothing new. (How this also sounds, rhetorically, like frat-boy fantasies of having a permanent keg or a keg in the truck, etc).

3. I forgot

THE SMELL LAST SUNDAY READING SERIES

Leaving tomorrow for LA this weekend to bid Mr. Stan Apps goodbye and to give a reading.

THE SMELL LAST SUNDAY READING SERIES

Sunday, July 29, 2007

THE SMELL LAST SUNDAY SERIES features:

Susanne Dyckman
K. Lorraine Graham
Dana Ward

THE SMELL
247 S. Main Street, between 2nd and 3rd St, downtown Los Angeles
(enter in the alley in the back)

Doors open at 6:30 pm
$5

Susanne Dyckman received her MFA in Writing in 2003 from the University of
San Francisco, where she is now one of the program¹s graduate thesis
advisors. After being named co-winner of the Five Fingers Review 2003
Poetry Award, she was invited to join the journal¹s editorial staff. She
has been a panel moderator at the 2005, 2006 and 2007 AWP conferences, and
in 2006 presented a Creative Writing Pedagogy paper at the RMMLA annual
conference in Tucson. For the past three years she has hosted the Evelyn
Avenue Reading Series, which features experimental poetry, prose, and, on
occasion, fine art.

K. Lorraine Graham is the author of three chapbooks, Terminal Humming (Slack
Buddha), See it Everywhere (Big Game Books), and Large Waves to Large
Obstacles, forthcoming from Outside Voices' Take Home Project. Dear [Blank]
I Believe in Other Worlds was originally a pamphlet from Phylum Press.
Narrowhouse Recordings recently released Moving Walkways, a limited-edition
chapdisk of her work. Lorraine has just completed the extended manuscript of
Terminal Humming.

Dana Ward is the author of New Couriers, The Wrong Tree, and other
chapbooks. He has new work available or forthcoming in The Recluse, string
of small machines, the DC Poetry Anthology and seconds. He lives in
Cincinnati, where he edits and publishes Cy Press.

The SMELL LAST SUNDAY READING SERIES is co-curated by Teresa Carmody (Les
Figues), Ara Shirinyan (Make Now Press), and Stan Apps (Insert Press)

I can now find my way from Redcat to Little Tokyo and back. I could probably make it to Hollywood from there as well. Maybe to Eagle Rock.

I always have fun when I go to LA. Was especially glad to hear Caroline Caroline Bergvall and Dodie Bellamy read/speak.

I am drinking pinot noir, which is kind of a rare event for me.

I'll be compiling my notes this week and scanning my doodles, which are more texty than usual.

I had some good ramen in little Tokyo and also some good potato tacos.

Several people mentioned Jessica Benjamin and intersubjectivity, which made me happy.

I like the people that I know in LA.

WACK! is a large, amazing show--I couldn't really absorb it all in a few hours. I did sit down and watch all of the short films I could, including several Yoko Ono pieces that I probably should have seen already but hadn't.

Whenever I have a lot to do, I get the urge to bake

Our new stove was installed today after more than a week with no oven. Today, I'm thinking about cakes that require blood oranges and tube pans. I have blood oranges, but no tube pan--most have nonstick coating that's lethal to birds, and no cake is worth Lester's life, of course. I can't get solid information about silicone--some people say it's ok for birds and some don't. So, for now, my fancy cakes have to be about aluminum and parchment paper, whatever their ingredients. I have a sweet tooth.

Mark and I did split a very large and tasty red velvet cupcake on Sunday from Auntie Em's in Eagle Rock, where Joseph took us to breakfast before we headed home. Terri Wahl, the owner of Auntie Em's, used to front The Red Aunts. I have #1 Chicken and Ghettoblaster in my CD collection. Good cupcakes.

We're going to hear James Meetze and Amra Brooks at UCSD this afternoon. The last time I saw James was at that Vietnamese place in Chinatown in LA everyone goes to because it's so very convenient and where they often assume you want iced coffee even when you do not. People in San Diego see each other, but we don't bump into each other. I suppose I bump into people when I'm riding around town. And the bus drivers know me. I am happy with the pho there (the Vietnamese place in Chinatown), even though Joseph says there are better places, and I'm sure that's true.

Oooh, and I forgot to mention that we ate at Koko's in Van Nuys--the Middle Eastern Restaurant owned by Ara's uncle. It really was one of the best Middle Eastern meals I've ever had. One of the salad/dips we had was something with pomegranates, walnuts, and peppers. Maybe it was mahammar or mouhamara? I say mouhamara, because Ara said it probably contained pomegranate syrup and not whole pomegranates. And given the texture, I think he must be correct.

I must buy some pomegranate molasses!

But not until after the termite exterminators have come and gone.

Yes, next weekend, everyone will have to clear out of our apartment complex because they're going to spray nasty stuff all over everything. I have to bag up all our spices and everything in the fridge and freezer and any toiletries. It will suck. But at least we're going to stay with a friend nearby, and not a hotel.

I updated the blog. I am still fussing with the template.

LA was fun, as always.

I have vitamin infused mud all over my face. In the middle of the day!

My email is running very slowly and Mark and I are headed to LA in a few hours--he'll be talking/reading for LA Lit at Betalevel this Saturday at pm. Come say hello. And if you can't make it (for a good reason--say--you live on the east coast), you can always listen to the podcast later.

I'm at least a half day behind on correspondence, which is behind but not as behind as usual.

I cannot find my digital camera!

I need to eat some lunch!

Mark and I and Joseph and Ara and maybe even other people too are going to Ara's uncle's (I think it's his uncle's) Armenian restaurant in the valley this evening. It is very exciting!

I mean all of this, exactly.