Yesterday I saw a guy on a skateboard wearing a shirt that said "I heart Conceptual Marxism." In my ESL class earlier that day, "materialist" was a vocab word, and one of my students asked me if there was any relationship between "materialist" and "materialism." So, when I passed the guy on his skateboard, I said "Woo hoo! I heart historical materialism!" It was a nerdy and vague exchange.

Today I tried to suggest to my students that the expression "Tête de Turc" might suggest something about the way French speakers view Turkey, but they were skeptical. I think the figurative translation is something like "the person who is the brunt of all jokes" or else "scapegoat" or even "whipping boy."

There doesn't need to be an approved by Lorraine (or anyone) historical trajectory to make Gurlesque legit

However, I'm unsatisfied with something about Lara Glenum's fascinating and enlightening description of the Gurlesque on Exoskeleton. So I'm going to try and think that through. My interests and concerns are really quite similar to those that Glenum describes: I'm very interested in a poetic practice that

1. is interested in gender--especially femininity
2. challenges and investigates traditional gender roles
3. messes with gender binaries and all sorts of other assumptions about power and hierarchy that stem from those gender binaries
4. is concerned with the relationship between performance and gender
5. uses camp
6. emphasizes/investigates corporeality and materiality--i.e. bodies--in relation to all of this
7. and so is also interested in the grotesque and the abject

And yet, as I'll readily admit, these particular concerns that I share with Gurlesque (as described by Glenum), don't seem especially new. Not that everything has to be new, and not everything has to have precursers--and someone with any energy will perhaps criticize me for wanting to even construct a Gurlesqueish lineage...but these concerns have existed in various forms of writing since at least Comte de Lautréamont, who is a rather obvious and easy starting point, and certainly before. Marie de France wrote a werewolf-romance poem!

So, what really leaves me unsatisfied? Maybe it's the potential for theory head that I feel? Where are the other inspirations and precursors for Gurlesque? I love Bakhtin, but I'm not satisfied with Bakhtin and (again, fascinating) description of Victorian London burlesque performances. How did we get to them? Bakhtin's description of the grotesque is, yes, incredibly helpful, but he doesn't define the grotesque, he just describes it--using specific literature. Even now when I hear the adjective "Rabelaisian" I'm more likely to assume that someone's been reading Bakhtin, not Rabelais. Snotty and whiney of me, I know.

I manage to lead just about every conversation about Feminism and the grotesque back to my feminist Modernist power trio of Djuna Barnes, Mina Loy, and the Baroness Elsa, but I do wonder why their names--and others--don't come up more often in conversations about the Gurlesque. There seems to be a really thriving list of contemporary referential points.

There doesn't need to be an approved by Lorraine (or anyone) historical trajectory to make Gurlesque legit; that's not my point at all. I confess, though, that I like to make lists. One such list I've been working on--not yet finished, includes a very roundabout description of how I actually arrived at all of those poetic concerns listed above. For example, my interest in camp, performance and gender has a lot to do with Mae West and Star Trek.

More later. I need to take a shower.

Peace out.

Oh, I am just grading. That is all. Mark (Wallace) wrote a response to the Delirious Hem forum, and I'd love to not be the first and only woman to comment on it.

I keep thinking about Plath

I keep thinking about Plath, how she's just not a foundational poet for me--I had no Plath moments in high school or college--and I can't be the only white girl Feminist poet in the entire universe to feel this way. My relationship to Plath (and Sexton, and Rich) begins in retrospect (i.e. after I was already very much a poet and very much a Feminist. And I've always been white). And by the time I found them, they seemed..well...weighty, formal, rich, and alien. Sexton, thus far, remains my favorite.

More about this later.

Delirious Hem Poetics Forum #1: This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like

I've enjoyed reading the responses thus far in Delirious Hem's recent forum:


Featuring:
Monday May 4: Mary Biddinger, Anne Boyer, & Brandi Homan
Tuesday May 5: Megan Kaminski, Becca Klaver, & Majena Mafe
Wednesday May 6: Gina Myers, Martha Silano, & Leah Souffrant
Thursday May 7: K. Lorraine Graham, Mytili Jagannathan, Elizabeth Treadwell, & Sarah Vap
Friday May 8: Teresa Carmody & co.

More recents

Birds: indigo bunting, western bluebird, nesting egrets, nesting house finches

Food: farmhouse cheddar and strawberries and apricots

Drink: Tetleys

Asana: Marichyasana F; drop backs

Reading: French grammar review book, still reading the Sunday paper

Recent etc.

Recent visitors: Heather Hurwitz, Colin Smith, Lee Ann Brown, Julie Patton, Brian Kim Stefans
Recent readings: Colin Smith, Lee Ann Brown, Julie Patton, Brian Kim Stefans, Geoffrey Dyer
Recent food: stuffed artichokes, mixed berry spoon cake, grilled vegetable pizza
Recent exercise: running
Recent asana: handstand (as usual)
Recent news: my book will be out soon
Recent dreams: dragonflies and something about Nada and Gary having a big dryer in their apartment.

Attacking the limes, serenading the limes

Lester has developed an interest in limes. I don't know if he just likes the sound of the plastic bag, or the color of the limes or if it's something else. Anyway, he likes to attack the bag of limes for a while, and then when he calms down he sings to them.

Lester attacks the limes:

And then serenades them:

In fact, it's colder here than NY, DC, and most of Ohio

I grilled a pizza (with leeks, sage, wild mushrooms and fontina). It worked reasonably well, but the dough was too puffy. And sticky. I'm used to focaccia dough being difficult to handle, but not pizza dough.

I am a zombie after the last three weeks.

Mark and I are going to Paris this summer. Terminal Humming will be out soon--I'm sending final files to Rod tomorrow. It's been a good spring.

It's cold enough for chili

So I am having chili.

It's hot enough for a pastis

So I am drinking a pastis.

Hark, hark, the dogs do bark

But the caravan moves on.

Or else, the week just does.

Or else, time. Etc.

I suck at data entry

Today I enjoyed eating the oatmeal in the cafeteria--its shockingly good. The only good thing in the entire cafeteria. I did not enjoy grading. I'm much better at grading assignments that I actually created. Grading assignments that I would never, ever in my left or right mind create is frustrating and irritating.

A friend who is studying Sociology said that online teaching is the new ghetto for women in academia. She said this not because she was being judgmental, but because she'd attended some kind of a lecture or read an article about it. Anyway, it sounds about right to me. Online teaching is almost like data entry. Don't Hardt and Negri say something about data entry workers being the new proletariat, or something like that, in Empire? Teaching as data entry! Data entry sabotage!

I suck at data entry. I don't ever post the right percentage of comments. Sometimes I post too early or too late. I probably blab on and on in my feedback. However, I do manage to connect with some of my students, and some of my students manage to improve their writing skills. And the pay at the schools where I've settled is pretty good. It's comparable to what I made adjuncting in normal on-ground classes in DC. However, it's certainly not nearly as much as what I make adjuncting an on-ground class in California. Schools pay adjuncts at lot more out here.

Today I also enjoyed practicing yoga with my eyes closed. I've done sun salutations with my eyes closed, but never a full practice. I did a very nice headstand for six breaths and then fell over. I'm almost never physically afraid of anything in yoga, though I am probably afraid of looking like an idiot. I don't mind if I hurt my butt (or whatever) when I fall, I just want to look amazing doing it. I have no idea how I looked. But c'etait bon to not know.


Also, today in class I taught my students the word "swollen," because one of them is having trouble with allergies, and hence has a swollen eye. The French word for swollen is gonflé. I had a weird memory of a french advertisement for a kind of cake: "Vahiné c'est gonflé!" The last time I had thought of this was when I was living in Guangzhou and going to the French school. I believe that one of the boys decided to call the other girl in my class Vahiné, which was, of course, an insult. At the time, I was just glad that they weren't calling me Vahiné, and happy that I actually got the context of the insult.

List

• Back to teaching ESL in the AM, which I prefer.
• Back to getting out of bed early, which I don't prefer.
• Terminal Humming is this close to going to print!
• I cleaned my study.
  
• I am nearly back to normal and not sick any more. What was that, anyway?
• I ordered heirloom Lima beans from Rancho Gordo.
• Michelle is making me a 33" travel hoop with 1/2 inch 125 psi tubing (ooh, hoop gear talk). It will be packable, light, fast and bouncy!
• Colin Smith is coming to visit soon!
• Mark and I did laundry today. I have not folded or put away my clothes.
• I have hundreds of papers to grade by tomorrow.
• It's overcast and kind of cold, for here, but a santa anna is supposed to come in tomorrow.
• I have a timely interest in spring onions. They are good grilled, roasted, etc, etc.
  

I Don't Like Mulholland Drive (the Film)

"Wait, you're telling me I went through all that mental anguish over a dream? What a cheat!"
-- Darkwing Duck, "Dead Duck"

Mark and I recently watched Brazil, a film I hadn't seen since high school. It was pretty awesome, but the end irritates me. It turns out that, gosh, Sam Lowry has been dreaming his happy, idyllic flight out of the city with Jill, and in fact he's perhaps been hallucinating/dreaming since the moment of his rescue. None of it's true, he's really just gone insane during his torture. I know that there are many examples of this particular trope, but at the time I couldn't help but think of the finale of Newhart, when Bob wakes up and we learn that the entire season has been a dream.

Watching Brazil made me think about Mulholland Drive, a film that I come close to loathing. Perhaps I'd loathe it less if I didn't love Lynch's other films so much, or if friends I love and respect didn't always talk about how great the visuals and non-linear elements of the film are. In general, I appreciate the whole broken dreams in Hollywood thing, and I like convoluted fantasies that conflate/confuse self-image with love object, desire is always a good theme, and I have no problem with a non-linear or non-narrative structure. But but....

I know that Lynch likes to work with cliches, dreamy surrealist fantasies, and dreamy surrealist visuals which ask viewers to try and decide for themselves the relationship between fantasy and reality. However, the relationship between fantasy and reality had better be interesting. Ultimately, I think that's what irritates me so much about the film. When the film really gets nonlinear and the line between fantasy and reality becomes even more porous, the film, for me, becomes boring and rather vapid, not fascinating. I know I'm being subjective, but the characters' fantasy structures are dull.

In fact, from the moment Betty and Rita take off their shirts, Mulholland Drive feels like a postmodern cliche. After a really hot sex scene, Rita puts on a blond wig that makes her look a lot like Betty (hint hint, Lynch may be saying something about identity and fantasy), and they go to Club Silencio where they are told that everything is an illusion. Oooh, deep. Betty becomes Diane, etc. The narrative gets even more dreamy and druggy. Diane's idolizing love for Camilla is as boring as Camilla's shallow indifference and cruelty. Betty gets to have hot sex, Diane can't even successfully jerk off. Camilla is all satisfied and voluptuous. Snore...

Many of my favorite stories, novels, and films play with dream sequences and/or drugs and/or insanity as a way of calling attention to the highly subjective nature of reality and experience--again, perhaps that's part of what irritates me when such sequences feel like cop outs. A random, incomplete list:

• Young Goodman Brown
• Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson)
• The Wizard of Oz (Ok, so I'm no huge WOZ fan, but it's an obvious example)
  
• The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari
• Alice in Wonderland
• At Play in the Fields of the Lord (Peter Matthiessen)
• Let it Come Down (Paul Bowles)
• The Tartar Steppe (Dino Buzzati) and the film version Desert of the Tartars (Valerio Zurlini)
• Poe and Borges stores are full of dreams and drugs. Gerard de Nerval, etc...
• Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir)
• The Last Wave (Peter Weir)
• Solaris (Stanislaw Lem) also Andrei Tarkovsky's film version. The more recent Steven Soderbergh version is more vague.
• Turn of the Screw, The Innocents (Henry James)
• Lots of Philip K. Dick
• Time Bandits and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Terry Gilliam)
• Nightmare on Elm Street (Duh)
• Probably a lot of films by John Cassavetes that I haven't seen

I'm not so interested in hearing about why you think Mulholland Drive is a great film. But I am interested in hearing about your favorite dreamy, druggy films and books--ones that distort reality in ways that more fascinating, interesting, and illuminating than Mulholland Drive.

Friday Lester

Lester contemplates the forpusfield with Wonder Woman

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

NaPoWriMo

I’ve been noodling around with a new webspace and wordpress blog format for some time, and I’m not done noodling. However, it occured to me that I could use my wordpress space to post my poems during the month of April. The project that I posted to my other poetry blog, See it Everywhere, is more or less finished, and it doesn’t make sense to keep posting there. So, starting tomorrow, I’ll post poems here.

Eventually, I may ween myself away from this my blogger blog, but for now, poems will go in the new space:

http://spooksbyme.org/terminalhumming/

and everything else will go here.

Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney were here for a few days to give a reading at Cal State San Marcos. While they were here, I learned several things.

1. A hipster is, basically, a kind of socialite, or sometimes just a wannabe socialite, with trendy alterna-style. Hipsters are to hip as beatnik is to beat.

2. Some of my peers are, like me, deeply suspicious and even totally against marriage.

3. I learned about The Sartorialist, which has an entire section devoted to people on bicycles. I'd never wear any of the outfits that the women have on, but I really wish I could get away with dressing like this guy. Don't worry, I can't. I'm not an art director living in Milan. My problem is that I don't just ride my bicycle down the street to the coffee shop/bar. I ride it six to twelve miles up and down San Diego county roads, and in between riding I teach. And, ahem, all the New York bikes featured on The Sartorialist were total hipster bikes. I think I need to do a whole blog post about stylish outfits that can survive six miles of hills on a real bicycle, plus a bus, and possibly even a train. Do any outfits actually exist?

4. I am late to the whole tag-cloud trend, but I am amused by it, still. "Body," "head" and various forms of "decapitate" are apparently some of my favorite words to use. I guess I'm not over that whole body-mind thing yet.

5. There are disputes over the right way to write an exquisite corpse poem. I enjoyed having the disputes, because it seems rather supremely ridiculous to argue about the correct way to play a Surrealist parlor game.

6. As Kathleen demonstrated, red lipstick is very wearable, and also, as Lucky Magazine recently noted, weirdly minimalist. I wore red lipstick today during my bicycle commute, and to teach. My students were fascinated and a little freaked out. We talked about color and tried to list all the kinds of red, blue, and yellow we could think of. People (ok, boys) yelled out their car windows at me. Was it the spring fever, or was it the red lipstick?

7. You can read more about their visit, as well as Kathleen's book tour, here.

I wanna be a male model

Everyone has their own form of smelly disgustingness.

In an attempt to send off work in a timely manner and not irritate people who have kindly asked me for work, I've printed up several things. I think that See it Everywhere might be finished. It's my most unwieldy manuscript to date, and I really need someone to look at it who could help me make it both coherent and unwieldy at the same time.

I suppose that is what MFA workshops are for. Oh, I am exited by and fearful of the MFA workshop.

Everything I write is serial, too. I don't write discrete poems. So, I have trouble choosing sections to send to magazines when they say, "send 2-4 poems." I wish editors would give me a page or word count instead. I sound like I am complaining, but I'm not. I'm happy people like my work and publish it sometimes.

I have work in Abraham Lincoln #4, along with many other fabulous peoples. Buy a copy! A single issue is still only $5!

Seriously. Sunday.

If I ever get to teach a developmental English class where I am allowed significant control over what I teach, I won't require them to answer questions like "What are the different kinds of paragraph development? What are the six sub-categories of expositional paragraph development?" Instead, I'd have them write a lot of personal essays, and maybe do one final project that was kind of persuasive or argumentative.

This week, I graded 93 essays describing "someone" the students "know" (not my instructions). I always find grading this assignment heartbreaking, because the paragraphs typically demonstrate that the people writing them have, like all of us, very deep and profound feelings, but they don't have language to articulate them. Moreover, the curriculum of the class that I'm teaching (which, again, I didn't write and which totally sucks) doesn't give them language to articulate them, or even really talk about the difference between abstract and concrete. The _best_ students describe their wives, husbands, boyfriends, parents, grandparents, children, in the most abstract ways: "To know him, you must get to know him" or "her hair is of fragrances unknown." It pains me to read sentences like this.

I've often ranted about how lacking the language to articulate something abstract means that you don't understand your feelings. I half believe that, but I also know that there are ways of articulating feelings that are not verbal. So, the challenge for many people when they write is to articulate feelings in writing that they don't express in verbal ways. I read my student's paragraphs and think about all the young students I have who marry so early, and then divorce so early, and have children, too. I think about the arguments they have with their lovers and spouses--and how they don't seem to have language to articulate to themselves, let alone to someone else, how they are feeling. It freaks me out!

I remember saying to one of my best students at CSUSM: "Dump your boyfriend and move to LA." I'm sure that was inappropriate of me to say, but I had to--she was so intelligent and smart. However, I know she didn't dump her boyfriend and move to LA. She said she liked "the lifestyle" here. She lived in Temecula. What was it that she liked about living in Temecula? It certainly wasn't the beach. So what did she mean by "the lifestyle?"

When I was young, I got bad advice from my family and friends. My students are young, and they also get bad advice from their family and friends. But the advice they get is worse. Too many of them are married with children before they are 25. If you have no college degree and 2 kids and you are 25, your life is going to be hard. It makes me so angry. I want to slap their parents and friends and the newspapers and their teachers. I remember thinking some version of "why didn't someone tell me X?" all the time when I was 25. Why don't more people tell their students and children and friends "dump your boyfriend and move to (insert city name here) or "you don't have to get married" or "I think it's a great idea to get the fuck out of here" ?

Trying to type up drafts of drafts. I've put a few more up on my poem blog: See it Everywhere.

It's Sunday, Again

This afternoon Mark and I got a daylight savings time 3:30 drink. I saw a little pig--it looked like a little dog until 20 feet away, and then it was clearly a little pig. I said hello--it came over to me and oinked into my hand and rubbed against me briefly while I scratched it's grey/pink bristly coat. I didn't have enough time to ask the guy with the pig questions, like "what kind of a pig is it?" and "will it get any bigger?" and "what does the pig like to do?" I did learn the pig's name. Dear readers, the pig's name is Hamlet.

I need games to play while I'm waiting for the bus in the fog at 6:45 am in the moring.

In part because of a current writing project, and in part because of recent thoughts/discussions about the gurlesque and the grotesque, my recent game is this: if everyone in my family were characters from a horror film, novel, or short story, who would they be? I'm not going to tell you my thoughts just yet (or maybe ever, unless I finish the project and someone publishes it). But the question lead me to think about female characters in horror, and then female perpetrators of violence in horror, and then to dynamics where the violence is specifically or mostly female-female OR where the major dynamic in the film is a relationship between two women.

The two that immediately came to mind were Alien 1 (Ripley vs. the female alien monster) and Suspiria (female protagonist discovers that her ballet school is really a cover for a coven of witches). Below is a list of others that immediately came to mind. Tell me what I'm missing--and yes, I know that this list is full of mostly films in English from the Western part of the world, but I suspect if I started looking at some of the recent anime other's have pointed me towards, I'd find more:

• Carrie (girl with telekinetic powers is abused by crazy Christian mother, eventually destroys her school, is stabbed in the back by her mother, but then telekinetically crucifies her mother with kitchen tools)
  
• Succubus (duh)
• Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (female vampire!)
• Rosmary's Baby (Not so female-female violence, but it is a pregnancy horror)
• It's Alive (Also about the horror of babies)
  
• Friday the 13th (it's actually Jason's mom who is the killer, not Jason)
• The Ring
  
• Psycho (maybe only half makes the list, because the mom is dead, but she still exists as a taxidermied version of herself and in her son's head)
• "Ligeia," by Edgar Allan Poe (also only half on the list--a woman inhabits another woman's body, but it's a male fantasy)
• The Brain that Wouldn't Die
  
• Lair of the White Worm (mostly female-male violence, but some female-female violence)
• Dagon AD (The fish girl--although it's mostly about her trying to convince her brother that he should mate with her so they can live under the sea together forever)
• Dracula's vampire women should get a mention, even though they are clearly subordinate to him.
• The Exorcist (Definite mother-daughter thing)
  

Agitprop Reading Series: Amina Cain & Saehee Cho, Saturday 3/7, 7pm

We hope you can join us this Saturday, March 7 for the next reading in our regular space at Agitprop Gallery (2837 University Ave in North Park, entrance on Utah, a few blocks west of 30th Street), featuring Amina Cain and Saehee Cho. We often serve wine and snacks, and
donations to the gallery are always appreciated.

Amina Cain is the author of I Go To Some Hollow (Les Figues Press, 2009). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as 3rd Bed, Action Yes, Denver Quarterly, Dewclaw, Emohippus Greeting Card #2, The Encyclopedia Poject,La Petite Zine, Sidebrow, and Wreckage of Reason, and has been translated into Polish on MINIMALBOOKS. Recordings of her stories exist as part of the exhibition "A Diamond in the Mud" at Literaturhaus Basel, and the Moles Not Molar "Transmissions: Signal to Noise Ratio" radio show. Recently she co-curated When Does It or You Begin? (Memory as Innovation), a month long festival of writing, performance, and video. She lives in Los Angeles.

Saehee Cho is an MFA candidate at Calarts whose fiction has been featured in Shrapnel and Ex Nihilo. She holds a BA in Literature/Creative Writing from UCSD and currently resides in Los Angeles.

We hope to see you there and for all festivities afterward!

AGITPROP POETRY SERIES
Saturday, March 7
7:00pm
AGITPROP Gallery
2837 University Ave in North Park. Entrance on Utah.

I have a webpage! I have a css technical question!

Today I have some announcements and some related technical questions.

1. Announcement: In the past six months, several people have asked me, where can I find your visual work, and I've said "uuuhh." So, I've been working on a webpage. It's still very much in progress, but if you'd like to read even more information about me:

http://www.spooksbyme.org

2. Technical Question: Does anyone know how to make a background stretch to fit not just the width of the screen but also the height? I have several different background images, so here's what I've done in my stylesheet:

body {
background-color: #339999;

#background2 {
background-image:url(Images/bg_about.jpg);
position:relative;
top:auto;
left:auto;
}

#background3 {
background-image:url(Images/bg_sand.jpg);
position:relative;
top:auto;
left:auto;
}

Then, I can make a div and give it either one of these backgrounds as an id and then make its width 100%. That works fine. But height 100% doesn't work.

Any thoughts?

I didn't talk about porters

I love porters, too.

Only a douchebag would drink a light beer instead of a Hefe-Weizen

I've been reading up about the calorie content of my favorite beers and alcoholic beverages as I move forward in my always-ongoing quest to maintain my girlish figure (hence all the running, the yoga, the bicycling, the walks on the beach, the hoola hooping) and still eat and drink the foods I love. Fortunately, I don't drink any soda, so I can devote all of my empty drinking calories to beer, wine, and spirits!

Let's just take it for granted that about four nights a week I have a glass of wine with dinner--but now we'll leave talk of wine aside (it needs a separate post) and move on to beer and spirits.

Tetleys and Boddingtons have become my favorite beers for weeknights, when I typically have no wine with dinner and only one drink in the evening after yoga (about 150 calories per pub can, if you're wondering). However, a Paulaner Salvator doppelbock is one of my favorite beers in the entire world. Drinking it makes me feel holy (but let me be clear, I have never been baptized). The Paulaner brewery is named after monks who revered St. Francis of Paula, and the monks were known as, yes, Paulaners. When fasting, the monks used to drink an earlier version of doppelbock to sustain them--doppelbocks have a lot of calories and high alcohol content. If I really want a beer but can't spare the calories, a Hefe-Weizen is my go-to beer, and of course Paulaner brews a good one.

Those of you who know me know that I love scotch. Old Pultney and Talisker are my current favorites, but I don't turn my nose up at Jonny Walker Red when I'm in a bar or need something to put in my flask for traveling. Scotch tastes fabulous, and when I go out I can have one or two over the course of the evening, enjoy myself, and watch everyone else get bombed. At 100 calories, a pour of scotch is quite healthful. However, I don't always want to endlessly savor my drink in the way that scotch encourages. So, what to drink then?

A gin and tonic used to be my favorite mixed drink. It's quaintly imperial very nostalgic. The quinine in the tonic prevents malaria, and as someone who once had to take the malaria pills of the 1980s (which made me hallucinate and vomit), I find quinine to be quite gentle (it's also good for nocturnal leg cramps, which I occasionally suffer from--especially in my calves). As healthful as it is, tonic has calories, and, sadly, I'm loosing my taste for it. It's too sweet, and it's pretty much impossible to get a good gin and tonic at a bar, where the tonic that comes out of the hose is nasty and syrupy. Soda water has no sugar, and no calories. And since I no longer live in tropical climes, I frequently enjoy a Hendricks (or perhaps Beefeater) and club soda with a slice of cucumber or lime.

And if I don't want a gin and club soda? I might have a brandy. Or I might have a whiskey and soda. On it's own, I often find whiskey too sweet (I'd rather have scotch), but mixed with soda, it's kind of perfect.

And I speak three languages and can do handstands

I am definitely going to be in the MFA program at UCSD next year! I was very ambivalent about applying, but now I'm genuinely excited and looking forward to being in the program. I still have moments when I think something like

Why do I need an MFA when I have a BA and an MA and 4 years of teaching experience and a book coming out and special collections in Canada collecting my random chapbooks and visual poetry being shown in international exhibitions?

There are several answers to this question.

1. I don't actually need an MFA.
2. If I want to be eligible for jobs, I should have an MFA, which will barely make me eligible and I don't think it should matter but it does etc.
3. The job market sucks and I won't have a degree from either Harvard or Iowa, but going to UCSD does nothing to impact that particular problem.
4. I will have studied with Rae Armantrout, which will be cool.
5. An MFA will help me focus on my creative work in a different way, which I need.
6. San Diego is a community wasteland, so having a teeny bit more community will be, in theory, nice.
7. I may get to work in the library or archive, which would be great, and I've often wondered if library work would suit me. I used to think I was not "detail oriented," but that's crap. I just need to understand the larger context a bit before I can understand details.
8. I am looking forward to a change in my work life.
9. Now I won't have to imagine that all the people with MFAs think they are better than me while at the same time thinking how stupid this imaginary feeling I atribute to them is.
10. I think it will probably be fun.
11. It is fully-funded.

Skull Panda & Yo Gabba Gabba

One of my students has an ipod-cover that looks like raw meat. It's very cute and very gross, and it made me think of the gurlesque and it occurs to me that I really want to quiz some of my students, especially my Japanese students, about different kinds of kawaii--I vaguely remember someone once using the term "kawaii-noir." But also, maybe the most relevant pop culture to gurlesque isn't so much Wonder Woman and Charlies Angels as it is Happy Tree Friends or South Park's "Woodland Critter Christmas" or Skull Panda (I so want a Skull Panda T-Shirt!) or, or yo gabba gabba:



or Teen Girl Squad:

Mark and I celebrate Valentine's Day week every year as a kind of anniversary...

...in part due to a Valentine's Day/anti-Valentine's Day party that a friend hosted 9 years ago. So, yes, we've been together for 9 years.

This picture, which is a picture of a picture in one of our photo albums, is from summer 2001. We're in Washington, DC, of course, and we've just finished playing a softball game and have gone up to the Post Pub for "Office Hours," a regular Wednesday happy hour hang out and talk about poetry. I'm doing a kind of fake swoon, and Mark looks like he usually looks when he's thinking or about to say something funny and/or biting. I love this picture because look like ourselves, and we're in the middle of a very ordinary activity during an ordinary week that was all very happy.

Friday Koala

My sisters and family have left Adelaide and moved to Perth, but this Koala can't move, and was trying to get some respite from the heat. Before they moved, my sisters told me that people all over Adelaide were putting out water for Koalas during the heat wave.

It's that time of year

When I dream of real estate in Barcelona. From the very small and basic, the larger and slightly more expensive, yet not astronomical, to the expensive, and finally, the astronomical.

Happy Birthday Bryan!

It's my brother's birthday, and since I couldn't reach him on the phone, I will offer my birthday greetings here (and in the card that I think has already reached him)!

I've been having very lucid dreams recently.

A few nights ago, I dreamed that Mark and I were at the Embarcadero in San Francisco to meet Nicholas Manning (someone I only know, to the extent that I know him at all, through blogland). The Embarcadero was more like a souk--a lot like Fez, actually. While we were wandering around, I saw someone that looked French. This was my dream logic, because I can't actually describe what Nicholas looked like in my dream. He only vaguely looked like his blog picture, but when I saw him in the dream, I knew that he looked French and I walked up to him, touched him on the shoulder in a very formal way, and said "you are Nicholas Manning." He had a friend with him who had glasses but other than that was completely inconsequential to the dream.

After this greeting, the four of us walked outside to the deck of the market, but instead of San Francisco bay was a beach that looked more like the Carlsbad State beach. The light, sand, and water were a kind of rich golden color--a dreamy sort of late-afternoon pre-sunset color. Nicholas said, with great drama, "Ah, it is the Nile! Let us bathe!" In my dream, I had a moment of Wait, this isn't the Nile. Oh, maybe it is. Why not? I was reluctant to swim but then eventually did.

After that, we went back into the market/souk, and Nicholas began talking about rabbits and cats. He said something like "there is no animal better matched to the cat than the bunny. They are equals in every way, especially strength and ferocity." In response to this observation, I pulled out a series of wallet-sized, color holographic images of all the animals I've ever known--pets, friends pets, animals I've seen and remembered, etc. I put these pictures out on a card table in a way that suggested I was telling someone's fortune. We all examined the pictures.

I noticed that there was a bird sitting at the end of the table. The bird was Lester and also a tiger-colored tomcat I used to know named Benjamin. I noticed that the bird/cat had some pin feathers, so I reached out to scratch his head, and this is how the dream ended.

I'm not sure why Nicholas showed up in a dream--I rarely dream about poets, especially ones I don't know. I think it might have something to do with a post he wrote a few days ago about being 210 days away from finishing his PhD, about starting the process of becoming a French citizen, and ended with a description of his dream living/work space. Something I've been thinking about a lot recently.

Agitprop Reading Series, CARMODY & PLACE, Saturday 2/7, 7pm

After a winter hiatus, the Agitprop reading series is back!

We hope you can join us this Saturday, February 7 for the next reading in the Agitprop Reading Series featuring VANESSA PLACE and TERESA CARMODY. We often serve wine and snacks, and donations to thegallery are always appreciated.

Please note that we are in a different venue for this reading than is usual. For this event only, the Agitprop Reading will take place nearby at at ART Produce Gallery on 3139 University Ave,on the corner of University and Herman, next to Cafe Carpe Diem.

Vanessa Place is a writer and lawyer, and co-director of Les Figues Press. She is the author of Dies: A Sentence (Les Figues Press), a 50,000-word, one-sentence prose poem; the post-conceptual novel LaMedusa (Fiction Collective 2), and, in collaboration withappropriation poet Robert Fitterman, Notes on Conceptualisms (Ugly Duckling Presse (2009). Place is also a regular contributor to X-TRAContemporary Art Quarterly, and is collaborating with Los Angelesconceptual artist Stephanie Taylor on the film, “Murder Squaredance at the Spiral Jetty.” Her nonfiction book, The Guilt Project: Rape and Morality will be published by Other Press in 2010. Place is co-founderof Les Figues Press, described by critic Terry Castle as “an elegant vessel for experimental American writing of an extraordinarily assured and ingenious sort.”

Teresa Carmody is the author of Requiem (Les Figues, 2005) and two chapbooks: Eye Hole Adore (PS Book, 2008) and Your Spiritual Suit of Armor by Katherine Anne by Teresa Carmody (Woodland Editions, 2008).Other work has appeared in various publications, including emohippusgreeting card 1 & 2, Bombay Gin, Fold, Slope, American Book Review, LAWeekly and Stolen Purse. She was one of the organizers of the original Ladyfest in Olympia, Washington, and co-organizer (with Matias Viegener and Christine Wertheim) of Feminaissance, a colloquium on women, experiments and writing at the Los Angeles Museum ofContemporary Art. She is cofounder and co-director (with Vanessa Place) of Les Figues Press.

We hope to see you there and for all festivities afterward!

AGITPROP READING SERIES

Saturday, February 7. 7:00pm ART Produce Gallery
3139 University Ave. San Diego, CA 92104
On the corner of University and Herman, next to Cafe Carpe Diem in North Park

Friday Lester

And final bonus snow bunting:



February in North America, even in sunny (currently rainy) SoCal, is a good month for flipping out.

I am making macaroni and cheese this evening, but a kind of fancy one, with manchego and leeks.

Today, if I had an extra 200,000 Euros, I would buy this.

I'm okay with death, but aging is not okay

Today I miss Washington, DC. This does not mean that I am unhappy or dislike San Diego. But today I miss the biannual reading series organizing meetings at Brickskeller and elsewhere, and the relative ease of organizing events there in general--a relative ease created through plenty of work and years of relaxed socializing and friendships, but still. Here in San Diego, we work harder for less art.

I miss major rain storms, even though we are in the middle of as major a rainstorm as ever happens here. And yes, I miss thunder. I miss humidity and green. I miss cherry blossoms and the tidal basin and the monuments at night. I miss the public transportation that took me to all those places.

I miss Bridge Street Books, teaching at the Corcoran College of Art + Design, and Moby Dick's House of Kabob (the original Georgetown location). And I miss being able to go for beers after a reading and sit next to Carolyne Forche and talk to her confidently without having any clue who she was. I miss living within walking distance to the Black Cat. I miss writing while having donuts and coffee at Sparky's cafe on 14th street (which I think has closed) until being driven out by all the chain smoking or the random appearance of my MA thesis advisor. I miss the prostitutes.

I've never been to Perth

Well, my blog fast is kind of over, and I'm feeling some combination of sluggish and wall-punching. This has been a week of highs and lows, ups and downs, rights and lefts.

I tried to send my little sisters postcards today, but I realize that I don't know where they live. Are they still in Adelaide, or have they moved to Perth?

Reading in Tuscon / Blog Fast

I'm taking a weeklong break (or so) from reading blogs and blogging. Blogland, I love you, but I have several projects that I need to work on this week: a website for someone else, my own website, more grading than usual, a lot of cleaning, and preparing to go to Tuscon this weekend to give a reading at the Drawing Studio. Details below:

Mark Wallace, K. Lorraine Graham, Lisa Cooper, January 31, 2009. 7:00 P.M., The Drawing Studio, 33 S. 6th Ave., Tucson, AZ

Mark Wallace is the author of a number of books and chapbooks of poetry, fiction, and criticism. Temporary Worker Rides A Subway won the 2002 Gertrude Stein Poetry Award and was published by Green Integer Books. He is the author of a multi-genre work, Haze, and a novel, Dead Carnival. His critical articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and along with Steven Marks, he edited Telling It Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the 1990s (University of Alabama Press), a collection of 26 essays by different writers. Most recently he has published a collection of tales, Walking Dreams, and a book of poems, Felonies of Illusion. He teaches at California State University San Marcos.

BARTER

New indecision’s breakdown backdrop
won’t let me go to the store beside
a terminal discrepancy, I love you
and you love power and I become power
but really specifically, like a dollar bill
or a lost loaf of bread. Total hand
carries itself, bricks say to walls.
Sugar’s a good combustible head end.
Do you like poets or being one
earned refuge, check out those shacks.
Should we do Survival Island
and stake an emblem? Flustered.
Call a shift to not be home
under a renegade special effect.
It’s exactly not to be barking about
all the mud in the honey. Some silence
just ain’t worth its hogwash.

- Mark Wallace

K. Lorraine Graham is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of Terminal Humming, forthcoming from Edge Books in 2009. She is also the author of several chapbooks, including Large Waves to Large Obstacles, forthcoming from Take Home Project. Her poetry, critical writing, and visual art have appeared or is forthcoming in Traffic, Area Sneaks, Foursquare and elsewhere. A limited-edition CD of her work called Moving Walkways is available from Narrowhouse Recordings. She lives in southern California with her partner Mark Wallace and Lester Young, a pacific parrotlet.

from SEE IT EVERYWHERE

"Oh, Hi!" he said, happy and startled. Then, he stared into ceiling space without speaking.

I introduced myself to the woman next to me. "Hello," I said enthusiastically. "I am likely to never see you again."

The wealthy community by the sea is far enough off the highway to be difficult to get to but still defined by the highway.

I ask if they have any mastic. Mastic, she says, is an Arabic thing. I say yes, I know, I want to use it in pudding, and you have a sign that says "Yes! We have MASTIC!"

Mention the rain. Your carnations are probably from here. A cousin of your friend was shot in the head by her boyfriend.

~

The male finch notes us and calls to the hatchlings. You're a car and I'm a goat. He pauses. A child is a strange thing to want. That's a nice person, we don't say that. I told my students the joke about the chicken and the road, and they stared at me. "I see," said one. "The question is strange but the answer is serious. It is funny."

~

Hugs which avoid direct breast contact, how my favorite people encourage a kind of social weirdness in me. Strong feelings of being a turnip.

When you leave your bearable job and intelligent, creative, attractive lover, remember that there really isn't anything better than this. This is all that there is, always.

It's important to not believe in a lamp burning for you or anyone in a window somewhere. I know that no one will call me home.

- K. Lorraine Graham

A near-native resident of Tucson, Lisa Cooper is a poet, editor and a massage therapist. A collection of poetry entitled & Calling It Home was published by Chax Press in 1998. In addition she has two chapbooks—The Ballad in Memory and Tilt Rail. Her poems have been published in numerous journals, including Sonora Review, Spork, Hambone, Blue Mesa Review, Logodaedalus and 6ix. Recent poems appear in EOAGH (#4) and on the Invisible City website, a multi-genre improvisatory collaboration in Tucson examining art-making in public spaces. She has received an Arizona Commission on the Arts Fellowship and the Sonora Review Poetry Prize.

THE MERIT

we walked out on the sidewalk, a kingdom of ants
a sprig of rosemary & every plant a favorite member of the family
my foot, my book & my subterranean mist
how did we get so tired?
my shoulder is a common piece of the surrounding terrain, wedged into a dress
tuck— tucker— is it time to cross yet?
at 5 a.m. music can seem especially loud—
this has merit!
otherwise I can pay someone: 5 pennies now, 5 later & 5 to get to heaven
tick-tock!— got loose!— gone fishin’…
your legend got too big, distinguished as a courtyard office—
I’m telling you at these speeds it seems to handle rather well—
& after dinner I’ll say it again:
now we’ll play this little game of chase
in which your word is tiger paw, mine is sugar
& none is never be redeemed

- Lisa Cooper

Brielf Moment of Celebration and Optimism

One of my manuscripts is a finalist for something I didn't think it would ever be a finalist for. (In addition to the manuscript in question, I have three more finished manuscripts on my desk in addition to Terminal Humming, forthcoming from Edge Books in March or so). Regardless of who actually gets a book published in this particular situation, here's to people who don't really know each other liking each other's work.

How I Celebrated the Innaguration

I'm behind the guy dressed as Obama--I've got a green hoola hoop and I'm wearing a purple boa on my head. You can read the article in the North County Times. The comments at the bottom of the article are especially worth a look.


(Nathan Morland wears a President Obama mask as he leads a colorful parade of some 50 participants north on Highway 101 towards downtown Encinitas to Stonesteps Beach in Leucadia on Tuesday. (Photo by Bill Wechter - Staff Photographer)

Not enough Marxism, too much Marxism, or: how avant-garde artists and writers describe their work

Last Thursday, Mark and I headed down to La Jolla to see Sophie Calle speak at the Museum of Contemporary art. I adore her work, and she was fabulous in person--wore heavy floral perfume that still somehow smelled good, was clear and precise when describing her work but still very charming and personable.

Some of her early work made me think about the kinds of demands that writing has to always explain itself and be virtuous. In "The Bronx," she asked strangers in the Bronx to take her somewhere meaningful to them. She then photographed them and wrote down their stories. I immediately thought of Brenda Coultus' A Handmade Museum that a kind of historic documentary/tour in poetry of the Bowery. It's a work that is very consciously investigating how we inhabit space, notions of public/private, and the very real effects of corporate capitalism and neoliberalism etc in a post 9/11 New York and beyond. Calle' s "The Bronx" is also a kind of documentary tour of a New York neighbourhood, albeit a different neighbourhood in a very different time. Unlike Coltus' A Handmade Museum, it doesn't attempt to justify itself as, well, some kind of art that's going to either liberate its participants or combat Capitalism, or even describe the effects of Capitalism.

I wonder if reviewers and Calle's peers ever discussed it in those terms. When briefly describing "The Bronx" on Thursday, Calle said that she wanted to create a piece that 1) highlighted the danger and risk of living in the Bronx (hence putting herself in the care of a stranger) and 2) wanted something that acknowledged the "ghetto" aspect of the Bronx--and it was clear she meant ghetto in the traditional sense of the term--a place in a city where a minority lives because direct and indirect social and economic violence force them to live there and make it difficult for them to leave. I mean, the whole piece clearly does illuminate all sorts of interesting and complicated social, economic and political relationships. What I'm most struck by, I suppose is the fact that Calle clearly didn't feel like she had to describe the piece in the Leftist theoretical terms that reviewers use to describe Coltus' A Handmade Museum.

When I was up in LA for the Cal Arts conference Untitled: Speculations on the Expanded Field of Writing," I saw Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (Marc Voge and Young-Hae Chang) talk on a panel and also present one of their pieces. Stephanie Taylor & Heriberto Yepez were both on the panel, the title of which was "The Concept of Conceptual Writing: What is the relation between conceptual writing and the trajectory of conceptual art?" I bring up YHCHI first because the piece they presented could have easily had direct political implications--it was a very charming comic narrative of someone who buys fake documentation to come to the US, has a series of mishaps, but eventually makes it to the US alright and has a happy ending. I'm not sure anyone on the panel actually talked about the relationship between conceptual writing and the trajectory of conceptual art. However, there was a major difference between the way Yepez presented his work and the way Taylor and YHCHI presented their work. Yepez spoke very directly about the need for overt political engagement in art, Taylor and YHCHI didn't. Marc Voge said, "We have to admit that we haven't considered these issues." Yepez is a writer, Taylor and YHCHI are not.

I'm paraphrasing, but in a conversation I had afterwards with Joseph Mosconi, he said that it was kind of retro or passe for artists to justify or describe their work in direct political terms. (Joseph, is that what you said? Do you remember? I can't remember the specific word that you used).

So, after that panel, and after hearing Sophie Calle speak last night, part of me was thining about how much I'd love to not have to explain myself, and how much more flexible and fun the visual art world sometimes seems. (Or maybe life is just better for artists in France and LA--that's also quite possible).

On the other hand, I confess that I do become frustrated with writers who, for example, can quote Bataille, Bakhtin, and maybe Baudrillard, but they probably haven't read Guy Debord and know almost nothing about the Frankfurt School. Or if they've read Debord they haven't read Society of the Spectacle. They've studied aesthetics or only the most aesthetic political theory without studying any political theory. Fredric Jameson anyone? Monsieur Louis Pierre Althusser? Horkheimer and Adorno? And really, how is it possible to get through, for example, Judith Butler, and not want to go further into both Marxist theory as well as pyschoanalytic literature. Don't get me started on how we need to read more Freud and Lacan, but people who read a lof of Freud and Lacan are often annoying.

Sticking with the feeling of being annoyed: I get annoyed with art and poetry that can only define itself in terms of a very narrow version of Marxist liberation, and I get annoyed with art and poetry that doesn't address social and economic conditions. I get annoyed with art and poety that addresses social and economic conditions but then can only talk about them in terms of Marxist theory.

So, what to do? Is anyone thinking about these things and fascinated/annoyed with them?

Some New Multiplicities

Mark has posted round one of a conversation that we've been doing with Joseph Mosconi about multiplicity and interdiciplinary art.

It has nothing to do with Ron Silliman's idea of the post-avant, but you should read it and comment.

Unrelated, but today's horoscope is helpful for once: "So it sounds odd to your dear ones that you've decided to pursue a career in medieval feng shui. So what? Are they going to pay your bills, or are you?"

This week I can feel every little vibration. If a large truck goes down the highway, I can tell. If my neighbors downstairs take a quiet little step or take a shower, I can feel it. My sensory processing is haywire and accurate. I just went outside, down the stairs, and across to another building in the apartment complex because I could hear that someone left the outdoor hose barely on and that water was dripping out of it. I wish someone would do some balanced research on PMS and sensory processing.

Sonic Booms at the Beach

Someone was making early Valentines:


It's warm here, even for San Diego. Mark and I went to the beach. This is the (gasp!) fourth January we've lived here, and the first time we've ever been to the beach in January. Other than hearing several sonic booms, all was peaceful. Was it the military? Probably. Fireworks or other random exploding things? Possibly--the San Diego Chargers are playing now.

Anyway, the tide was super low, and all that packed sand makes a great natural dance floor

“Lorraine is a very uncertain quantity, my dear.”

“You wear the costume of Lorraine,” he ventured.

“Is it not pretty? I love it. Alone in the house I always wear it, the scarlet skirts banded with black, the velvet bodice and silver chains—oh! He has broken my chain, too!”

He leaned on his gun, watching her, fascinated with the grace of her white fingers twisting her hair.

“To think that you should have first seen me so! What will they say at the Chateau Morteyn?”

“But I shall tell nobody,” laughed Marche.

“Then you are very honourable, and I thank you. Mon Dieu, they talk enough about me—you have heard them—do not deny it, Monsieur Marche. It is always, ‘Lorraine did this, Lorraine did that, Lorraine is shocking, Lorraine is silly, Lorraine—’ O Dieu! Que sais’je! Poor Lorraine!”

“Poor Lorraine,” he repeated solemnly. They both laughed outright.

Lester Friday--er, Thursday

In cheesy, Photoshopped watercolor:


And bonus snow bunting!

Failed Attempt at Being Chill

I went to a restorative yoga class this evening to "relax." It was a great class, but I don't relax well unless I'm physically exhausted. Next time I'll do the vinyasa class beforehand. I was rather cynical, I even hated the asanas I typically like: twists were irritating, and I remained congested for the entire class. When I rolled into fetal pose after savasana, I thought, "fuck this pose. I hate it. It's uncomfortable. I don't want to be metaphorically born again into the world."

It's my overall mood today. I'm happy, but any time I've attempted to be introspective has resulted in some rather fierce, uncomplicated hostility. Tra la la la la!

It was one of those moments when I wished that I had a wig that looks nearly exactly like my natural hair.

Today I went into pick up my paycheck at the EFL school where I teach--though I'm taking a term off right now. I chatted with my coworkers and a few of my former students, and was reminded of a reoccurring conversation I've had with many students about English and it's relationship to immigrant and diverse ethnic communities. Most of my students live with host families in Oceanside, and some of those host families are bilingual--they speak Spanish, or Tagalog, for example, in addition to English. Beyond their host families, students quickly learn that there is a wide spectrum of English spoken in the United States: what they hear with their families and on the street (or in this case, in the mall, since one can't really be "on the street" or "in the street" here in San Diego county) is not necessarily the same thing that they'll hear in my class. Moreover, there are massive discrepancies even between textbooks and the way different teachers speak. This drives some of them crazy and makes them really, really angry. For other students, it becomes a chance for them to think about the continuums that exist in their own languages.

I think all the time about how Spanish as a language is practically mainstream here in San Diego county. There are obviously a lot of native Spanish speakers, but almost everyone here speaks some Spanish, and a huge percentage of place names or names for geographical features are Spanish, or English versions of Spanish, or Spanish versions of native American. There are taco shops on every other corner. White people order tamales for Christmas. At the same time, though, there's a neurotic denial of the extent to which all of this non-WASPy culture really is mainstream. I think San Diego identifies with both LA and Tijuana, but doesn't really know what to do about it, because it also identifies with Dallas and Atlanta.

A few months ago, I started incorporating an activity into my EFL classes called "Random Vocabulary." It's pretty simple. Every morning, students bring any words or phrases that they've heard, or think they've heard, to class, and we discuss them. This means that they bring in a lot of slang--the word "güero" is one that surfaces every few months. The slang tends to fall into some basic categories: surfer slang, Spanish words, Bay area hip hop slang, and general suburban or valley-girl slang.

I've been thinking about my own use of Englishes and languages other than English in my writing. I want to use Spanish, French, and Chinese because these are all languages I've spoken at various points in my life, though I'd never claim to be fluent in any of them. But I have a great deal of anxiety about it, being more or less white and more or less solidly middle class. (Isn't anxiety my default emotion?)

Almost no one will speak Spanish with me here, and those that do are almost always either new to town, wealthy, or else extremely marginal--the workers waiting for the bus who don't actually have enough money for the bus but who can usually count on getting a ride anyway. It's easier to find people to speak French with, but I confess I've never found a way of using French in my work without it feeling tonally pretentious, so I need to work harder on that. And Chinese, well, a lot of the sound play in my work is based on Chinese, pronunciation, although I don't know if anyone can tell except for me. I'd like to incorporate it visually, but, again, I haven't found a way of doing it that feels right :

当我是十五，我从墨西哥城搬到广州，中国，我在法国学校学习八个月. That feels really pretentious, and I don't even know if my grammar is correct.

I've been thinking, too, about a slightly tipsy conversation I had with Jasper Bernes at the New Years Eve party. He said "Viva Hamas!" and I said "why viva? Why not yay or power to or yalla or something like that?" I have complicated thoughts about Hamas--it's a terrorist organization, a government, and a social services organization. But my feelings about Hamas aside, there is, of course, no reason not to say "viva" anything, except that at midnight at a party in a beautiful house in the Berkeley Hills, our conversation struck me as rather hilarious.

I still have hives. And now I have a sore throat. Yes, I'm getting sick.

I took the train and my bike to pick up Lester today, it rained, but only I got wet. There's an amazon parrot named Laura who lives in the waiting room of the vet where Lester boards. While I was preparing to take Lester home, Laura climbed down to the bottom of her cage and got under the paper, just like Lester does. As it happened, Lester was also under the paper at the bottom of his cage. Laura began to talk and sing. Not one to be shown up, Lester also began to go through his repertoire. Eventually, Laura started to laugh, and then Lester laughed, and then everyone in the waiting room laughed. This went on for several minutes. It was, indeed, hilarious.

Today is my father's birthday! Happy Birthday, Padre!

I have hives, probably from the fabulous dim sum I ate with Lisa and Bill on Sunday. No doubt my very overexcited socializing is contributing as well. But other than that I feel quite good. I head back to San Diego tomorrow. Once I'm settled, I'll try to make sense of some of my notes from the conference and the readings. I've met people I wanted to meet, hung out with people I already knew and liked, and spent some quality time with old friends and with family. After much poetry and socializing, and many late nights out, and a thoroughly enjoyable New Year's Eve party, I'm feeling a bit sated and ready to go home.

See you tonight

Yesterday and Today

This post needs pictures, but I am not going to upload them now. It is a miracle that I have even written this post.

Yesterday

I ate the last of the eggs in the fridge before heading to meet Tom in the Mission and go to Tartine, where I ate bread pudding and he had a croque monsieur. Someone offered us drugs almost immediately after we got out of the BART, which made me happy--no one has tried to sell me drugs in years! Then we walked around and went in many used clothing and consignment stores and bookshops. We bought some dust masks to wear to the SPT Poetry Spectacular event. I saw the SF branch of Yoga Kula, the Anusara yoga studio that I'd love to be taking classes at--but I can't do everything in one trip. Then we walked up Mission for a while and parted ways near where all the streets bend and run northeast-southeast instead of north-south. Tom went to Haight street and I kept walking up Market street all the way to the Embarcadero, which took a long time. I bought an actual mask for the reading. I bargained it from 26 to 5. It is an ok mask--but no one seems to be able to explain this supposed "San Francisco tradition." My plan is now to wear two masks and excessive eye make up.

At the embaracdero, I bought several olives stuffed with various cheeses and nuts and a roll, then I made a sort of sandwich out of all that and ate it for lunch while staring at Treasure Island and the bay. After some writing and some down time, I met Dodie at the Samovar Tea Lounge where she treated me to some chai and some soup and some excellent conversation. I felt relaxed, nourished, and warm. There's more to be said about our conversation but it will have to be said later, since I really just writing notes now of the days, not detailed reflections.

After dinner, we went to Dodie and Kevin's apartment and hung out a bit. I petted Sylvia, who was very friendly and out and about. Quincy was hiding, but I did say hello and she seemed pretty content. As most of you know, I live with a parrot, but I grew up with cats, so I always enjoy the chance to be around them.

Kevin and Dodie kindly drove me to Sara's apartment. Tom had been to Amoeba Records and had had a beer somewhere (maybe Pop's?). Anyway, we met in front of Sara's apartment building and went in together. I always feel like readings in SF are so...private...probably because many of them are in people's private homes. But Sara's apartment is nice. It is circular, so the socializing doesn't stagnate, and people, well, circulate around quite well. I was glad to see Tyrone Williams again and hear him read, and I was glad to meet Julian T. Brolaski, whose work I find I like quite a bit--it was very aural and watery, with plenty of energetic torque. It wasn't floating off the page.

Sara was there, of course, since she was host, and so was David Brazil. I met them very briefly in LA, but it was good to talk to them when I was a bit more sober and not competing with the intense coolness of the Mandrake in Culver City and an overly briny dirty martini. Erika Statie was there, and I was very glad to see her again, and I also met Cynthia Sailers, though I'm afraid I must have been a bit of a dork when she told me that she is a therapist. I said, "Oh. Um. Now I am going to be careful about my metaphors and word choice. What do people usually say to you when you tell them that you are a therapist?" She said that they usually either want to tell her about their problems or tell her about their therapists. A bit like how people behave if you tell them you're an editor. They want to show you their work or they want to complain about their editors and publishers.

I also met several people in person that I'd only known virtually-- François Luong and Johannes Göransson. Joyelle McSweeny was there, too. I've meet her in person before, and it was good to meet her in person again. I also met Anne Lesley Selcer. Anne and François were kind enough to show me how to get back across the bay from Haight street, so we chatted the whole time. More about that conversation later, too, which was fascinating, mostly because we all share similar interests in procedural and conceptual art. Etc.

Ashby is vaguely sketchy, but not nearly as sketchy as some places I've lived. I felt comfortable walking home. The racoon made another apperance, as it probably will tonight. I was so happy an hyper last night that I stayed up late and had to write and drink mint tea to calm down.

Today

Today began more calmly with coffee and morning buns from the Berkeley Bowl. I also bought a role which I brought home and made into a sandwhich with some cheese and leftover grilled vegetable tapenade to pack for lunch. Eventually, I wandered over to Juliana's place to visit with her, Bill, Charles, and Sasha. Sasha was in good spirits, running around and playing--he seems like a happy little boy. Patrick Durgin was there, too, looking very hip and wearing and especially cool tie. I don't think I'd seen Patrick since MLA was in DC. A long time ago.

I had to run back to the house to get something, but we all ended up on the same train across the bay. The Hilton was full of MLAers looking professional, frantic, and desperate. I called Lisa and Bill Howe's room and hung out with them for a while in the hotel. We ranted, we raved and we did yoga. I ate my sandwich for lunch. We weren't exactly relaxed, but it was great to see them. Tom came back from some museum excursions. We continued to rant and rave, but we also called everyone else we could think of.

Finally we left to get some dinner in the Tenderloin--Vietnamese. Yum! Then a brief stop at the Goodwill next door where I almost bought a Russian children's book with creepy illustrations but did not. Lisa got a very cool jacket, so the whole thing wasn't a waste of time. Tom had to head back home, but Lisa, Bill and I went in search of a bar. I vetoed the first one, which was too small and had no name. I liked it better than our second option, a Korean sports bar. If I were big or a man, I would have been all over it. But since I am neither, I was not. However, we did find a good medium. A very small Korean bar called "441 Cocktail Lounge." It was quiet and they had a pool table. Lisa ran back to the hotel and ended up meeting several people in the looby. Meanwhile, Bill and I played pool. Drinks were reasonable enough given that, well, even if it's the Tenderloin, it's still near MLA, and nothing is ever cheap near MLA.

After Bill and I played pool, then Lisa and I and Bill played pool, Bill played with some of the Spanish speaking guys at the bar. After two drinks, and with interviews tomorrow for some of us, we went home. We did not manage to meet Mr. Daniel Gutstein, but no doubt we will tomorrow.

There was a football game, so BART was full of drunk California Bears fans. We all survived, though.

Tomorrow is the big reading for out of town folks. We are also going out for Dim Sum.

I think someone should throw a party on Sunday or Monday night.

If I can't find a mask, maybe I can, I don't know, paint my face or just wear excessive eye make up.

I slept until 9:30. It was amazing. Once I settled down and checked the locks on all the doors, well, I won't say exactly how many times, but it was more than twice, I fell deeply asleep. Before I fell asleep I worked on my writing project that is loosely connected to this trip. Today I had some of the Christmas bread (like fruit cake, but nicer and less sweet) I brought with me for breakfast, spoke with people on the phone. The sun came out so I went for a walk up college and to the university and all around and around. I found a coffee shop and sat and wrote for nearly two hours. What resulted is the first draft of a story thing that is kind of ridiculous, but I think I like it. And anyway it doesn't matter if I like it or not. I just have to finish it.

Today certainly has been a strange day--first sleeping until I don't feel like sleeping anymore, then walking, lazing in a coffee shop, and writing energetically.

My original food plan for today was to find some ramen around the campus, but I ended up eating some really excellent shwarma with rice, salad and lentils at an Israeli restaurant before heading home. I just finished doing some yoga and I'm feeling mellow, rested, and excited.

Tomorrow, I'm going to head into Chinatown to try and find a (very inexpensive) mask for the SPD reading, and to look around the Embarcadero like I always do. At some point, I'll meet up with Tom and head down to the mission to see Julian T. Brolaski and Tyrone Williams read in the Earthworm Reading Series.

I'm watching the nutcracker on PBS

I arrived in Berkeley easily. I tried to go to the Berkeley Bowl to stock up on some food for this evening and tomorrow, but it had already closed by the time I got there. But there's a little Cameroonian restaurant around the corner, so I stopped in and got their vegetarian combo to go--rice, beans, okra, sweet potato, plantains, some kind of spinach dish, and then various sauces, including some very very spicy hot sauce. It was excellent, but they gave me so much I could barely eat a third of it, so I suspect I'll have the rest of it tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm going to...I don't know. Probably do some yoga and read. Maybe go for a walk. Prepare to be social. Make a mask for the SPD/MLA reading.

I'm off to SF tomorrow.

In between seeing friends and having various tasty things to eat, I'll be at these two events. I'm reading in the first event--and I'll keep to my two minute limit, I promise. In the meantime, I need to find a mask to wear. Something either very ornate and corny or very gruesome and corny.

SPD SF Poetry Spectacular

Sunday, Dec 28th at the Forum at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on 701 Mission Street between 3rd and 4th Streets in the San Francisco Poetry Spectacular, otherwise known as the MLA off-site reading. The event starts at 7:00 and will go until 10:00. The location is walking distance from the hotels. Attached are a map and poster for the event. Postcards with the map will be available at SPD booth #517. The list of readers is on our site http://www.spdbooks.org/root/pages/sfspectacular.asp.

In the spirit of San Francisco and for extra thrills, we ask that you wear a mask to the event. Of course, your own reading will be mask-optional.

We look forward to seeing & hearing you at the San Francisco Poetry Spectacular, sponsored by Small Press Distribution and the Poetry Foundation.

The Spectacular is free, ADA accessible, and open to the public. Please invite everyone!

~

Locals MLA Group Reading

For those of you San Francisco for the MLA, please come join us for this companion reading to the big MLA reading on the 28th, this one featuring over 30 Bay Area poets. The reading will start promptly at 7pm, at the nearby club Hotel Utah. Featuring: Melissa Benham, Alan Bernheimer, Brandon Brown, Xochi Candelaria, Norma Cole, Sarah Anne Cox, Del Ray Cross, Brent Cunningham, Donna de la Perrier, Steve Dickison, Stacy Doris, Steve Farmer, Gloria Frym, Susan Gevirtz, Javier Huerta, Scott Ignuito, Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Andrew Joron, David Lau, Joseph Lease, Dana Teen Lomax, Bill Luoma, Laura Moriarty, Stephen Ratcliffe, Barbara Jane Reyes, Cynthia Sailers, Leslie Scalapino, Lauren Shufran, giovanni singleton, Suzanne Stein, Chris Stroffolino, Stephen Vincent, Alli Warren, Chet Weiner, & more! hosted by David Buuck & Small Press Traffic.

Tues Dec 30, 7pm, $2
Hotel Utah
500 4th St. @ Bryant, SF
http://www.hotelutah.com/

But What Book Should I Take With Me?

I took Lester to the vet to be boarded this morning. He's boarded there plenty of times, but this was only the second time we'd made the trip via train and bicycle. He loves the train, and after about a minute of settling in on the bicycle, he seems to enjoy it--he sang most of the ride. There were two iguanas, two bunnies, one hamster, and five parrots (plus a lot of people) in the vet reception area, and Lester seemed to enjoy that, too. Everyone seemed nervous, and at one point there were two parrots flying around the room because they didn't want to step up onto the scale to be weighed. Lester, however, preened, ate some millet, and sang "Lester's a pretty bird" and "salt peanuts" over and over again, which got him a lot of attention. And, of course, he loves attention. When I'd finished putting all his favorite toys into his boarding cage, he willingly climbed off of my shoulder and got in. I'm glad that he's so well-adjusted and confident.

Today I need to:

1. Exercise
2. Clean
3. Pack
4. Print any remaining things for the trip
5. Go to Trader Joes to get something to eat tomorrow when I'm traveling

SF countdown

I'm madly trying to finish all my work before I head off to the Bay Area for some quality time with friends, poetry, food, and plenty of MLA conference sadomasochism. I'm going to try and stay away from the actual conference and instead just go to the readings and other events in and around the conference. It's possible that one day I will have to attend and interview for a job at MLA, one day, but I'm in no rush. My work life is sustainable and tolerable, even in this economy.

But in between work this weekend, I've been doing plenty of yoga, dancing, and hooping. Tomorrow is the winter solstice here, but I've been thinking about my sisters in Adelaide, and how they're in the middle of the lightest time of year, not the darkest. Not that it's especially dark here in San Diego. Winter is my favorite time of year here. There's fewer tourists, and the weather is like the best kind of autumn day back east. This afternoon I saw migrating whales off shore at Swami's in Encinitas. I'd still trade all this beauty for a viable life in a city with a vibrant international art community, but I don't dislike my life here.

I arrived at Swami's late, so the class was more or less over, but Michelle and I played around for almost three hours. After the hoop jam, I watched the sunset (and the whales, dolphins, cormorants, and pelicans). There was an elderly couple hanging out with a very elderly woman in a wheelchair--either the woman or the man's mother. They kept joking with the woman in the wheelchair, asking her if she was warm enough, and telling her that eventually they would throw her into the water where she would be "nice and cool." This all seemed rather horrific and cruel, except that the very elderly woman/mother thought it was hilarious.

Tomorrow, more grading, web stuff, cleaning, yoga, and hooping.

Tuesday Lester

Rain is good for San Diego

But not so good for hooping. The last time I tried to hoop inside, I nearly broke the lamp.

marriedtothesea.com

This week has been horrible

I love roasted cauliflower. It began with a cauliflower gratin several months ago. Then the roasted cauliflower soup on Thanksgiving. Now I want to make cauliflower everything--it's a winter vegetable, after all. I'm remembering, too, how much Indian food uses cauliflower, so tonight I'm making something vaguely Indian. It's a good excuse to use some of the mustard seeds I've been hoarding.