"Describing Description" at As It Ought To Be

Lezlie Mayers was at the reading I did at USC last week, and she was kind enough to ask to reprint "Describing Description" from LA Liminal as today's Friday Poetry Series feature for As It Ought To Be. Thanks, Lezlie!

My interview with Kate Durbin

is now up at H_NGM_N. The "What did you wear in high school?" question, which might seem trivial at first, is actually the only question I knew I had to ask Kate. Probably because with girls' and women's fashion and self-fashioning, that's usually where & when it starts--it's the root of something that can turn into an entire life project (through an art form, or in other ways). And with Kate, the costuming impulses that some of us gave up or toned down after high school or college are still gloriously alive, and central to her poetic/performance project:

Over at Kate's blog, there's a thread going about high school fashion, and I love the terms used to describe the looks: mermaid, goth riot grrrl, androgynous baby dyke, bouffanted mod chick.... won't you add yours to the comment stream?

not even there yet and things're already weird

Issued by The National Weather Service
Los Angeles, CA
10:31 am PDT, Tue., Oct. 19, 2010

THE POSITION OF THE CUTOFF LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL CONTINUE TO BE FAVORABLE FOR IMPORTING MOISTURE FROM THE EAST INTO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TODAY. ANY BREAKS IN CLOUD COVER WILL ALLOW DAYTIME HEATING TO INCREASE INSTABILITY... KEEPING THE THREAT OF SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS THROUGH THE DAY. BY THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING... THE GREATEST THREAT OF SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE ACROSS LOS ANGELES AND VENTURA COUNTIES. AS THE CUTOFF LOW CONTINUES TO MOVE SOUTHEASTWARD OVERNIGHT... ADDITIONAL WRAP AROUND MOISTURE WILL KEEP A THREAT OF SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INTO WEDNESDAY MORNING. SOME OF THE THUNDERSTORMS TODAY COULD BE STRONG... CAPABLE OF PRODUCING BRIEF HEAVY RAIN... GUSTY WINDS... SMALL HAIL... AND FREQUENT LIGHTNING.

Greenberg, Glenum, Wagner: Chicago Gurlesque Event Tomorrow

Presentations on the Gurlesque

with editors Arielle Greenberg & Lara Glenum

& a guest reading by Catherine Wagner

Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 5:00 p.m.

Columbia College Chicago
Hokin Hall, 623 S. Wabash, Rm. 109

Chicago, IL 60605

Destroyer : Kaputt : January 25, 2011

I like this new Dan Bejar-penned-press-release thing, which kinda reads like a Chelsey Minnis poem, even as it mentions the superiority of poetry (DB "is" a poet)--

Kaputt by Malaparte, which Bejar has never read… Kara Walker, specifically the lyrics she contributed to the song 'Suicide Demo for Kara Walker'… Chinatown, the neighborhood bordering on Bejar's… Baby blue eyes… 80s Miles Davis… 90s Gil Evans… Last Tango in Paris… Nic Bragg, who played lead guitar on every song, again… Fretless bass… The hopelessness of the future of music… The pointlessness of writing songs for today… V-Drums… The superiority of poetry and plays… And what's to become of film?… The Cocaine Addict… American Communism… Downtown, the neighborhood bordering on Bejar's… TheLinnDrum… Avalon and, more specifically, Boys and Girls… The devastated mind of JC/DC, who recorded, produced and mixed this record from fall of 2008 to spring of 2010… The back-up vocals of certain Roy Ayers and Long John Baldry tours… Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence…

--and speaking of Gurlesque artists, I am especially excited for what seems to be a collaboration with Kara Walker!

Tracklist

01 Chinatown [live version mp3]
02 Blue Eyes
03 Savage Night at the Opera
04 Suicide Demo for Kara Walker
05 Poor in Love
06 Kaputt
07 Downtown
08 Song for America
09 Bay of Pigs (Detail)

Predictions: "Song for America" will be brutal, and "Bay of Pigs (Detail)" will please the completist, besides continuing the visual art thing "Suicide Demo for Kara Walker" kicks off. (Also funny to see a real woman's name in a Destroyer song.)

Other stuff of note: All Destroyer covers seem to be black-and-white now, maybe also Kara Walker-influenced.


Bay of Pigs (2009) and Archer on the Beach (out in two weeks)

Jeff T. Johnson on Pavement, the Silver Jews,

& a really great description of the feeling at the Central Park reunion show I was at, too:

I’ve been here before. I’ve always already missed the real thing. By the time I saw Pavement live, the good old days were gone. Of course, the good old days are always gone. But I recognize Pavement 2010. They’re a lot like late ’90s Pavement: Something already happened, and we’re all still here because whatever that was, we thought we could do it again, on a good night.

I'm going back to LA after 7 and a half years and I'm gonna try to be professional about it:

lookit all these pals

It's live! Horse Less Review #8 is up and ready, and it features outrageous work by Graeme Bezanson, Jessica Bozek, Christophe Casamassima, Juliet Cook, Tyler Flynn Dorholt, Kate Durbin, Richard Froude, Nathan Hauke, Michael Hennessey, Brian Howe, Russell Jaffe, Kirsten Jorgenson, Megan Kaminski, Mary Kasimor, Kirk Keen, Becca Klaver, Krystal Languell, Dolly Lemke, Rebecca Loudon, Erin McNellis, Monica Mody, Danielle Pafunda, Andrea Rexilius, Susan Scarlata, Chad Scheel, Mike Sikkema, Dan Louis Singer, Jordan Stempleman, Maureen Thorson, Megan Volpert, Joshua Ware, Samuel Day Wharton, and Joseph Wood. Go check it out, and tell your friends!

Was There Anything More Teenage

than sitting at Comet, spilling my guts to Jenny and Heather, smoking cigs, drinking mint mochas, eating cheesy tomato sandwiches, and reading the Shepherd Express, Milwaukee's free weekly, which, according to Wikipedia, "originated in May, 1982 as the Crazy Shepherd, its name derived from a line in Allen Ginsberg’s poem 'Footnotes to Howl' ('Hail the crazy shepherds of the middle class')"?

No, there was not.

Which is why I'm real excited that recent Milwaukee Poet Laureate Susan Firer decided to reprint my Milwaukee-ist of LA Liminal poems, "Mitchell International," in her poetry column in the Shepherd online. Thanks, Susan!

back in brooklyn and my inbox told me some stuff

I'll be presenting an essay on Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," Crane's "To Brooklyn Bridge," and some Brooklyn Bridge field reporting as part of a "Brooklyn Poetics" panel at the NeMLA conference in April, which happens to be at Rutgers this year.

The online panel that Carmen Giménez Smith organized, "On Gender and Publishing," is up at VIDAweb.org, and includes responses from Danielle Dutton, Elizabeth McCracken, Maria Melendez, Don Share, me, and others!

Canarium Books is reading full-length poetry manuscripts through November 1!

Liz Hildreth has a new blog!