heading for nyc

my last day at one heart is tomorrow...then it is time to say goodbye to san francisco and head out to nyc.

picture above: proof run of the title page to _inticate systems_. the good news is: i got most of the runs in today (da-da-da-dum!). bad news: two poems are flipped in order, and that is bad because one of them is part of a sonnet series. so...i had to dampen paper today and am waiting to print two runs tomorrow.

dude, printing is super expensive. if you want to be anal and have a really beautiful object for people to read, you'll have to shell out quite a bit of money...

lastly a poem...


What I’ll remember of June is
walks I took. Once, I got lost
in Golden Gate Park, after my
sister had parked her car at 39th
and Fulton, or so. The park is
some 170-acres larger than
Central Park. The de Young is
there. I remember because when
it reopened in 2005, for the first
week or so, the Museum was
opened all the time so that if
someone drove past a certain
part of the Park, say, around 2
a.m., there was a curved line of
people disappearing into the
entryway of a building that
seemed to landscape, rising and
falling at familiar places. It was
a beautiful day, unusually warm
and as I walked back to my sister’s
apartment, I noticed how light went
into everything, even the cement
seemed to glow. Later, angry, my
sister asked, “How could you just
leave like that?” I didn’t know what
to tell her except I had searched for
a long time and still could not find
the place I begun. On a map, Golden
Gate Park panhandles the Pacific. A
month ago, I fell asleep near another
body of water, the Gulf of Mexico.
When I woke the tide was quickly
pulling in, which somehow empha-
sized the sensation of my sunburn
on my shoulders, as my shoulders
and only my shoulders were grazed,
burnt by the sun. On a walk that
same afternoon, I saw several
license plates from Quintana Roo,
a state that borders the Yucatan.
When I awoke, I went to swim
into the Gulf. What I’ll remember of
June is when waking, the tide was
high, carrying - maybe
three or four - young boys, who
were shouting, trying without much
luck to stay put on their body boards.
A month later I was lost in Golden
Gate Park.

new british prime minister

gordon brown.

party: labour

the UK Times says he is a smarty-pants and is profoundly "bookish." let's see how smart he really is.

not much to say tonite. had sushi at kiji, down the street. what was for dinner: a dynamite, spicy tuna, rainbow roll. (not all by myself, mind you).

appetizers: gyozas (fried dumplings) and sweet fried prawns. drinks: 2 carafes of warm sake. the owner gave us free mango and strawberry mochi ice cream. yum.

last nite, crystal's college mate, shilpa (lovely shilpa), cooked us chicken biryani, salad, some kind of rice dish that tasted a little bit like cous cous.

shilpa and crystal both love food and have sworn that east oakland has excellent food. the pizza joint they want to try:

cheeseboard pizza, in berkeley. supposedly it is unbelievably scrumptious.

the title page to juliana spahr's chapbook is done. now, the real test is: can i finish all the printing before i leave for ny (this sunday)?

what i have left:

- run of titles/subtitles, page #s (for a total of: 14 runs)
- cover: 4 runs

* * *

later gators.

did you know

...

the poet tan lin is the brother of architect/sculpturist maya lin?

that's crazy. to have all that talent in one family.


* * *

what does lin (the poet) have to say about his art:

“In a perfect world all sentences, even the ones we write to our loved ones, the mailman or our interoffice memos, would have that overall sameness, that sense of an average background, a fluid structure in spite of the surface disturbances and the immediate incomprehension. The best sentences should lose information at a relatively constant rate. There should be no ecstatic moments of recognition.”

* * *

description: temporality and sex

autocratic behavior
audacious behavior
asinine behavior
allusive behavior
allegro behavoir
anonymous behavior
illicit behavior
illegal behavior
behave your behavior
syndicate your behavior
sensitize your behavior
sterilize your behavior

basil bunting and palestine

a good site for folks to check out:::

http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/.


also, some good advice from the northumbrian poet, basil bunting:::

<<

I SUGGEST
1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to lose impetus.
3. Use spoken words and syntax.
4. Fear adjective; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape

Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
6. Cut out every word you dare.
7. Do it again a week later, and again.

Never explain - your reader is as smart as you. >>

back in sf

i am back from los angeles. came into the city late morning and went straight to one heart press. now i am back home, sippin' some wine before heading out for drinks w/ a friend.

the reading went well. i read for the last sunday series, put on by les figues press and others. thanks for les figues and especially, teresa, for their/her help.

los angeles is so cool. the poets i met at the reading were laid back and funny and had a sense of humour. it was a good change of pace from what i am normally used to.

thanks to julie for housin' me.

after the reading, some friends and i made our way to get some pizza, then for a drink at the short stop, a divey bar that now is a hipster joint (like so many divey bars). in any case, it's still a nice place to grab a drink or two. dim lighting and a pool table, as well as a dance floor (which is usually empty).

i saw someone i used to sort of date, briefly, last nite. you sort of forget certain emotions you used to have for someone when you havent been around them. it was nice, tho, seeing him. even momentarily.

it's also nice to see friends' lives changing, how simple and good you feel when yr'e around people you love. i thot on the ride to the airport sat., sometimes life is as simple as walking a dog.

have you heard of d-day?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070621-day-of-silence-coming-to-internet-radio-on-june-26.html


( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) _ _ _ _ ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) - - - -

ending this post w/ the astounding ezra pound:::

"there is one quality which unites all great and perdurable writers, you don't NEED schools and colleges to keep 'em alive. Put them out of the curriculum, lay them in the dust of libraries, and once in every so often a chance reader, unsubsidized and unbribed, will dig them up again, put them in the light again, without asking favours."

rock on ezra.

the smell

flying into los angeles tonite. first reading at the smell tomorrow evening. im not so much nervous as excited to be back.

the "RAT" project...

RAT is here

http://relayactiontrip.wordpress.com/