...Be Forgot

I was trying to think of a way to sum up the year, but Lillian does the job. Check. (and I'm not even posting that because there are a lot of me in there, because there aren't.  But lots of beauty).

Meanwhile, I don't think I've ever slept as well, pre-day-of-travel as I did last night.  I wanted to post a photo from the last time I was in SD (Feb. 2004), but most of those are actual photographs that aren't scanned into the computer.  Ah.  Memory, and it's selective reliability.

I'll be in San Diego until the 10th.  I'll be crashing mostly in the window behind me and Vannoy in the photo above.  If you're out there, give a call.  Or find me in OB. or North Park. Or at a reading.

Kiss 2007 goodbye safely.  

I've got to pack a case.

Get Your Mag On!

The new Hobart came today! More importantly, the Hobart wall calendar came in today! I had promised Editor-'n-Chieftain Aaron Burch I'd hang it in the bathroom, but I didn't like the way it looked. Plus, I didn't want it to curl from my shower-steam. Besides, doesn't it look good next to Gary Snyder's mug? You'll also notice it is set just above the percolator, so when I grind and brew, I'll be fully aware of what day it is. THANKS HOBART!

And, if you're wondering where that skillet has been, know that this delicious breakfast was prepared in it just this morning:



That's a ricotta, onion and pressed garlic omelet with hot pastrami and fresh baguette. Yum.

Strangely Hobart #8 arrived today along with the new Poetry. The All-Fiction journal I subscribe to and the All-Poetry, on the same day. Huh. But I'm sure it happened to you to. No?

Well then, click over to at least Hobart's site, and give them your money!

Speaking of my loves

New Painted Bride Quarterly is up.
Clickity-click.

Edit

(photo taken in around '04)

Upon a little reflection, I know I'm not getting rid of my car. In fact, the idea of parting with my MG kinda up sets me. I'm way too attached to the thing. I know this.

But, here's the thing. A new car means a car that's new to me, which means used and, most likely, buying a whole new set of problems and projects. That's all, really.

You'll also notice that yesterday I wrote "another car." Not "an other." So, here's the plan:
- Get a job. Someplace warm.
- Get a garage with an apartment on top. I would buy this house.
- Have the MG and cb650 in the garage.
- Drive them.
- Save some scratch.
- Get a hybrid. Park it outside the garage.

See? The MG doesn't have to go anywhere. I'm going to drive that car until the day it dies and I can't bring it back.

Got the tank back from the shop. It's hot. Photos to come.

Running Again

The new solution:


I plugged that little guy in, and was testing it with a bottle of gasoline and electrical jumpers to make sure it was working first, and it ticktickticked, but nothing was coming out the other end. I scratched my head, felt a bit of an I-can't-figure-this-out panic coming on. In that panic, I got suspicious of my little set up. The electrical had to be working because there was the ticking. The bottle was, in fact, holding the fuel. I took the 5 inches of hose I was using as my jump, and check it out:


Yeah. I got 4 feet of hose, and cut a length that just happened to have a blockage. Ain't that something?!

Once I took a knife to that punk, it all worked out:


Running.
Speaking of it, I'll be getting my gas tank for the bike back today. Can't really fill it up because some sealant inside is going to be curing until around 3pm. Plus, I don't have a working petcock for it yet. Yes, that's what the valve is called. I know it's a funny word.

More running? I have a new reading list. These are the places my head will be for the next few weeks:


The year ends any day now. I like 8s better than 7s, I think.

-I'm thinking 2008 might be the year to get another car.
-I've promised myself an iphone when I get a job for the fall--and when they come out with the next version, because apple's funny like that.
-Debating whether or not I like the kindle from amazon. I don't think I like that it's called "kindle" as in to set on fire. Like we're setting the paper books on fire. But maybe amazon's going for the "arouse or inspire" metaphor of fire. Or maybe they're suggesting reading a book on the kindle has something to do with the act of a rabbit giving birth. I don't know. Any thoughts?

Not One Thing, but the Other

The MG's been getting pretty lousy milage lately. I'm not really sure why, so I figured this was a good time to check it out. The first idea was to make sure the fload in the weber carb was closing the flow properly, but there was a snag.

The weber I installed last year has an electronic choke, which gets in the way of removing the top plate on the carb to get to the float bowl. Thought I could get around it by removing the flap (below) and then sliding out that pin, but those screws you see there are brass. Brass is soft and takes a beating from too much messin' with.


Not having a rebuild kit on hand, and not wanting to really kill this whole thing, I moved on the fuel pump, which has had a bit of a temper in the last 6 months anyway. Well...


I tried installing my back up (that cylindrical thing), but it didn't work.


I didn't discover that it didn't work until I had it all rigged up behind the tired and everything. See that clamp thing? Not even close to standard.


Mid-day, I quit for a while, and made a pastrami sandwich with swiss and spicy mustard:


You might notice there's a lot of floor space behind the sandwhich. That's because I sold my rocking chair, giving myself room to do yoga without having to move anything. This morning, I got up, and I did me some yoga. Yup.

After the sandwich, of course, I tried installing another pump. That one didn't work either. I'll be heading back to the store today to exchange it, then coming home to bench-test it before I install it. Pop says that if the pump is working, I should clean the plugs, and there's a chance the mechanism that goes into the tank is busted. This is exactly what I need, right?

So, I've got a car and a motorcycle, both with fuel delivery problems at the moment. I want the car running by the time I leave for SD. There are bright sides to all of this: a)keeps me from getting lazy with the car stuff; and b) After I brake my ass working under a car all day, a shower and dinner are better than any other I can imagine. I cooked chicken last night. I didn't take a photo--there was no vegetable, and I wasn't proud of that.

We'll see if this project ends today. If not, it'll have to wait until next year.

If You Happen Through Colorado

(Vannoy and I in 2003 at Sunset cliffs)

I've decided to get rid of my rocking chair so that I have more space in the studio to do yoga. This isn't a "new years resolution" thing. More of a "I'm moving in 6-8 months anyway, and know I'm not going to bring the chair with me, so I might as well get rid of it now" things. Also opens the place up a bit, a little more comfortable for my end-of-07 reading. Like this. and This. A little bit of this.

Which leads me to this: Mary, who taught me yoga a couple of summers ago, has a new website. It's over here. It'll keep you informed, if that's how you like to be. I'll throw it over to the right, in case you want to find her later.

The question I have for the day: What is the best translation of Rimbaud? I like the one I have, but I'm pretty wary of translators who aren't Stephen Mitchell or Ken Krabbenhauf.

Where are you doing New Years?
Maybe I'll see you at Vannoy's place? Maybe?


PS - Looky what Max's been up to!

Another Holy Day

What a great comic. You can read it daily here.

Though it's Christmas Eve, I've jumped the gun on my syllabus for next semester. It's gonna be hot. I blame the books I'm assigning (which I'll tell you about later).

I'm going to the office soon.

I'm sort of mentally skipping out on Christmas this year, what with the family being all spread out this year. The prospect of having to go to MLA has got to mess with a lot of people's holiday plans. Now, I'm not going, but gathering my strength for San Diego. In a week I'll be in the air when the ball drops in 4 time zones, but I'll land just a little less than an hour before midnight PST. Isn't time-travel fun?

If I don't catch you, Merry Christmas.

A poem for you, by Srikanth Reddy's Facts for Visitors.

Sundial

In the hanging gardens of sleep,

they dismantle my sleep

singing from cages at daybreak.

So I entered the gardens of care,

where a boy carved in stone

kept watch on a broken stone

sundial. Care told me his story.

Had it ended sooner,

it all could have ended.

I'd have forgiven you

turning to stone without me.

When I blink, I see the blank

I carry inside me no matter

how long I keep watch.


Meanwhile,
"amok" they say.

Here and there for the Holidays

A few photos recently taken:

From the train getting into St. Louis:

KC's Union Station is a strange place.  A very large area, empty with small lights.  It's like a haunted ballroom.  I did not linger long:

Stairwell near ticket counter:

I'm told there are bullet holes in the station from the Kansas City Massacre, but I didn't find them.  I didn't really look.  Something to look forward to next time.

I got a little shopping in, thanks to a few bucks tossed to the midwest by my folks.  While I was out, I got to thinking about my bathrobe, which I got way back when I started college.  For a number of years, I didn't wear it much, but that's changed.  Thing it, it was was never, EVER really comfortable.  It kept me from being cold, but something about the fabric made it exceptionally not cozy.  

No more.  Off to Good Will it goes, along with other clothes that I just don't need in the closet.  I suppose it's something like a little holiday ritual.   

Comfort doesn't take much.  I'm comfortable with no walls and a robe.  And that about sums up the beginning of the holiday for me.  What you got going on over there?

Happy Birthday, Frank

It's Zappa's birthday.  Here's a transcript from his talk with Congress in 1985. 

I'm home.  I'm running into the office to be a productive member of my department.  Seriously, if I don't make it to the office by 9:30 every morning (except weekends), I feel a little strange.  I like waking up and going to work.  I like coming home from work.  

I'll REALLY like coming home today if there's a delivery of a cb650 gas tank I've been jonesing to show you all about.

Anyone else going to be in San Diego in 10 days?

When I Leave Town, I Got To The Movies

In case you were wondering, I checked it out: it's good the second time around too.

Let's also give a happy birthday to the official title of Poet Laureate, born this day in 1985.  More information on that can be found at the library.  

Look at me, I'm Hunter Thompson!

Only I've got more hair, no shades or cigarette-holder-held cigarettes.  Anyway.

The details that bring one to holding a Jim Beam and a shotgun while wearing pajama's in a kitchen in Kansas City are for the  meta-physicisists to decided.  Know this: the shells were else where in the house.  

I'll be home tomorrow.

Greg's on Verse Daily

Check out Greg Rappleye's poem "Blackbirds" up at Verse Daily.  It's from his new book Figured Dark.  I haven't read it yet, but every intention is there...

He'll clear up a typo over at his blog.

!

Monday is Knox's Day

Jennifer Knox says:

That's right, I am! for the anthology,
Great American Prose Poems
along with some other very cool poets.

Like Mark Bibbins, Charles Bernstein, Jenny Boully,
Mark Strand, Paul Violi, Susan Wheeler, and others.

At the KGB Bar
7 p.m.
85 West 4th St NYC 10003

It would be awesome to see your friendly,
or short of that, familiar face.

*  

It would be awesome to have my friendly face seen in NY, but I'm hiding out in Kansas City for a few days.  Woot.

Yup.

Go See Ada Read. I'm not even kidding.

She says:

Picture this: It's warm inside on a snowy Sunday afternoon.
You're enjoying a little cocktail, or hot chocolate, or green tea.
You're enjoying the fact that we've all won the fellowship
that supports you for the rest of your life and we're all looking
real good wearing our genuis grants as clothing,
petting our unicorns, and saving the world.

Then some poetry happens.

Sounds lovely no?

Venue: Bowery Poetry Club
Price; $7
Times: Next Sunday, Dec 16 1:30pm
Address: 308 Bowery between Bleecker and Houston Sts East Village
Phone:212-614-0505
Travel: Subway: B, D, F, V to Broadway–Lafayette St; 6 to Bleecker St
Website: bowerypoetry.com

Three poets share the bill at today’s gathering—Aracelis Girmay (Teeth), Ada Limon (Lucky Wreck, This Big Fake World) and Susan Brennan. (Abraham Smith had a family emergency and our poor dear won't be joining us.)

One more thing...

First, a quick summer memory to warm you up:

Laurel Snyder's got a new site.

Lil (photographed the above) has gone and updated hers.  I hear she's available for bio photos and crime scene documentation. 

I've got a secret, but if you want me to tell you, you're going to have to come over here....

Grades Have Been Entered

It's James Wright's Birthday.  Was just talking with a student yesterday about the guy.  I really love it when students I had over a year ago come in to talk about poems they're working on now.  I think you'll be hearing about at least one of them, one of these days.

Steve Davenport and Juan Sanchez did a reading at the Hyde Park Arts Center the other night.  Podcast to come...but it was really something else.  I think you'll dig it.  

How's your grading going?  

What else is happening?

A poem by Maurice Manning's Bucolics:

XXXI

did you teach the woodpecker how

to knock its head against the wood

of hollow trees did you say this

is how you do it Boss then knock

your own boss head so hard into 

the tree it made a rattle clap

I'm thinking nine is the number of times

the bird must knock the three to make

it rattle right does that sounds right

to you is nine the number Boss

to make a rattle clap it sounds 

all right to me the number sounds

just right inside the rattle Boss

did you teach birds to count did you 

teach me to count what counts beyond

the numbers up above them Boss

are you a number or a sound

or something else I can't learn how

to think about your birdbrain Boss

you rattle me you knock me down

Smarty Pants!

You like books, right?  And writing about books and ideas and stuff?

Well.

I've got my first critical book review in the latest Rain Taxi.  They even pull out a quote from me and make it all big in the middle of the page.  If you're not feeling what I have to say about Poetry and Pedagogy:The challenge of the contemporary by Joan Retallack and Juliana Spahr, and the ideas I present about teaching and the avant-garde, there's a whole bunch of other smart stuff in the issue.  But I hope you like it.  

399 Years, but not a day over 39.

Good bio and poem over at The Writer's Almanac.  

I happen to love Milton.  Saw an original pamphlet of Areopagitica at the rare book library at UI Bloomington, and thought of a quick smash-n-grab.  My Complete Works is doubled in weight by all the post-its and book marks sticking out of it.  I can't seem to go more than a couple of months without pulling it off the shelf and reading sections of essays and PL.

I remember, from the class I took with one of the greatest professors ever, the conversation about the connection between "When I Consider..." (the poem in the Writers Almanac, which isn't actually called "On His Blindness," so I don't now why they use that) and "How Soon Hath Time," written 20 years prior.  It's like he knew what was coming...or maybe he was just lamenting his consistent not-getting-any.  

How  Soon Hath Time

How soon hat Time, the subtle thief of youth, 

  Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year!

  My hasting days fly on with full career,

  But my late spring no bud or blossom show'th.

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,

  That I to manhood am arriv'd so near,

  And inward ripeness doth much less appear,

  That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.  

Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,

  It shall be still in strictest measure ev'n,

  To that same lot, however mean or high,

Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav'n; 

  All is, if I have my graces to use it so,

  As Ever in my great task-Master's eye.  

*

Oh.  Oh.  There's an event tonight:

Venue: Bowery Poetry Club
Price; $7
Times: Next Sunday, Dec 16 1:30pm
Address: 308 Bowery between Bleecker and Houston Sts East Village
Phone:212-614-0505
Travel: Subway: B, D, F, V to Broadway–Lafayette St; 6 to Bleecker St
Website: bowerypoetry.com

Three poets share the bill at today’s gathering—Aracelis Girmay (Teeth), Ada Limon (Lucky Wreck, This Big Fake World) and Abraham Smith (9L contributor & the forthcoming Whim Man Mammon).

Shut In

There's a bunch of freeze and snow outside. I believe I'll stay in and read stacks of student papers today.  Just because I'm in, doesn't mean you have to be.  Two killer events in Brooklyn tonight:

Matt Henriksen, Oni Buchanan, and Adam Clay
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(718) 203-3770
Friday, December 7, 7pm

&!

Jennifer Knox, Jared Hohl and Mary Jo Bang
Friday, December 7, 7:30
For The Agriculture Reader

Plus a music/theater performance of
"A Kind of Madness" by Aaron Petrovich
and Chris Forsyth.

At Stain Bar
766 Grand Street, Brooklyn
L train to Grand Street, 1 block west
http://www.booklyn.org/agriculture.html
http://www.stainbar.com/

If you're not doing anything...but if it snowed here last night, it shouldn't be long before it gets to New York.  

But why would I want to leave the studio today?  I do believe there's a gas tank for a 1982 cb650 showing up today.  The gas cap came yesterday, the one I ordered before I realized that it didn't have a key; as it happens the key that already starts my bike JUST HAPPENS to open the lock.  This might not seem nearly as exciting to you as it is for me, but trust me.  It's freakin' cool.  

Trust me.

Now, let's make some coffee.

Snow

First, Danielle Pafunda is featured today (Wednesday) on Verse Daily.  She's got a collection called My Zorba coming from Bloof in the Spring.  Yup.

Ada Limón has some new work up at La Fovea.  I'd never seen this journal before, but I'm really digging how it works.  Pretty interesting and fun-sounding editorial process.

I believe the hunt for the gas tank for my 1982 Honda cb650 has ended.  Parts are moving across the ground via trucks as we speak...or as I type and as you read, whoever you are.  I spoke with a guy in Kansas at a junk yard who told me that if he had the tank it would be dinged and dented and rusted and he's charge me around $450 because it's a really difficult tank to find because it was only used on three years of bikes, and that one model (the cb650 or the cb650 Custom).  Of course, there will be photographs.  

This morning has Urbana's first real serious dusting of snow.  It's kinda nice.  We'll see how much I like it when I have to walk in it.  

Claude McKay's The White City   

I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.

Deep in the secret chambers of my heart

I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch

I bear it nobly as I live my part.

My being would be a skeleton, a shell,

If this dark Passion that fills my every mood,

And makes my heaven in the white world's hell, 

Did not forever feed me vital blood.

I see the mighty city through a mist--

The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,

The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed,

The fortressed port through which the great ships pass,

The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate,

Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.  

*

Makes me think of Milton.  Anyway.

The Big Chill

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm absolutely captivated by the Writer's Strike business.  All sorts of banter and info and videos at the union's site, UnitedHollywood.com.  Thing is, I'm finding the videos they're making while not making tv shows to be way more entertaining than anything I've seen on TV for a while.

In other news, no foolin', I saw a commercial on Fox for a new show that hooks people up to a polygraph test, where they're asked personal questions for money.  My brain went so dead, I missed 4 and a half minutes of the football game I was tuned into.  Luckily, all I missed was Eli Manning not being Payton Manning.  He tries hard, but....well....  Apparently that show is called "Nothing but the Truth."  I"m not going to link to it because I love your brain cells too much.

Meanwhile, I got myself a new swanky bag: an attempt to look more respectable than my canvas paratrooper bag with the button that reads "Poetry Tool."  Days later, I've just sold my old Sector 9 flexdeck longboard for just about the same amount of dough as I dropped on the bag.  IN my head, I've traded my longboard for a briefcase.  Straight up.  Just sayin'....

There's a new DJ Chris Cutz Mixtape up at SGM.  And if you dig house, there's Frankie M--I found it pretty easy to work and chill to on Saturday morning.  Give it a taste.

Mangia!

Welcome to Adam's Bed & Breakfast Studio.

Dr. Jim's in town.  Him momma asked me to make sure he eats well.

Eggs served on a bed of shredded cheddar and mexican parmesan, side of spinach in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, slices of 9-grain made this morning at the bakery and just  a spatter of smoked hot sauce: 

For dinner, I experimented with pasta alfredo.

Grated ball of mozzarella, fresh minced garlic and a few basil leaves I shredded with my bare hands because I once heard that the flavor comes out better that way, no knife:

Cut a little onion and put the garlic into a couple of tablespoons of melted butter:

Eventually add the heavy cream, cheeses, and keep stirring it until the pasta's al dente: 

Have your house guest cut up some of that fresh 9-grain:

Serve.  Enjoy.

When you're done, maybe eat a little dark chocolate that your friend Lillian got in Prague the week before.  If you're into that sort of thing....

A Full Pots a brewin'

This dude was slinking around me at the bus stop when I was bringing home a pizza a couple of weeks go.  I think they like pizza.  

Apparently this is the shape of the love the Rambler leaves in every space it parks.  Those are not my feet.

There's a severe weather advisory for the area today.  I've made my dash to the bakery and back while it's dry and only really really cold.  I'm gonna read Alex Lemon's new chapbook in the latest Black Warrior Review, and drink my coffee.  

Saw a bald man driving a Rolls Royce this morning with the top down.  He didn't look cold.

And finally, it might just be "American's Finest News Source"...