Salacious Banter

John Coletti
Arlo Quint

Saturday February 7 8pm
900 S. 5th St.
$5 suggested donation

why, the reading's in Milwaukee, of course...
come early for fun & frivolity but bring some of your own too.

John Coletti is the author of books such as Physical Kind, from Boku Books and Portable Press at Yo Yo Labs, and recently Same Enemy Rainbow, from Fewer & Further Press. He edits The Poetry Project Newsletter and lives in Brooklyn. He co-edits Open 24 Hours Press with Greg Fuchs.

Arlo Quint works at the The Poetry Project at St Marks in the Bowery, and is the author such books as Photogenic Memory, from Lame House Press, and Days On End, from Open 24 Hours Press. We believe him to be a church-going lad.

Still Life With Lotion

I didn't really splurge on lotion.

Think what you will, but lotion is actually rather utilitarian!

It can coo, for christsake!!

Paralysis

I've been paralyzed from doing any kind of blogging outside event-posting, appreciative linking or solicitation of sponsorship for a certain worthy cause in the past few weeks. Maybe it's feelings of nervous chest-weirdness, but that hasn't stopped this particular activity recently. Most people have probably stopped checking this blog, I'd say 8 out of the 11 people who've read this blog have probably given up on it, and the rest are stalking me. I have an extremely irrational inner monologue. And I think it's the one I've had for awhile. And so when I start to blog, it turns into what is called "stinking thinking", and what else would I expect to come out. It's extremely hard to express this, because I don't want to bring anyone down, or creep anyone out. I'll read this in the future and cringe, though that's not so unusual. There is something either in the spontaneous nature of this activity, or in my own anticipation of how others will receive it that paralyzes most any expression of it, the thing, whatever this blog is for. I originally started doing this blog and eventually focusing mainly on it in lieu of another blog that's still up and has a large output that anyone could look at called dodo with the idea of developing my own critical writing, or having a body of critical writing. I think this blog for the most part fails in that respect. It has other qualities. Poetry, and other "arts" do have a huge impact on my life. Besides the people who I consider closest to me, they are the main influence on my life. But I find that when I try to write about poetry for instance, I am almost completely unable to articulate why it's so important. Which seems like it might be a good skill to have. I once heard the phrase "articulation anxiety", and without having any idea whether that phrase has a larger context or not (you're gonna tell me that it's from some writer who I'm totally embarrassed to be referencing), I think that's what it is. I promise not to take this post down, even though I'm no longer sure even now as I'm revising it a few minutes after the fact what it's for.

Salacious Banter

John Coletti
Arlo Quint

Saturday February 7 8pm
900 S. 5th St.
$5 suggested donation

why, the reading's in Milwaukee, of course...
come early for fun & frivolity but bring some of your own too.

John Coletti is the author of books such as Physical Kind, from Boku Books and Portable Press at Yo Yo Labs, and recently Same Enemy Rainbow, from Fewer & Further Press. He edits The Poetry Project Newsletter and lives in Brooklyn. He co-edits Open 24 Hours Press with Greg Fuchs.

Arlo Quint works at the The Poetry Project at St Marks in the Bowery, and is the author such books as Photogenic Memory, from Lame House Press, and Days On End, from Open 24 Hours Press. We believe him to be a church-going lad.

THE POEM OF THE FUTURE by Anne Boyer

I need your sponsorship in the Woodland Pattern poetry marathon and benefit. This would benefit one of the greatest bookstores in the country. Though no amount is too small, 35 bucks is nice and generous. This is an opportunity for you too! For I will write a love poem, yes, a love poem, for whomever so chooses to engage in sponsorship! Or if that makes you uncomfortable, it can be something of your choosing. I'll try not to break up any marriages or burden anyone with a burgeoning Hauser-obsession but I can't make any promises. Like John Candy's tail in the movie Spaceballs, the poetry tends to have a mind of it's own.

And here is a copy of the pledge sheet and a link to the event. They're asking for the pledges by the 26th. And as always I'm at flabscoresbig@yahoo.com.

Anne Boyer writes about the borderless internet, the Harriet blog and such.

One year at the Woodland Pattern Poetry Marathon, I felt compelled to try explain what flarf is to the audience. To see how I'll embarrass myself this year, and hear some authentic Saffran-Hauser banter, you'll just have to be in attendance. I'm reading in the 11 o'clock hour.

Rumors of a Gaustad-Saffran-Hauser recreation of this video are not true.

The Woodland Pattern Poetry Marathon 2009: this time it's blerrsonal.

(Slogan is not connected with Woodland Pattern.)

PS: I'll be at the Spicer reading too.

Here is the wonderful Activities compilation available in MP3 form. I lent my vocal talents to Nothing in that Drawer.

A quick note: I want to use this quick note to say that you should read The Golden Age Of Paraphernalia by Kevin Davies. Besides having just about the coolest title in a long time, I can't think of a better book with which to think about the current dwindling "golden age" we're experiencing. I also propose a reading group that would groupthink through its intertwining sequences together. But since that might not happen, I'll say that The Golden Age Of Paraphernalia offers the best of a certain kind of reading experience, which is to open to a random page and begin reading. It's like the most invigorating episode of getting lost in an old city imaginable. Following one sequential route until that route intersects with, and consequently is interrupted by, another sequential route, before the resumption of another street precedes the resumption of the street you were following to begin with, but which has changed somehow and isn't going where you expected it to. And in two parts of the city there are large shopping centers with their multiple levels of by turns colloquial and/or narrative language recanting several disastrous and historically omnipotent scenarios, which together form a force field demarcated by radiant neon signs that give you a shock if you touch them. Get the idea? Allow me to end this quick note by (apologies to the author) mangling one passage from Duckwalking a Perimeter:

That place

   where
 when you go there
they have to cast you out

Run On Review: 7 Pounds

Will Smith is a mysterious sexy sad man who lurks Anton Chigurh-style throughout the proceedings stalking Rosario Dawson throughout a hospital slipping past receptionists and stopping closing elevator doors with a black briefcase showing up next to her bed several minutes after recieving a cellphone call from her in order to determine that she's a good person so that he can give her a 6 month extension on the balance of back taxes she owes the IRS after showing up in her backyard to feed her vegan Great Dane raw meat but before eventually fixing her vintage printing press during a subsequent break-in which precedes sleeping with her which then directly precedes him sprinting in a salmon-colored shirt through the rain to call his friend [dude from saving Private Ryan who's like a cross between Gary Busey and Michael Douglas] who's been instructed to forcably convince the people at the hospital to give the now dead from jellyfish-induced suicide Will Smith's heart to the suffering from congenital heart failure Rosario Dawson and his eyes to a vision impaired Woody Harrelson so the two can subsequently hook up after a childrens chorus recital once Rosario Dawson has found the world's greatest sundress and Woody Harrelson has a better haircut.

I Don't Know What The Fuck To Read

I don't know what the fuck to read. I thought about maybe a list of the year's best books, that were in my general purview of poetry reading habits. But I'm drawing a total fucking blank as to what could further my education, give me a deeper understanding of geopolitical events, teach me how to grow a victory garden, or understand current poetics. This is because I don't know what the fuck to read. If I had any idea what the fuck to read, I'd be reading that right now wouldn't I? I once read a few pages into Ulysses, a little of The Cantos, a smattering of Remembrance Of Things Past. Not knowing what the fuck to read, I was doomed not to finish those books. I read some of The Bible once. And an entire book of Dennis Miller's rants, when I didn't have cable, a long time ago. I also made Suddenly Salad in a fry pan. And I lived in Jackson, Wisconsin. There is a Jackson, Wisconsin. At around the time in my life when I lived there I read the wrong translation of Rimbaud, the one you're not supposed to read, but hey, I don't know what the fuck to read.

Not knowing what the fuck to read has left me it seems with 2 options. I can join the police force or holler at you over the Telecommunications that Homeland Security provides. It's not Homeland Security's fault that I don't know what the fuck to read. They don't teach me what to read, but I knew that already! In order to enjoy what I'm reading, I need to know that I was supposed to have been reading it. Know what I mean?

And finally I can't rely on nature to tell me what to read. It doesn't tell me. When I try to read it, it kind of snickers all in a round. Like the drinking songs of nature are God's ontological drinking songs.

Reading has no point in The Real Deal of today's multiple meltdown scenarios either. Trying to figure out which meltdown to read is like trying to take a big crap in the woods, and Armed Guerrillas are all around, snickering at you. They're humming the drinking songs. And the drinking songs were reinvented from Nature.

The deeper a person gets into not knowing what the fuck to read, the more they can actually enjoy reading on a cellular level. If they have a reliable network of Armed Guerrillas at their disposal that is... Sometimes when I look into the sunset, I feel a fatter sunset is emerging. A more tactile one than where I attended the Universities, which also failed to show the correct reading material. The reading materials of this sunset appear to be vast and large, have acne scars that are weeping uncontrollably. Those acne scars function as time-stopping goofs, skips within the network of reading that proliferates in a consuming consciousness, until it becomes obsolete. In each acne scar is a dictionary of diagrams. And each diagram is a diagram of a person's reading habits, updated each time one of the poor weeping pores blinks an eye.

Art Tasers Monthly
by Weldon Gardner Hunter & Mike Hauser

What happens when "Marche" asks "Umm, a didgeridoo./ Why?", and April calls back "o innocent importune booger!!/ create!"?

What happens is Art Tasers Monthly, a collaboration I did with the very gifted poet and flaneur about Vancouver, Weldon Gardner Hunter, that I also happen to be very proud of. I have a few copies, just out from Ruining Your Vacation Press. I might take them to Woodland to put on consignment. But hey make me an offer. Or try RuiningYVPress@gmail.com.

Also out is Meal Ticket #1, featuring the same Mr. Hunter, Lindsay Colahan, Brittney Dennison, and Ryan Clark, also most likely hit-up-able through RuiningYVPress.gmail.com.

I happen to have friends who are great musicians, as well as friends who are great poets. (And friends who are hilarious, sexy, contrarian, slinky etc.) My great friend Zack Pieper happens to be both of those from the first sentence. And on both the poetic and musical tips are these two awesome debuts from two seperate projects in just the last few months. Should I decide which one I like more? I ask myself this only for a second. It'll probably just be a case of diurnal promiscuity. I'll probably listen to The Trusty Knife more often in the morning (my morning, which is 11 or so), and Farms In Trouble later at night. That's the trend that's developing anyway. The Trusty cd while not yet posted, is available, so get on their asses about that too.

Riverwest Currency.

Mike's Plans for The Afternoon

Back to you, Karl!

New Vernacular

Person 1: How are you?

Person 2: Hangin' in there like vintage kitties!

Possible Futures

You might find yourself fighting John Cougar Mellencamp to the death for a hunk of bread.

Logged In

Now that I've logged in I have nothing to say.

Thanksgiving

My father used the word 'usurious' in a sentence. This is one way in which he's similar to Ezra Pound.