I got some poems accepted by Richard Siken over at Spork. This particular acceptance has become special to me--I can't really wrap my head around it right now. I'll come back to this and I'll have a lot to say.

March Nights

I started night shift last night (11pm to 7am) and will be at these hours for the rest of March. March is most likely my last month of dispatcher training, then it's to AWP, then I'm possibly on my own and doing my thing any of the three shifts (it's up in the air right now). I like night shift. It's pretty laid back--a lot quieter, with the exception of Friday and Saturday night. Bad guys have to work too and they usually don't go stirring up trouble on the week days in the wee hours. Night Shift Allie and I got to talking about the Chupacabra last night. She knows quite a bit about it--maybe too much? I think the Chupacabra just scored some points on my list of favorite mythical creatures. I also got to thinking if mythical creatures ever change styles with their times. It seems they never change--we always picture them the same. But you'd think mythical creatures would grow, change, gain new perspectives. Was bigfoot's hair more feathered a few decades back? I digress.

I got more stuff from my current favorite subscription, Ugly Duckling Presse: In Glorious Black and White by Steve Dalachinsky; Less Than A Meter by Mikhail Aizenberg translated by J. Kates; The Race Poems by Nathaniel Farrell and collages by Steve Dalachinsky; and 6x6 #9. I'm so excited--these are gorgeous editions, particularly the 6x6 which is sporting a suede cover. Malkmus, my cat, appears to be most interested in the Farrell.  

Notebook Tonight

A and I watched The Notebook tonight. I don't care what you think--I enjoyed it. It tugged on a handful of heartstrings. We both balled our little eyes out. The lump is still in my throat. They just loved each other so damn much.

I'm a ghost now baby/I don't need your fur coat to keep me warm

I've almost completed my chapbook of blues. About half of the poems are strictly blues structured, but don't necessarily employ blues sensibilities, stylings, or subject matter really. The other 12 or so poems do employ all those things, but are not structured. It has been an interesting and helpful little experiment for me as it has thrown a poetic wrench into my poem factory gears. My poems are a little newer to me now--I feel a little more free to take a poem off the path that has been beaten by me for so long.

Fantasy Baseball

I just got signed on for another year of Fantasy Baseball with Tost, Henriksen, McCullough and the like--about 15 total. I'm Good Night Nurse this year, and I'll be putting everybody out of their misery by the end of it. I got 2nd last year--I got baseball intellect skills. I know my way around the diamond.

Go Baseball!!!

Thicket

If you're looking for something to do, you should check out Thicket. That is what I'm doing.

Would you like to look at my refrigerator?

See if you can spot all of the following 10 things:

1. A "flat Stanley" cut-out of A and I's friends Matt and Jill
2. A Kerry/Edwards button I made into a magnet
3. Scott Wolf
4. A magnetic map of the United States
5. A postcard of Tony and Leigh pre-matrimony
6. A Valentine's Day letter from very young friends Carly and Max which includes the joke "What do you call a bull that sleeps all the time?" Of course, we all know the answer is a "bull dozer"
7. My sister Kelsey doing the butterfly
8. A postcard of Akron, OH
9. The late Emmie-Kay
10. A huskers magnet

President's Weekend

How I choose to celebrate the presidents:

1. Saturday Sleep-in
2. Cultural Foods Fair
3. A dinner and a movie with A
4. Skiing (2 morning-afternoons worth)
5. A BBQ gathering with strangers in Big Sky, MT
6. Watching Pootie-Tang, borrowed from R, with A.
7. Hanging with B, a big cd swap

MiPo reviews Octopus

MiPo has put up a review by Gianmarc Manzione of #4 in their latest issue. You should check it out. A good review despite a few typos/spelling errors (apologies to Kirsten and Dale/Waylon Jennings and Hasbro/Parcheesi). Gianmarc thinks we keep it new here at Octopus and I totally agree--maybe even with a little dash of keeping it real too. Thanks Gianmarc.

I picked up Matt Pond PA's latest. An EP of winter songs, some covers, some originals. There is a great cover of Neil Young's "winterlong" and the cover of Neutral Milk Hotel's "in the aeroplane over the sea" is hauntingly beautiful and tastefully done. NMH's version is of course the most hauntingly beautiful, but Matt Pond certainly does know his way around a cover.

I was however pretty discouraged with Bozeman's music scene when I tried to start conversations about the EP with three different clerks at Cactus Records. None of three had ever heard of Neutral Milk, and only one had heard of Matt Pond, although he thought he (not "they") was bluegrass. Maybe I'm a snob. No, I am a snob. And I'm sorry. But please, you work in a record store. Hit "stop" on the Modest Mouse already and educate yourself.

From the used store, I need to pick up the Talking Head's collective (I'm a little behind on them) maybe some New Order, and TMBG's Lincoln.

I'll Play

Bold the states you've been to, and bold and italicize the states you've lived in...

Alabama/ Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C.

What I Am Not

I am not your 2005 Honickman First Book Prize winner. I found out today, and boy am I relieved. I didn't really want to win that one much anyway. For the record though (wink wink) I do not hold the same feelings for the other 7 contests "The Man Suit" is arm-wrestling its way through currently. Go Man Suit. Go.

Sending that badboy out to Fencebook's Modern Poet and Ahsahta's Sawtooth here pretty soon. You two better grab it up quick, boy.

I've scored a handful of goodies in the mail this week. I need to catch up on my reading. In the above photo we have, from left to right: Noah Eli Gordon's The Area of Sound Called the Subtone graciously sent by Janet Holmes over at Ahsahta Press. Look for a review of this in Octopus #5. To it's right is Steve Benson's Open Clothes from Atelos. I've yet to even crack this one open. I asked for one reviewer's copy of some other Atelos title a year ago and they keep sending me stuff. A very giving group. Anyone want to review this? Next is Graham Foust's As In Every Deafness. I already told you about this one in the blog entry below. I've nearly finished it now--and it has inspired a few flips already. Then at the very right, Wayne Chambliss was kind enough to send a Moon City Review out of Southwest Missouri State. I don't know if Wayne knows this, but I went to undergraduate just 45 min south of there outside Branson, MO. Anyway, the issue is very striking, little and well-designed--perfect size for a hand-- and has flips from Octopus favs Matvei Yankelevich and Eugene Ostashevsky, in addition to Wayne. He also sent me a post card of the Brooklyn Bridge (you can see it just peeking out of the top of the review in this picture) and on it he tells me that he used this very post card to book mark his reading of Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers on his last train trek across the U.S. Right now it is marking his poems in the review, but I'll be sure to use it to book mark all my readings in the near future. Thanks Wayne.

Also, by email, I got good fatty boombatty news from Lit. They took the flagship poem from that Abraham Lincoln and Other Death Scenes chapbook I was trying to tell you about a few posts ago. Good things. I think I'll treat myself and A to a little dine-in and the new Raging Bull DVD tonight.

Foust Flips

Graham Foust was kind enough to send me his book As In Every Deafness from Flood Editions. I got it in the mail yesterday and have been hitting it pretty hard since. These are the first poems of his that I've read. They are so spare and minimal, bare and vulnerable. They say a mouthful with the few words he gives them.

I think I'm gonna try to throw down a few Foust-style flips tonight (I started a new slang word for "poems": "flips"--play along).

I'm Readin' Readin' at the New Lakes New Lakes

If you don't have any big plans for Thursday, March 10, you should come to Missoula, Montana, to the Gold Dust Art Gallery to experience Jonathan Minton, fine poet and editor of Word for/Word, and I read poetry. Brandon Shimoda invited the two of us to read as part of his New Lakes reading series. I'm pretty excited about it. I don't get to too many readings (my locale is pretty limiting), and it is certainly rare that I get invited to read. If you have any tips that'll knock my audience out, particularly you New Yorkers who seem to blog about the super badass reading weekly, let me know.

The Quiet Grave

Tis a sad day in the blogosphere for me. The unquiet grave has gone quiet. There will be flowers growing nearby though. I'll be sure to put my focus there.

Missoula was a good time. A was jonesin for a real mall, so we did that. We got some sale items at the Gap. I picked up some rockin brown cords. We floated around downtown a little. Spent a little time at the coolest little coffee shop (I think it is the little business at the very far left of this pic)--apothecary shelves all the way up the wall with the sliding ladder. We ate at the Depot. I had the swordfish; A had the lobster tail. We hot tubbed and slept at the C'mon inn. These days are lovely days.

Missooola Fizzooola

I'm transitioning now from day shift dispatchin' to mids (1500 to 2300) and was lucky enough to score a 3 day weekend in the transition, and the other February Saturdays and Sundays off. This weekend A and I will be going to Missoula for no reason other than to get the bejeezus out of Bozeman. We're going to wander aimlessly downtown and see where the wind takes us. Maybe it'll blow us into B-Shimmy. We'll make an attempt to get back to Bozeman by Superbowl time (my prediction: Pats 38; Iggles 20). I'll be sure to post some pics.

I promise not to break the concert t-shirt rule: I will not wear my Good Life tee to any upcoming Good Life shows. The generous Gina Myers sent me this tee via post. I was the only blogger apparently to respond to her offering, so I got it. This is appropriate because we seem to share a similar fondness for all things Saddle Creek.

I got this one a week or two ago at the Sacks, the local Bozeman thrift outlet. It set me back ten cents. It says "Jibs Not Jobs" and then there is a dog at the bottom named Pero, apparently. And the fact that the image is off-center--a big plus. I'm not quite sure what Jibs are, but I'm guessing we're going with a snowboarding reference here. Can anybody help me out?  

That's a liger. It's a cross between a lion and a tiger. It's bred for skills in magic. It's pretty much my favorite animal.