Christmas Wish List #1

1. A nice little vintage bike with fenders, white wall tires, 3 (or more) speeds, a good paint job, a place to put a basket, and a headlamp.

2. Subscriptions to the following periodicals: 

Wholphin

Cinematheque Press

Cabinet Magazine

Black Ocean's Black Friday

This Friday, buy one get one free y'all. Between 12:05 am and 11:55 pm. Go here. Go crazy! 

Albums I've Been Rocking Lately

Arthur Russell's World of Echo

Simon Joyner's The Cowardly Traveler Pays His Toll

Simon Joyner's Yesterday Tomorrow and In Between

Tecumseh's Avalanche and Inundation

Micah P. Hinson's Micah P. Hinson and the Opera Circuit

Yndi Halda's Enjoy Eternal Bliss

Sibylle Baier's Colour Green

The Places' The Autopilot Knows You Best

No Age's Nouns

Candi Staton's Candi Staton

Gamma Goats' Beard of Sound, Beard of Sand

EKF and I have some collaborative poems in a new magazine called Great. They're pretty good. 

Chili Cook-Off 2008 Winners (6 entries):

Taste: 

Emily Kendal Frey (winner)

Leah White (runner-up)

Zachary Schomburg (honorable mention)

Originality:

Emily Kendal Frey/Sara Guest (tie for win)

Zachary Schomburg (honorable mention)

Presentation:

Clifton and Kate Bingaman-Burt (winner)

Emily Kendal Frey (runner-up)

Zachary Schomburg/Leah White (tie for honorable mention)

Overall winner:

Emily Kendal Frey (winner)

Clifton and Kate Bingaman-Burt (runner-up)

Zachary Schomburg (honorable mention)

Lately I've been developing an obsession with getting my fingers smashed in a car door. This is only with car doors and no other kind of doors. Not bathroom doors or bedroom doors and definitely not refrigerator doors. Though sometimes with swinging doors, but swinging doors are so rare it hardly matters. Anyway, whenever I see a car door opening or closing, I get this terrible hot, stinging, bone-crushing sensation in my fingers and the back of my neck. I swallow my tongue a little. I feel like I am drowning in a moving sea of sharp metal, but only for a second or two. I feel like we're closer now that I have told you this.

My first published translations (3 Russian poems from Andrei Sen-Senkov) are in Issue 7 of Circumference, which just came out recently. 

This week in my film classes at Portland State, I'm showing a selection of experimental films. I get to inject my love for surrealism into the discussions. It's quite fun and I can see a few of my students stumble into a world they may never return from. You should play along and send me a response paper of the following four films. I'll grade it and send it back to you. 

An Andalusian Dog (Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali 1929)

Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren 1943)

Dimensions of Dialogue (Jan Svankmajer 1982)

Brothers Quay shorts 

I'll be at the Richard Hugo house in Seattle on Dec. 6 leading a workshop called Found in Translation. Sign up for my workshop, if you know what's good for you.

My mom started a blog for her store, The Olive Branch, in Council Bluffs, IA. I wanted to give her a shout-out. She is a very good mom. Next time you're going across the country on I-80, take the Council Bluffs exit and say hi to my mom. She has good caramels there and if you tell her I sent you, I bet she'll give you one for free.

Check out the inaugural issue of Sir! EKF and I have some collabies in there.

Coldfront reviews Undersleep. 

Buy Undersleep at SPD, or Octopus Books, or Amazon.

Saw Muppets Take Manhattan last night with EKF and KBB at the Laurelhurst. So funny. Not my favorite Muppet film. Not enough nose jokes from Gonzo and I'm never a fan of the amnesia storyline. But that little ditty by the rats and the pots and pans in the kitchen. Oh oh oh oh my. 

Tony Tost and I in 1997. He is the one in the avocado costume. I am the one in the weird haircut costume.

EKF and I purchased some art today by Portland artist Joe Ryckebosch. Visit his site please. He is really cool.  The piece is called "Hare Here Nor There" (2008). It is an appropriation/remix of German painter Albrecht Durer's "Young Hare" (1502). It is really cool. We are really cool. 

I am reading for the Spare Room reading series on Sunday night. I like poems. You like poems. 

Driving to Cannon Beach

Little friend of mine. 

Matthew Rohrer's They All Seemed Asleep is reviewed at New Pages. Don't be the person who didn't order this chapbook and starts whining about how we're not going to make more of them. Ok?

O Cannon Beach