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2006-11-04, 9:05 a.m.:
Ursula K. Le Guin doesn't blog but rather writes "notes" and updates on her web page. I go there about four times a year, and it's well worth it. She writes beautiful outrage against the idiots of this world (e.g. the distorting, scandal-seeking media; those producers always compelled to change the plot of any Earthsea book because they think they've go it better). She is smart as a whip. She is amusing. She is an institution, etc. etc. etc. I simply adore her. In the most recent count, I found more books in my library by her (15) than by any other single author. 0 comments
2006-10-31, 2:55 p.m.:
FYI, my parent friends, after the baby dialed 911 about 10 minutes went by before they called back. I told them the baby had done it, everything was fine. Everything is fine there? the dispatcher asked. Everything is fine. Then, about 45 minutes later, the Napoleon lookalike policeman showed up. He came in and stood talking to us in the foyer, asked everyone's names and ages. He reported into his walkie-talkie: The one who did it is 16 months old. He was carrying a gun and a billy club, but the big boy was most interested in the big black flashlight, kept pointing to it and then looking at me meaningly. Every single day now he tells us quite insistently: I need the red lightsaber, Dada. I NEED it. And then most recently went on to say that we could buy it "with my money and with your money." I went to a Halloween dinner Sunday night as Maid Marion, then to the preschool party last night in full Jedi regalia. As usual, I was pretty much the only adult in a real costume. Kids can't help staring at my real leatherworked Jedi belt and attached (metal!) lightsaber. A big kid last night in a Target-bought Darth Vader costume - I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head. A 10-year-old snow queen who had expressed admiration for my costume idea stood next to me at the food table, complaining about the paltry treat selection. It's true there were a lot of carrot and celery sticks and dip. It was still funny, the 10-year-old eye-rolling. 4 comments
2006-10-30, 1:58 p.m.:
Readings of late (and of yore) 1. Winter Constellations, Nate Pritts
I read this in one sitting, which is how I think this chapbook must be read. It was perfect so. It had snowed 18 inches the day before and I sat outside on the balcony in the sun and the snow swirling around in it. That made it the more perfect. 2. Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced, Catherine Barnett
There�s the mystery � exactly what happened, and I mean you really need to know exactly what happened and how it happened � and you are reading fast, trying hard to crack the thing. And then as you go, you do finally figure out the facts of the case but the mystery remains. And the words add to it, or are of it. This book is an admirable, beautiful thing, a thing that means something. Artless emotion coupled with art-as-art. I can�t say enough about this book. I could keep saying things but don�t think I can get at the crux of it. 3. The Red Bird, Joyelle McSweeney
I�m not smart enough to understand it. I think you have to take all the words into your mouth and keep them there. 4. Just started on Naomi Shihab Nye�s new book late last night. Halfway through. I don�t love this the way I did Hugging the Jukebox back then. Not yet, but I don�t know that I will. It just makes me want to read Lorna Dee�s DRIVE again. She does this thing so perfectly, this railing-against.
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2006-10-28, 9:15 a.m.:
Last night the baby dialed 911. Yes! 0 comments
2006-10-26, 10:34 a.m.:
Snow day! 1 comments
2006-10-26, 10:32 a.m.:
At our house today. 0 comments
2006-10-24, 10:04 a.m.:
Oh, and I forgot! Tonight Bob Dylan at the Fillmore. 0 comments
2006-10-24, 9:59 a.m.:
About three weeks or so ago, when things were BAD, I was thinking while listening to 'Ft. Worth Blues' (Steve Earle) that the only time I ever felt GOOD was when the song was on. I would put the song on repeat in the car. When the song was over, it was all bleakness again. I was thinking: This doesn't seem right. And when the song was over ... BAD. Then, yesterday. I put on Decoration Day (Drive-By Truckers) at the bottom of the canyon and listened to it all the way up. It was sunny but cold. I was alone in the car - the NEW car - and it was the same but different experience. It was the BEST MUSIC EVER but not just during its playing - it seeped over into afterwards, into beforehand (if possible). But it is possible: The whole day suffused in a yellow glow of accomplishment and freedom despite it all. I don't know. It was a go-go-go, stressful day. I didn't care. I talked to a woman in acquisitions at the Boulder Bookstore about carrying my book - same thing I had failed to do on Friday night at Tattered Cover - I was too timid, the mood was wrong - and at home I combed through old files after FINALLY getting the printer up and running and found I have 17 decent-to-done poems-in-progress (in progress and/or really & truly beyond the purview of my help (see above) - in a good way). Actually, only one is DONE and will not change. But others very, very close. I'm not sure what it all adds up to. That's farther than I can see. Also: needing more coffee right now. I have a passel of these tiny little poems right now, which is something of a novelty for me, the overly wordy one. Whenever I contemplate one, I find myself singing Suzanne Vega in my head: Today I am / a small, blue thing. *** The liner notes to Songs from the Mountain (Dirk Powell, Tim O'Brien, John Herrmann) are one of the most interesting things I've read in a while. I sort of wish they were a book. Book-length. *** (It's not that things have been BAD. I mean, they WERE BAD but aren't now. Right now it's that everything makes me peevish. Writing, reading, watching movies, watching children. Cooking dinner broke the spell on Sunday (Too Much Football day). Everyday it's a new magical thing, and sometimes you don't find the thing. 1 comments
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