June 30, 2008

This morning I repeatedly tried to open my office door with my house key. When that wasn't working, I tried my other house key. Ugh, I think this is pretty telling. I am not expecting much from this day.

June 28, 2008

So I've started to write fiction (I sometimes do fiction) based in Detroit.

To get the details correct, I asked my dad to send me a current street map of the area. My eye kept stunbling over the city of Eastpointe.

Eastpointe used to be East Detroit (a name it adopted in 1929),to attach their community to the bustling auto industry: They were called "Halfway" before that.

In 1992, East Detroit changed their name to Eastpointe.

Both name changes show a desire to have their community latch on to more prosperous communities. The last name change shows a desire to latch on to a more prosperous, much less Black community (Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Farms . . .).

Mapwise: Eastpointe is actually north and west of all the Pointes, and Eastpointe doesn't actually touch any of the Grosses. Laying the opportunistic renaming bare.

June 26, 2008

Looks like the City of Oakland is going to try to save DeLauer's after all.

June 26, 2008

Accidentally shredded this the other day.

June 25, 2008

DeLauer's is closing in downtown Oakland after 100 years. This is a huge loss to downtown, as there's nothing even close to it in the area.

June 23, 2008

Thanks to everyone who hung out with me at the ballpark this weekend. It was a really nice way to spend any weekend, let alone my birthday. And Sunday's game made up for Saturday's: first time Ellis has been thown out of a game.

The present I gave to myself is the new Jackson MacLow, Thing of Beauty, a new & selected edited by his wife Anne Tardos. The cumulative effect of reading so many selections from his long list of projects is not only to see how consistently innovative he was as a writer, but also how good. This coupled with Doings does a good job of representing his many approaches to writing.

June 19, 2008

I'm happy to announce that WORK no. 5 is in a side-stapled pile on my studio floor. This issue features Paul Deppler, Dan Fisher, Jess Rowan & Sara Wintz.

It will be available at Issues in Oakland by Monday, and at Quimby's in Chicago & Bluestockings in New York shortly thereafter (depending on the mail).

It is also available for trade at:

dhh / 230 Wayne Ave #311 / Oakland CA 94606

June 17, 2008

Tony Perniciaro, Tony the Bricklayer (Delacorte, 1972).

When Geof Huth wrote that my "poem-drawings (or poem-paintings), thus, resemble those of Kenneth Patchen, Tony Perniciaro, and others," and I didn't know Tony Perniciaro's work, I immediately hopped on the internet and purchased this book. I am glad I did.

Tony the Bricklayer has both poem-paintings as well as poemy-poems, but the visual work far outweighs the textual. There is a working class cynicism that runs throughout: one of the poem-paintings text reads: "when a foreman lunches with you,/ the flies are the first to leave--." The wit is dry & mordant.

June 17, 2008

from Dillon Westbrook:

Hey all,

Ariel Goldberg, intrepid poetry impresario, is having the third installment of her literary salon. Myself, one Mr. Luke Westbrook and Chad Lietz (accompanied by Erika Staiti and David Harrison Horton), will be performing a gedanken on language and music. After that, fabulous poet Erika Lewis reads, then a segment of lost film with narration from Ms. Goldberg. Likely a pretty great night.

Details:
Friday June 20th
7:30 pm
4038 MLK Jr. Way at 41st street (just a block and a half from the MacArthur Bart)
bring your own beverages.

Hope you can make it.

-d

June 16, 2008

Joseph del Pesco & Scott Oliver, eds., 100 Shotgun Reviews: Contemporary Art in the Bay Area: October 2005-April 2007, (Collective Foundation, 2007).

I picked this up at 21 Grand last night after the New Reading Series reading. Just as the title spells out, this book contains a plethora of shortish (mostly 1-2 page) art reviews and interviews covering a wide range of Bay Area art venues. With 50 contributors, the approach to the writing of art criticism is varied and at times uneven. But for someone trying to get a good sense of the various art scenes in the Bay, this is a good place to start.

June 16, 2008

Remy Thomspon writes about Chad Lietz's piece in WORK no. 4.

June 15, 2008

Again insomniacking.

Heard the Counting Crows song "Mr. Jones" on the radio and realized not for the first time how much I really like 3 lines of this song:

everybody wanna pass as cats
we all wanna be big big stars
yeah, but we got different reasons for that

The rest of this song, not so much, and I hate the guitar during the bridge, but these three lines for whatever reason have always stood out.

Hearing this song also made me remember how one of the last rock bands I was in broke up. Athens, GA. Rudy, who played guitar & ran the 40 Watt club, had me on bass (tuned D-A-D-G, so I cd play power chords) & Ben Mize on drums. After something like maybe 2 or 3 rehearsals, Ben got a call from the Counting Crows to be their drummer on tour. They hired him permanent. I saw him years later on a Coca-Cola commercial.

June 13, 2008

Trevor Calvert, Rarer and More Wonderful (Scrambler, 2008). 73 pages.

Broken into 4 sections, Rarer's pages move and build on each other forming something of a metaphysics by the book's last lines: " a redefinition of self somehow finally knowing the popular theory that time does not even exist and without it the universe makes sense again [. . . ]like a bee stinging its own back" (69).

The opening section, Struck Landscape, sets the tableau--lyricism, Foucault, automatons--for the literal Punch & Judy that follows it. Punch, ever the violent sadist, is on a search for meaning:

Punch is not
history . His
is the musical
cruelty of
duendé. His
wretched mirth
is his path
to god, with
which he
will someday
make a
murder
maybe his
own. (42)

The third section acts like a poetic attempt at a Keirkegaardian Either/Or statement, showing the limitations in various approaches to reality and existence, which of course sets up the eschatological final section, An Approach to Ending.

June 12, 2008

News from Chris Chen, SPT:

Dear Bay Area Poets,

Since the SPT Cabaret has been canceled, Stephanie, Cynthia, and Chris would like to invite everyone to take part in a public post-conference group to discuss any aspect of the Bay Area poetry community(-ies). Conference attendance is not a requirement for participation.

The event will be held on June 22 from 6-8 pm at a location to be announced. If you're interested, please save the date. Please watch the conference blog for organizer statements, panelist talks, and of course your analysis.

June 11, 2008

My friend Yung Chang's movie Up The Yangtze is coming back to the Bay Area.

UP THE YANGTZE
STARTS JUNE 13 AT:


San Francisco
The Bridge

Fri-Sun 2:45, 5:00, 7:15, 9:30;
Mon-Thu 5:00, 7:15, 9:30

3010 Geary Boulevard at Blake
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 267-4893
www.landmarktheatres.com


Berkeley
Shattuck Cinemas

Fri-Thu 2:30 4:50 7:10 9:25

2230 Shattuck Avenue
(510) 464-5980
www.landmarktheatres.com


San Rafael
Rafael Film Center

Show times TBD, please check website for updates

1118 Fourth St
(415) 454-1222

www.cafilm.org

San Jose
Camera 3 Downtown

Please check website for show times

288 S. Second Street
(408) 998-3300

www.cameracinemas.com

June 10, 2008

In my mail today: My dad was great enough to send me the front page & the entire sports section from the Detroit paper for the day after the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. No letter, just the paper.

I'm glad Mike (Little Caesars) Ilitch has been a good owner, giving Detroit the monicker Hockeytown to be proud of.

June 10, 2008

Swee(t)art is a cool art zine that covers the Oakland art scene. Current and back issues are available at Issues for $3.

Also, I have added links to reading copies of the back issues of WORK on the sidebar.

June 10, 2008

June 9, 2008

WORK is now also being archived at the SUNY-Buffalo library.

June 8, 2008

Bob Grumman was also kind enough to write something about the inkworks.

June 5, 2007

Geof Huth just posted today about my work in Cricket.

June 4, 2008

June 3, 2008

The folks at Cricket were grand enough to publish some of my more visual work. Check out Samantha Giles, Erica Lewis & William Moor's stuff; they're all pretty great.

June 2, 2008

I'm pleased to announce that WORK no. 4 is now hot off the long stapler, featuring new material from Erica Lewis, Geof Huth, Jeremy James Thomspon & Chad Lietz.

Available right now at Issues (Oakland) & soon at RSP (Oakland), Quimby's (Chicago) and Bluestockings (NYC).

Available directly from me for $3 or trade (preferred) at the address on the sidebar.

June 2, 2008

I want to thank Dillon Westbrook, Rebecca van de Voort, JD Mitchell-Lumsden, Chad Lietz & Jeffrey Schrader for helping me out last night.