1.1.05
It's
been raining off and on here for the past week. Lisa said yesterday
that it looked like the window was crying. It's hard for me to grasp
what has happened to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and surrounding countries:
124,000 lives, according to the latest news reports. It's so abstract.
And the tidal wave was traveling at 500 mph? That doesn't even seem
possible. I've been listening to M. Ward's Transfiguration
of Vincent for the past week, a beautiful and solemn record
that fits my mood. Check out M.
Ward playing live on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic.
Meanwhile, our president and his cronies have
responded like morons to the disaster. First it was $15 million in relief
aid, which is chump change for the richest country in the world, a dime
and a nickel dropped into a homeless man's tin cup. Then it came out
that Bush was spending $30 million for his inauguration—which, when
compared to the $15 million in aid, doesn't fit with the "passionate
conservative" label he's trying to wear. So they increased the
aid to $35 million, turning around and walking back to the homeless
man to drop two more dimes into his cup—plink, plink. The U.S.
gets scolded. We hear that Spain is giving more than double that amount.
That's $60 million. From Spain. So Bush and Co. turn around
yet again and walk back to the homeless man and finally pull out some
bills, gold toothpicks gleaming in their mouths.
I'd share a poem with you here but I haven't written
one in weeks. I've been working on a longer project instead, writing
from margin to margin, making things up as I go along. I think they
call it fiction.
12.20.04
My
mother believes people will think I really have lice because of the
photograph I posted on my last journal entry. I tried explaining
to her that they'll know I'm kidding, that I'm always joking around
here, but there was no convincing her. So, to those people I say this:
I do not have lice. I have lemurs.
12.12.04
It's
been awhile since I've read Neruda, but I have The
Essential Neruda: Selected Poems at my bedside now, which was
recently published by City Lights to commemorate the centennial of his
birth. I've always pegged Pablo as a romantic, then I read these brooding
lines from "Walking Around": "Comes a time I'm tired
of my feet and my fingernails / and my hair and my shadow. / Comes a
time I'm tired of being a man. // Yet how delicious it would be / to
shock a notary with a cut lily / or to kill off a nun with a blow to
the ear. / How beautiful / to run through the streets with a green knife."
And you thought he only wanted to sniff roses and drink wine. Okay,
maybe it was just me who only thought that. Ferlinghetti's little preface
is lame, and I'm tempted now to X-acto it out of the book. Or my green
knife.
Here are my year end favorites for 2004 in music
and film.
No wonder why my head itches.
.
12.1.04
Field
kicks all the other literary magazines to the curb. The
Paris Review, American Poetry Review,
Poetry, Gettysburg
Review, Georgia Review...it's
a very crowded curb. The latest, issue 71, features a postcard from
Ellen Wehle on the cover (shouldn't they have peeled off her address
sticker?) and two of her poems, my favorite being "Night Kitchen
in Two Voices". Other winners: Wislawa Szymborska, Wayne Miller,
Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Carol Potter, and Tim Ross's wonderfully strange
"The Wiring": "This sizzle in my back / speakers wreathes
me / in hisses, my car / a translucent cage / of veins, a jellyfish
/ or the inside of a storm cloud, / or one of those layered / plastic
maps of the body." The contributors page has a
funny typo, which has me wondering what Pool
would look like if they'd change their name
to Pooh.
Guess who's not the poetry editor for Swink
anymore? Rumor has it that I was caught using Eenie-Meenie-Minie-Mo
to make some editorial decisions. Another rumor has it that I was stealing
SASEs. Truth be told, I simply don't have time to be the editor anymore,
what with all the freelance work I've been getting. The new poetry editor
is Rigoberto González.
Yes, the guy whose poem I praised in my last journal entry.
On heavy rotation here: Cathedral
by Castanets
and Real
Gone by Tom
Waits. My ears are very giddy.
Here's a poem.
11.16.04
There
are only a couple literary magazines that hog up more space on our bookshelves
than Black Warrior Review.
The latest issue reminds me why: Kristin Bock's "Oracle",
Michael Dumanis' "Side Effect in B Minor", David Schuman's
puzzling short story "Frog and Peach", James Kimbrell's "Drought
Music", Dora Malech's "Knock-Knock", and the poem I keep
turning back to, "Mise-en-scène" by Rigoberto González,
which has a beautiful lyricism that contrasts the poem's stark imagery:
"You buried your father without his hair or his shoes. // You buried
the hair inside the shoes. The shoes behave like flowerpots in the corner
/ and wait for the moss to grow. What does a creature do in the tar
pits of its own // extinction but lift its tusks to the heavens to pierce
its own wail. You are no less dead than / the parakeet that gnaws at
the chips of paint."
Lisa and I were in Florida for the past five days, hanging
out with Denise Duhamel and Nick Carbó—the
most gracious hosts, hands down. If you're taking a vacation to Florida,
you'd be lucky to be invited a stay at Casa Duhamel & Carbó.
Enjoy an assortment of cheeses from around the globe. Drink all the
Sunkist you want. Free internet access. And lots of great books to read,
including their copy of Bill Knott's The
Unsubscriber, which is edited
with a pencil by Bill Knott himself. Here are
a few photos from our trip.
Sometimes I get an email and
I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond. In case you're wondering,
here is the song my soul
can sing. And here is my spirit soaring
with the Eagle in reverence for all life.
What else? Let me think. Something else happened over
the past two weeks. Um...oh yes, how could
I forget? Defecting to Canada at AWP
next year sounds tempting. At least it's comforting to know that
I'm not alone in my dreams
of fleeing north.
10.30.04
Happy
birthday Matador Records. The
indie label has recently released Matador
At Fifteen, which features one CD of greatest hits from '99-'04,
another CD of unreleased tracks and rarities, and a DVD with
12 music videos. Highlights: Mission
of Burma, Guided by Voices,
The New Pornographers, Cat
Power, Dead Meadow, Pretty
Girls Make Graves...too many to name. Lowlight: Thalia Zedek. The
Comedic Genius Award goes to Stephen
Malkmus for his "Discretion Grove" video. The Best Drumbeat
Award goes to the band The Pet Goats
for their infectious song "Bush Is So Moronic, He Said At A Rally
In Daytona Beach: 'We Will Not Have An All-Volunteer Army.' The Stunned
Crowd Bailed Him Out And Shouted: 'We Will Have An All-Volunteer Army!
We Will!' Realizing That The Hamster, Once Again, Fell Off The Wheel
That Powers His Brain, Bush Corrected Himself: 'We Will Have
An All-Volunteer Army.' (Dance Remix Version)."
Lisa
and I just
got back from Portland. Love that town. Hung out with the dynamic duo
of Cheryl Strayed & Brian
Lindstrom. Here are a few photos from our
trip.
So you're going to get out and vote this Tuesday, right?
It's not my place here to tell you who to vote for. I don't want to
get all partisan on you, and I certainly don't want to influence your
vote. It's important that you make up your mind on your own and stick
to your convictions.
Here's a poem.
10.14.04
I'm
rotating through three books at the moment: The
Anchor Book of New American Short Stories ("Gentleman's
Agreement" by Mark Richard is worth the price alone; don't read
Lydia Davis' story or else you'll want your money back), The
Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004 (ditto for the wonderful
comic by Sammy Harkman; and ditto for the contrived story "The
Promise of Something" (Notice that I didn't mention the writer's
name. If I did, I risk the day that the writer Google herself, read
my journal, and send me hate mail: "What do you mean my story is
contrived? Who the hell do you think you are? Jerkface." And then
I'd have to respond: "Dear Cheryl, I apologize if my opinion upset
you. The wisdom of Isaac Brock might bring you some solace: 'Opinions
are like kittens, I was giving them away'. Sincerely, David. PS - I'm
not a jerkface.")), and Chain
of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib by Seymour M.
Hersh. I knew what happened at Abu Ghraib was ugly, but I didn't know
it was that ugly. Also frightening is the failings by the CIA
and the FBI's outdated computers. What, they like playing Pong
or something?
Saw a couple wonderful films over the past week: The
Motorcycle Diaries and Dig!
Definitely check those out if you can.
I wish book publishers would stop publishing poetry collections
by musicians. They're always god awful. Case in point, Billy Corgan's
Blinking
with Fists, which was just published by Faber & Faber.
I perused through a copy at the bookstore the other day and I believe
Billy got the title wrong. This would've
been a more accurate title.
I think the reason why Bush did so poorly during the
debates is because he doesn't know how to take
notes.
Here's a poem inspired by a passage
from Jarhead.
9.28.04
Hello,
my name is David and I'm an indie music junkie. Soon I'll end up like
that guy you always see at the record store, unshowered, tumbleweed
hair, raving about some obscure band from Finland that integrates a
didgeridoo into
their sound. Until that happens, I'll continue to practice proper hygiene
and tell you about The Arcade
Fire and their phenomenal album Funeral.
Holy holy masterpiece. I can understand the Broken
Social Scene comparison (both hail from Canada, both have enough
band mates to form their own baseball team), but The Arcade Fire is
much more melodic and less sonic-driven than their neighbors. You can
listen to three songs from their album here.
Devendra Banhart's latest
Niño Rojo is wonderful (here's a catchy tune called
"Be
Kind"), as is Rogue
Wave's debut album Out
of the Shadow, which can go twelve rounds with The Shins' Chutes
Too Narrow. Here's the opening track, "Every
Moment"—an uppercut by Rogue Wave that left The Shins staggering
in the first round. Okay, enough with the boxing metaphor. What else?
Ah yes, The Black Keys, whose
latest effort Rubber
Factory can knockout the White Stripes' Elephant
with a viscous body blow and...oops, I'm doing the boxing metaphor again.
Let me think. Okay...The Black Keys, whose latest effort Rubber
Factory can out sweep the White Stripes' Elephant in a
curling match. Check out their
hysterical video for "10
A.M. Automatic." Don't drink any beverages while watching this
or else your monitor will need a towel.
The latest issue of Epoch
is a winner. Strong poems by Donald Platt and Jody Winer-Cook, and Eric
Anderson's "Song for the Smallest Bones in My Hand" is one
I keep going back to again and again. Here's the first stanza: "All
of you little ones, trapped inside / my church-one-fire muscles, / lined
up like epileptics in the pews, / your whiteness the robes of a cult."
Our condo is on the market. Take a virtual tour here
and learn how to misspell "balcony".
So I have this idea
for a t-shirt in case Bush wins. God I hope he has a mental breakdown
during the first debate, all spittle and facial ticks.
Check out my
first interview and see how I answer tough questions like "When
was the last time you noticed your own breathing?"
Previous Journal Entries
8/17/04 - 9/15/04
5/2/04 - 7/31/04
1/30/04 - 4/15/04
10/17/03 - 1/15/04
7/2/03 - 9/30/03
4/21/03 - 6/15/03
1/7/03 - 4/18/03
9/24/02 - 12/24/02
