David Hernandez





	1.15.04 After reading Judy Budnitz's "Visiting Hours" in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003, I picked up her short story collection Flying Leap (Picador). It's quirky without being annoying, touching without being sentimental. And hilarious. And Dark. And Surreal. If you like Russell Edson, you'll love this collection. I've been listening to Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It in People ad nauseum as of late. Terrible name for a band, but the music they create is glorious. Take Pavement's holy grail Slanted + Enchanted, and SST-era Dinosaur Jr., throw in some Pink Floyd, some Tortoise...ah, forget it. It's the type of record that defies categorization. I'll say this: Broken Social Scene is the best thing to come out of Canada since hockey. No, since Canadian Bacon. It's that good. Lisa and I are getting ready to fly off to New York again next week. The high today over there is supposed to be 13. I don't even want to think about the low. Looks like I'll have to bundle myself up like that boy in A Christmas Story who can't put his arms down. I'm too lazy to superimpose my face over his in Photoshop now, so you'll have to use your imagination. Do it. It's funny. Trust me. Here's a poem. 1.1.04 The latest literary magazines and anthologies are stacked on my nightstand again: Cream City Review, Ploughshares, Bellingham Review, Verse (stellar stuff by Srikanth Reddy and Edward Bartók-Baratta), Alaska Quarterly Review (great poems by Allison Benis, great story by Michael Buckley called "Walk Back to a Bonewhite Sun"), The Pushcart Prize 2004 (Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Richard Jackson, Lucia Perrillo...wow, wow, wow), and the one that I keep going back to: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003. Highlights include Judy Budnitz's odd and haunting story "Visiting Hours", Dylan Landis' rich and poetic one "Rana Fegrina", Ryan Boudinot's funny and not-so-funny "The Littlest Hitler", and James Pinkerton's hysterical essay "How to Write Suspense", which literally had me in tears. Lisa and I saw an incredible film today: Monster, starring Charlize Theron, who deserves twenty Oscars for her role as a serial killer. Check it out. Except you, Mom...this one's definitely not your cup of tea. Last night we had some friends over for a little celebrating. Music, drink, cigars, poker, and Speed Scrabble. Halfway through a game of SS, the dinning room table we were playing on, a glass table, cracked in half. I know it's good luck in some cultures, but it scared the bejesus out of us. Anyway, happy new year to you and all that hooey. 12.16.03 Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah Blah Blah, Blah Blah Blah, Blah Blah, blah blah Blah Blah Blah. Blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah, "Blah Blah Blah" blah Blah Blah, "Blah Blah" blah Blah Blah, blah blah blah blah Blah Blah. Blah blah blah blah blah: "Blah blah blah blah / blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah, blah // blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah." Blah blah blah blah blah? Blah blah. Blah, blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah! Blah blah: "Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah / blah blah. Blah, blah, blah blah blah blah blah." Blah blah? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah, blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah Blah Blah blah blah! Blah blah blah blah? Blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah Blah Blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah (blah blah blah blah blah). Blah blah blah blah blah Blah Blah blah blah. Blah blah, blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah? Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah, blah blah blah blah Blah Blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. 12.1.03 The best literary magazine devoted strictly to poetry, Field, has just put out another fine issue. To indicate that I love a poem, I pencil an asterisk on the corner page. For this issue Fall '03 issue of Field, I should've done the opposite and saved myself some lead. The creme de la creme: Betsy Sholl's "Back with the Quakers", Sarah Maclay's "The Marina, Early Evening", Ellen Wehle's "To Live", and Lisa Beskin's "Self Portrait with Fuseli's Imp" with its wonderful rhythms and imagery: "It was the last century closing its eyes, // believing itself unburdened, it was neither you / nor I. It was the dog asleep on the floor. // It was the dog's yawn: a surge of pink / between his loose, black lips." James Haug's three offerings are stellar as well, especially "Diorama", which you can read in it's entirty here when it was featured on Poetry Daily. I found a review of my book online that was published in the Small Press Book Review. I can't figure out if it's a good or bad review. Lisa doesn't think it's bad. I'm not sure what to make of this: "They deal with the unlikeness, from circumstance or from some personal incapacity, of the realization or fruition of something..." Some personal incapacity? Doesn't that sound like I need Viagra? Sheesh. Other Voices with be displaying some of my drawings at a reading/art showing at the FLATFILE galleries in Chicago. It's on December 19th from 6-9 PM. Wish I could be there. Wish that human cloning technology was available now. I'd have my clone call me from the gallery on a cell phone and give myself the play-by-play. Saw 21 Grams this past weekend. Heavy. One of the best films I've seen this year. Maybe the best. Here's a poem. 11.19.03 Hectic here. I'll be brief. Lisa and I took a road trip. Went to Monterey. Then Oakland. Did a reading at a Salon in San Francisco. Thanks to Kim Addonizio and Jerry Karp. Had a hoot. Some photos from our trip. Read DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little (Canongate). It won the Booker Prize. Not sure why. Dumbest ending. Halfway through Mark Svenvold's Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw (Basic Books). Really good. Intelligent and poetic. Starts like this: "In December of 1976, Detective Daniel P. Sallmen of the Long Beach Police Department arrived at the office of the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner holding a severed arm as if it were a baguette in a brown paper bag." Saw The Station Agent. Great flick. Until next time. 10.31.03 Lisa and I arrived from New York earlier this week. I don't know where to start, but here are some highlights from our trip: dinner with Lisa and her editor at The Red Cat, martinis at the MercBar, martinis at the Hudson Bar (okay, so we had a few too many martinis), watching Elephant in a tiny movie theatre, meeting Mark Svenvold and Martha McPhee and their lovely daughter Livia, dinner at Peep (where you can watch customers eat from the one-way mirrors in the bathroom), buying books at St. Marks, and so on and on. The city's overwhelming. In a good way. Here are a few pictures. When we headed back home from our trip the wildfires were raging on. Our plane flew over the devastation, the miles and miles of smoke. Once we were outside the airport, the air was thick with the scent of ash, the sky was tinted orange as if a jack-o'-lantern had replaced the sun. We drove by some picketers outside a Vons supermarket wearing surgical masks. Then we clicked on the television and our governor elect/action movie star is yammering on about the fires. This is California. Home of the surreal. Two days before we left for New York, Lisa and I were involved in a car accident. We were on our way to Pomona where I was invited to read at the dA Center for the Arts, cruising down the carpool lane, when all of a sudden I see something in my lane. Because I was in the carpool I couldn't swerve out of the way (unless I wanted to hit the center divider or the car next to me), so I drove over it. It being a dolly. No, not that kind of dolly. This kind. Which was then stuck under my car and made the most godawful sound. Imagine a fork rattling inside a garbage disposal, a microphone held up to it, the volume cranked-up. I managed to cross over five lanes with the dolly scraping under my car and pulled over onto the shoulder. So there we were, standing along the freeway, shaken, green radiator fluid gushing out from underneath my Honda. Ten minutes later AAA comes along. They jack up my car and kick the mangled dolly out, which looked more like a modern sculpture. A toe truck driver took us home. His name was Romeo. Scrawny, buck-toothed, a goatee, shades with yellow lenses. He told us he used to repossess cars in gang neighborhoods. Said he'd been shot three times. One thug said just before shooting him, "Repossess this." He'd also been stabbed. He said, "But more than anything, beaten. I've been beaten so many times." Said he was on television before, on a segment about the worst jobs in America. He had a photo of his wife and baby girl hanging from his rearview mirror. Never met a happier-go-luckier guy. Yes, I eventually made it to the reading. Thank you to all who came! The literary magazines have piled-up on my nightstand as if I just got back from AWP. They include the latest Agni, Gulf Coast, Bellingham Review (with a great short story by Brian Leung), the 50th Anniversary issue of Paris Review, and the 30th Anniversary issue of Black Warrior Review, which, as per usual, has some fabulous poems. My favorites include Eric Burger's "Too Warm for Pants", Lissa Warren's "Pigeons in Sleet", Tony Friedhoff's "Spontaneously Generated Farmer", and Darcie Dennigan's "Florid Gestures at Flo's Grille". Four poets I've never heard of before, but will now keep a close eye on. Oh yeah, there's also some hilarious paintings by Mr. Hooper. Apparently he doesn't like his first name. My, could this journal entry be any longer? Yes it could... The new album by the Strokes is out. It's called Room on Fire and it's damn good. Think I'll play it now. 10.17.03 I finished reading Kurt Vonnegut's classic novel last night, Slaughterhouse-Five. Now I can cross that book off my Must Read list. Vonnegut's got an incredible imagination (I'm thinking now of that cufflink that doubled as a miniature Roulette wheel) and a writing style that's completely his own. He's bitter in one sentence, compassionate in the next, then hilarious in the next. Who else could pull this off? One of the strangest novels I've ever read. Before Slaughterhouse-Five I read another quirky novel, only this one was awful. God awful. It's by an author who's considered "hip" and "edgy". It's so bad that I can't bring myself to type the author's name or the title of his book, which is out on paperback now and features on the cover a yellow starling that has keeled-over. Something I almost did after reading the last sentence. So California now has a new governor. Like the aforementioned novelist, I can't bring myself to type his name. I wish I was that guy who threw an egg at him at my alma mater last month. When he reached the stage, he said to the crowd: "This guy owes me bacon now!" Let me do the honors. Lisa and I are flying off to New York next week. You can bet I'll be posting photos here in a couple of weeks. Here's a poem. And here's the censored version (Mom, read this one instead). Previous Journal Entries 7/2/03 - 9/30/03 4/21/03 - 6/15/03 1/7/03 - 4/18/03 9/24/02 - 12/24/02