Totally fannish embarassing moments

I have a new rule, and its corollary:

1. don't meet your heroes, they've already given you the best that they've got in their book or poem or movie.
2. don't let your heroes meet you, you'll slobber on their egos like a hungry dog.

In rare cases I've done both things to an artist I admire and found myself, finally, laughing about it later.

I met Penn, of Penn and Teller (the tall one who talks) at a Monday Night Magic show. Huge fan. Grotesque gushing inanities poured out of my mouth as he sat, hemmed in by my eagerness, during intermission and the look of wary weariness--as in this happens all the time and is so boring-- humiliated me even as my mouth kept slobbering compliments... I promise if I ever see you again Penn I won't say a thing. Ack.

Then with the multi talented Shaun Tan I managed to have BOTH experiences. At the world fantasy convention I heard him talk, loved his intelligence, wit, and talent, ran into him, invited him to dinner with friends, he accepted and was as thoughtful, considerate, and interesting as I could have hoped for. If only the story could end here. A short time later he was in New York signing books at Books of Wonder, a delightful children's bookstore. By this point I'd morphed into weird fannish mode. I saw him at the signing table, ran to him clutching a copy of the book like a football player, and almost knocked over a lady in her wheelchair and a guy with his kids. I'd accidentally cut the line in my awful eagerness. The shame. I looked up and heard the woman spinning her wheels slightly, sighing "I don't mind waiting a little longer" and felt like a turd. A fan turd. And Shaun's face had a look of wary weariness.

Reviews and judgment day

To have a published book is to invite comment. The glossy cover, the publishers imprint, the curiously tarted up self in the author's photo all serve to convince the world that I did indeed write this paper object and my musings have organized the 26 letters of the alphabet into patterns I can call my own. My father and step mother, my sisters and brothers, all said just the right thing, mostly. My friends said it exactly. And lately, at good readings, good because I am finally relaxing, the audience lets me know they enjoyed it by the laughter and sighs of sympathetic recognition.

But to be published is to invite a response from far more than the people I send my family newsletters to. I am speaking of reviews. Each one that comes out I begin reading with all the enthusiasm I used to have for report cards. Sometimes it is a pat on the head. Other times a rap on the knuckles. Or amusingly, it appears to be a review of a book by the same name but the work of another.

What is the reviewer's task? I read reviews to know if I should invest or save my money and time. The author of the review may be using a book to nudge the great lumbering tail of current poetry. They may be looking for their own readership and by their humor, intelligence, or wit make themselves indispensable. They may try to advise the writer in how they can better their craft and vision for the next book. Or they get their kicks from knocking down the blocks. A review is in itself an essay, equally to be judged.

My book goes out into the world, is hopefully read, and I'd take any review over the great silence. If there is a final day of judgment for books, I don't think the reviewers decide who goes to Satan's writers lounge. The worst that happens, my efforts are forgotten in the out-of-print purgatory...

My husband's plays sometimes had simultaneous pan and praise reviews that took polar opposites on the same points. Which to believe? I'd look around the theatre, see how engaged everyone was, the standing ovation, my own delight in his language skills, and ask myself how any one could find it wanting. Were they crazy? But I'm his wife, a little crazy for him, and my judgment will be suspect. I can only say, believe the good reviews.

Some people tell me they never read their reviews. Never? Really? Some of my friends don't own a television or read the news either, sterner stuff than me. I read, feel it for a day and move on.

Because none of that is about the writing, my writing. Images and feelings become words and sentences. Dreams pull up their socks and find their grammar. Poems form in my inner ear, long before the world hears them.

Poets' Grimm becomes a play

The contract came in the mail. Our fairy tale poetry anthology has an agent.

Got a great letter of support from a teacher:

To Whom It May Concern:

As a high school theater teacher and director, I am always searching for new and challenging material to work on with my kids. This past fall I hit upon the idea of adapting material from The Brothers Grimm. While discussing the project with an English teacher colleague (also a fine poet in his own right), he suggested The Poets’ Grimm. We eventually incorporated about twenty or so poems from the book into what became an original and successful stage production.

What was most striking to me was the reaction my students had to the poetry. We spent several days simply reading and discussing poems from the collection. Students listened attentively as they took turns reading/performing selections. Lively discussion would often follow about the merits of a particular piece. Kids would come by my office to browse through the collection. Almost every actor in the show wound up performing a poem of their choice. One wrote a poem of his own and shared it with us as part of our rehearsal process. There was an unforced enthusiasm for the poems which was palpable. Nor am I talking about the simplest and most accessible poems. My students’ investigation was thoughtful and penetrating. Though it was not my specific intention, the collection was a wonderful teaching tool.

Within a short time another English teacher colleague found several pieces to employ in a senior seminar of hers. Just recently a student came into my office and exclaimed, “Oh, that’s the book!” She’d read selections in English, but hadn’t seen the collection in its entirety. Therein lies the rub. Copies of the collection are currently few and far between. Only through the great good fortune of having a knowledgeable poet as a colleague did we learn of the existence of the collection, and then only through what seemed like some black market operation did we acquire two copies. Those precious copies have been circulated and shared like some underground forbidden fruit.

Given the enthusiasm my students showed for the collection, how nice it would be if it were currently in print. When students ask, as they have, where they might get a copy of their own, how nice it would be to tell them it is easily available at a reasonable price, instead of $175.00 at Amazon.com. I’m sure there are many teachers who would be enthusiastic about this collection, if they only knew about it, and scores more students who would welcome it into their lives if they only had the opportunity.

The cost of awards

Tomorrow I go to the opening for the New York Book Show. Since the design I helped create for the journal Alimentum won entry to the show, I'm a winner. Sadly it costs $75 to walk in the door, nibble the canepés, and ogle the other book designs. Even for a winner. Maybe especially for the winners. One of my friends says "don't go if you have to pay, this sounds like a scam." Actually, I am sure it is not a scam. I was there last year, thanks to my old bosses. I will get a lovely catalog, with my design in it, I'll see many people I know... and I'll hope to win prizes in the future that cost a bit less to enjoy.

Welcome to this life

Friends of mine had a baby a couple of days ago. I met him yesterday. Held him. Small as my dog, features shifting expressions, an almost smile, eyebrows lifted in amazement, then sleep again, this tiny placeholder for a man. Here I am with my children leaving home and he is just coming home. Welcome Tristan.

Poets' Grimm has an agent!

Jeannie and I met with our agent to talk about finding a new home for our anthology of fairy tale poems The Poets' Grimm. After a great start at Story Line Press (a small prestigious literary press) the publisher went kaput. Teachers had used it in creative writing classes, fans of fairy tales read it, poetry lovers read it, and all of them begged us for copies through the website for the book. This helps explain why Amazon is offering used copies for $140.00 to $199.00

This weekend we are invited by Bill Williams to see a play based on poems in the book. It's called Grimm and Grimmer and is playing at Trinity School in Manhattan. Three nights only. Thursday at 7:00 and Friday and Saturday at 8:00. Bill is the person who told us used copies are selling so high.

Give me your Budmo Jiggler

I open a file at work. One of those you-better-find-this-missing-font boxes pops-up, so I say, "hey, anybody got Budmo Jiggler?" to my office mates. Yeah, should have seen their faces.

You try it, "I need a Budmo Jiggler."

Welcome to typography. "I want Electra Light" "I need Giddyap Standard" "I crave Gill Sans Ultra Bold." What do you see just from the names? I smell a creative writing exercise.

What about Tiki-Hut Italic? Deftone Stylus? Or back to that Budmo Jiggler.

Stick it to the (paper) man

My sister is working at a small print newspaper on the west coast. Like newspapers everywhere, sales and jobs are evaporating. She is aware that they want to find an excuse to fire her ass. They are monitoring her closely and clocking her speed. Only on racetracks is this a good thing.

They've upped the ante and started giving her difficult work that falls outside of her job skills in production. Yesterday they handed her a card with type on it. Victorian posies behind an announcement of a doodad show. She had to take the scanned image, turn it sideways, get rid of the type, and expand it's middle by 300%. My sister only knows basic things in photoshop, the simple fixes. This was major surgery.

We formulated a plan. She sent it to me at work when she got there in the morning. Back on the east coast, I spent part of my lunch hour using the clone tool to disappear the type, copy the border, give it a new middle, and move flowers around. I touched up with the healing brush and sent it west where it was still morning.

She tells me it was delightful to see their look of consternation when she handed in the acceptable image. That even though she has never once cheated in school, this felt less like cheating and more like spy vs spy. It put her in a good mood, a mood her pals at work caught, and they were laughing about little things as they worked. A mood not shared by the bosses.

When we talked last night, she wanted to know how I did the photoshop. I tried to describe it but... she needed to see it. A video is worth a thousand phonecalls, so I recommended free online photoshop training: podcasts such as Pixel Perfect with Bert Monroy, Lynda.com (the first 10 lessons are free in their vast arsenal of tutorials), and for comedy and real tips, "You suck at photoshop". Free, free, free. Throw her more mission impossibles and she'll learn new job skills. Take that mean boss people. You don't mess with my li'l sis.

I'm nominated!

Just found out my poem "The Bees" is being considered by the Pushcart Prize anthology! Court Green, published it and they could only nominate 6 of their poems to the P.P. editors. The editors at Pushcart accepted my poem for consideration. It is now part of the pool of 8,000 poems, essays, and short stories that are being culled for this yearly anthology that honors the best of the small presses. Lovely that Court Green sent my poem in, grand that it made it past the next hurdle to semi-finalist. Even if it doesn't get into the anthology, I feel honored.

With room for only 30 poems, I have at best a 2% chance... but hey, better odds than Lotto and it all happened mysteriously while I was writing poems and mortgage checks.

Now I finally understand why some people note on their flap copy "nominated for a pushcart." The nomination itself is an honor. Some people also note they were 4th runners-up for things like best mincemeat pie, and this is a level of far-misses I think best not mentioned in 50 word bios.

Good news and free money

The president is giving away money and I had a great reading last night.

I had to slog through a freakish ice/slush/snow storm spritzing my face as I didn't see a single cab the whole width of Manhattan. But the eerie tunneled streets and mist rising from still warm sidewalks made SoHo into something more strange and beautiful than the trendy celebs that glide in and out of its shops. Who knew who anyone was in all that snow? People were the negative spaces, the street lamp and neon lit snow were the show.

As I walked further and further east, I wondered if anyone would show up. Would this Bluestockings bookstore be welcoming and hopefully rather dry?

My shoes took on more water and my purse strap broke but I still pressed on. I added my footprints to a dog's across an otherwise blank median strip and then I was there. The place was PACKED and I didn't know most of them. My husband Jim was there waiting for me (he gave up one of his cherished Tuesday nights of sketching with a live jazz trio, two models, and a bar). Glenn arrived, as did Gordon and Len and Roxanne. The bookstore is a neighborhood place that the neighborhood uses like a big book filled livingroom, with eats and teas. I read last. The fifteen minutes went by terribly fast and slow, the way they do when I'm exhilarated by having a responsive audience, a whole room full of (mostly) strangers laugh, or sigh in sympathy, and acknowledge the stories I shape into poems. I'm more confident when people want to hear where I'm going. I loved Julie Porter's poems about meat, she's the pitmaster of an amateur barbecue team. Thank you Meghan, Word of Mouth, and Bluestockings for giving us a good place to read. I sold three books.

Slides and whispers

My daughter Caitlin is applying to many colleges, several of them art schools requiring color slides. Remember those? Little cardboard edged pieces of plastic that one's parents put in a carousel and shined ghosts of summers past onto a wall.

She finished the last painting yesterday. I need them to arrive at the Rhode Island School of Design by Thursday. Two days.

If you, like me, have been so immersed in digital cameras, it is hard to remember how to do these things. I think in flash cards, keychain mini-drives, and printer's ink, which are sold in my drugstore, where do you go for slide film? And where is my old analog camera anyway? Don't those use little round batteries, batteries that have to be dead by now?

I discovered there are specialty photographic services shops that will take a digital image and turn it into a slide for 20 bucks an image for a 1 day turnaround... but my good digital camera still has Yellowstone National Park dust polka-dotting the sensor. I've been meaning to take the Nikon d70 somewhere to get it cleaned.... I wiped the sensor once--it turned out OK--but it was a sweat inducing horror that I don't want to experience again. One wipe too hard and 600 bucks of camera is scratched worthless.

My friend, the talented professional photographer, Lynn Saville, said her slide film had expired and I'd need to buy her new "daylight" film, and I would have done all that, but she had a class to teach and Caitlin couldn't get the film and portfolio to her in time.

Then through Caitlin's highschool (LaGuardia Arts) I got the name of a photographer, Peter Brandt, who snaps slides of art student's portfolios all the time. He has the film, the lights, the lenses, the set-up. He gets it developed. ASAP. Thank gawd. Of course, this costs.

So why was I up at 6:30 am snapping shots of her portfolio just in case? Because you never know. I should be thinking about my reading tonight... Shhhhhhh, just one more spotty shot, bracketed...

Interstitial serindipity

It was my triboro day.

MANHATTAN, Upper West Side: It was wonderful to be in a room full of creative, accomplished, fascinating, and decidedly unconventional people discussing ways to enlarge the reach of an organization dedicated to works and artists that fall between genres. We introduced ourselves as puppeteers, editors, readers, poets, graphic novelists, translators, performers, novelists, film makers, educators, sculptors...who each do at least three other creative things. We sat in a book-lined living room--Edwardian flavor--with a view of park, piano, and walls and tables filled with art. So many of us said we had been told to do only one thing! If nothing else, we applauded our right to engage outside labels. I loved that group energy, there ought to be a name for that creative fusion. Half networking, half synergy. Creative Units? Whatever it is, it makes me want to grab paper to draw and write.

I was there because I ran into Ellen Kushner at AWP and she introduced me to Lawrence Schimel. Between us we had Irish tea, beer, halvah, and mashed potatoes as we discussed the oddness of presenting our works at both literary and fantasy/scifi conventions. A seemingly uncrossable divide. No so, said Ellen... she told me about her organization and invited me (and my friend Deborah Atherton) to come to a tea at her and Delia's home (as in Delia Sherman) and be part of a brain storming session for the Interstital Arts Foundation which she and Delia helped found a few years ago.

Deborah and I walked to Broadway, on our ways home, and agreed we felt like we fit right in. Deborah is a perfect example of a multi-talented, cross-genre artist, she's a literary short story writer, librettist (one opera was based on her science fiction novel another on Mary Shelley--with monster as a thematic character), novelist, co-author of an upcoming non-fiction book on creativity, writing coach, occasional tarot card reader, and a grants writer. She and I have been in River Writers, our writing workshop, since it was founded.

QUEENS, Rego Park: Before the tea, I had been to a baby shower for Glenn Mathes and Ryoko in Queens. I even got to wave hello to Jayme Adelson-Goldstein and Jane Spigarelli, authors of several books I designed for Oxford U. Press, because they video called Glenn (one of their editors) and watched Glenn and Ryoko open gifts. I blew kisses to California. Ryoko had hands drawn on her belly. A nice touch. Jayme and Jane held their hands out as if they could touch her and mini-man within. I also ate carmelized bacon. Who knew you could do that to bacon? It was salty and sweet and crunched like a crème brûlée.

BROOKLYN, Borough Hall: In the morning, I'd had my first pilates session with poet/editor/pilates instructor Barbara Elovic. After the workout, as I waited for my body to stop feeling like limp pasta, we talked about feminism, poetry, and the oddness that muscles have both greek and roman names. She gave me a copy of To Genesis, a poetry book she part of, four poets exploring old testament stories. Like Poets' Grimm, the old tales make a great framework to explore current lives and beliefs.

I felt as if I had traveled everywhere, my pedometer logged nearly 10,000 steps. And as promised, today I am not sore from the pilates workout.

AWP and me. Or, have book, need markets

No, I didn't actually go to the biggest baddest literature conference happening in NYC this year. It was booked so early I couldn't get in, but on Saturday, the last day, the bookfair was open to the public.

The bookfair filled three huge floors of the Hilton. Apparently the first floor is usually clogged and tumbleweeds move freely on the third. To my delight, both the Alimentum and Marsh Hawk Press tables were facing each other on the second floor limbo. This facingness allowed me to move back and forth and eat chocolates placed to entice. I talked to Paulette, publisher of Alimentum, about designing a color insert of a heavily illustrated piece. Cool. Then back at MHP I talked to Sandy, our managing editor, about going to the AWP in Chicago next year. If I help run the table I can get a good chunk of my expenses covered.

I sold a copy of my book. I gave some copies away.

I walked around and handed out hot pink flyers advertising our book contest. I didn't have to look far for the hungry new MFA students. Barbara, who is the heart of the press, was endless energy presenting our books. Rochelle, who is not well, managed to be there every day and spent the afternoon telling our latest prize winner, Karin Randolph, how to promote herself and sell her book. I met people who felt like instant friends and hugged friends for an instant.

I found tables of publishers and writing programs that I love EVERYWHERE. Small Beer Press, A Public Space, Poetry, Tupelo, The Frost Place, Fairy Tale Review, Edward Tufte of the fascinating visual information books (the assistant says he likes to be called E.T.) and on and on. Tables and journals and books, oh my.

But all this muchness has a downside. It is now absolutely clear to me that more than enough poetry is published in the US. One could feel like a mere drop of sweat in an incredibly large bucket. Best not to think about that. One writes. Others write. Some are driven to publish and we thank them for it.

Best of all an agent and two publishers may be interested in helping to bring The Poets' Grimm (fairy tale poem anthology) back into print. Our publisher went out of business. Used copies are selling for $100 on Amazon and we get weekly emails from teachers and readers wanting the book. Have market, need books.

It's official, I'm an occasional muse

Since this is becoming a habit, I thought it fair to note I charge nothing for unintentionally inspiring other writers.

Last night in my writing group, Bill Fowkes told me he was reading a piece that I could have written, inspired by me. And in fact, it was. A recent rant on the perils of being a book designer turned into his very funny story "Dummy Copy, This is For Position Only." I was telling the members of River Writers that I place dummy copy into design proposals but then some editors actually start editing the fake text. I then tried placing "Greeked" copy, which is actually Roman, and an editor once got upset that it was gramatically screwed-up Roman...and corrected it. I just have had the worst time getting uber verbal clients to disregard the words and concentrate on the page layout, color treatments, heading hierarchy, and the other elements that make up a design. But when Bill's story gets grabbed by a lit journal, please do not assume that I am the protagonist of the story. I have never, to my knowledge, packed or used a loaded gun.

When I told my friend Joe Hayes that I'd like to write a multi-generational one act play using my own experiences as a starting point he got so excited for me that he gave me a great plot device, the mother, the grandmother, and the granddaughter are on a bus, talking. He even wrote some dialogue... A month went by. Another. Then, sheepishly, Joe said he couldn't get the idea out of his head and could he please write my play. And he did, it's called Slow Ride. I said sure, whenever I get around to writing that play, it wouldn't be the same as his. I'll have my characters walking in a park. Or riding in a hearse. Sitting under an umbrella on Coney Island. Or maybe just waiting endlessly in a waiting room...er, someone has done that one.

Evil Trump tower kills one

Working a block away from towers that fall is never a comforting experience to New Yorkers, especially since 9/11. The boom, the sirens, the crowds staring... one of my coworkers burst into tears "I'm worried!" A small knot of us went to the sidewalk to see what was going on. Trumps' tower looked like a monster took a bite out of it. The Trump SoHo has been going up faster than a mushroom and apparently safety has plummeted as it nears it's full height. Today scaffolding gave way and two men and a whole lot of wet concrete fell. One man landed in a net. He's in the hospital. One man didn't. He's in the morgue.


The view from our building was disheartening. I turned to my boss and said, "you were right to never walk near it." We silently watched news helicopters, ambulances, and black unmarked vehicles pull onto our now blocked-off street. "If that crane fell, would it reach us?" I asked idly. "No, I don't think so," said Jason, "but it would crush that storage building." "Oh," said my boss, I have things in there." "Anything you need?" asked Jason. "Oh no, just family heirlooms, nothing I really need to go in there for."

But, as so often happens, when something is too horrible, you just have to laugh. From where we stood, a poster advertising the storage building appeared to reach over to the tower. The theme is that storage is so compelling you will put everything you own, including all your clothing, into their care. A naked woman, back to us, is contemplating her nicely emptied closet. Just beyond the edge of the ad, I could see the tattered netting and splintered wooden scaffolding. "Well, both buildings now have cracks in them," I say.

As I photograph the poster, a passerby tells me how shameful I am to photograph a tragedy and laugh about it.

See Céline in a black box shine

Last night I saw one of the best off-off Broadway productions I've ever seen. Adapting the life and novel of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, The Flying Machine theatre company and the prodigiously skilled and talented actor Richard Crawford, with writer/adaptor Jason Lindner and director Joshua Carlebach, have created a night of riveting, hilarious, disturbing, and unforgettable theatre. We saw Journey to the End of the Night in previews, go, go buy your tickets now.

Crawford plays Céline, the scabrously funny and misanthropic author and his bumbling and opportunistic younger alter-ego Bardamu from his eponymous novel. He also manages to morph his expressive features into an entire cast of characters with the flick of a hat brim or a squint of revulsion. The black box setting perfectly encases his claustrophobic world, his "salon." He hunches over a desk, riffles through old drafts and publications, and we meet an author whose ground-breaking nihilism, satire, and profanity is not what he wishes to be remembered for. Instead, the joke is on him, in one hysterically funny scene he offers up the worst bourgeois recipe for respectability, a ballet of cavorting Greek gods tainted by his lascivious trivializing. It is the rude, crude, outraged, anti-semitic, and dreadfully honest man himself that heats up the night.

The theatre, even some of the seats, sported artifacts from the 40s. Being previews, the seats were also filled with the creative team. I hope they heard me laugh, groan, and clap till my hands hurt.

I love what can happen in black box theatre. This just couldn't happen in the Winter Garden or Marriott.

Photo by Piotr Redlinski

Welcome to 2008

Here's the view from 54th, looking down 7th Avenue at Times Square. We had just exited the huge Ziegfeld theatre after a late showing of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd. It was annoyingly difficult to get there, all the streets had pens filling with the silly hat and noise-maker crowds and manned blue barricades. We had to detour for many blocks and at each corner, we were let through, one by one, pleading with police officers that we needed to get to our movie.

Sweeney was bloody. Was good. Was visually stunning. But I rather wished the same vocal coach that turned the cast of Chicago into actors that can sing had been hired to teach Johnny and Helena how to sing and act at the same time. The theatre was perfect, all crimson and black and imposing. One forgets how good it is to see a movie in a space other than the living room. How it breathes better with an audience.

Our friend Len noticed the disclaimer that no animals were harmed in the making, but where does that leave the cockroaches? They were most certainly harmed in Sweeney and Enchanted. I am not suggesting a movement to save the roaches, maybe the motion picture industry folks need a new disclaimer, "no animals harmed... but uncute insects fair game."

Random googling on my name

Sometimes I have to see what surfaces when I type "Carlson Elephant House." This is how I discovered I'd had a poem on Verse Daily. Or that I'd gotten a good review for The Elephant House. Or that another review is in the works... Yesterday my search pulled up more than a tire or boot from the meta-ocean. The Elephant House made it to the 30 book list of "Some Recently Published Books of Poetry You Might Want to Read"! Thank you John Hewitt and the Writer's Resource Center. Woo-hoo.

And then there are great readings

So from the worst venue, to the best. I asked Matthew Thorburn to read with me (I'd loved his reading at the Center for Book Arts). After a book exchange he decided I wasn't a random loon and I set it up no less than three times at Book Culture which went through, count 'em, three events coordinators. But it was all worth it... Enough people filled the seats, the book store provided wine and nibbles, and the gracious Kelly Amabile--the new events person--made us feel most welcomed and did lots of promo. Jeanne Marie Beaumont introduced us, delightfully, and Matthew read his thoughtful lovely poems. He takes time with them, they broaden. And although we write quite differently, we share some streaks of humor and subject matter. Go buy his book of poetry, Subject to Change.

I enjoyed reading this time. More than I ever have. I'm finally getting more relaxed up there on the singular side of the podium. My aunt Sonya bought a copy of my book, which really touched me, not a lot of poetry books among her political bios. I read some of my new shaped poems, showing them first, like a picture book. It was so lovely seeing faces I know and love among the audience and some I didn't, and they seemed like they were enjoying themselves.

Matthew had a good time. We enjoyed meeting his wife. See his blog. Thanks for doing this with me Matt. Here's our Book Culture interview, I think Matthew reads less junk than me...

Reading with the stars and curry

I've had terrific readings and then there are the ones that are funny later. The Phoenix Reading Series at the Bengal Curry restaurant offered blasts of door-opening chill, take-out customers, fluorescent ambiance, and a chugging soda machine. Luckily, I was reading with Margo Berdeshevsky and Yerra Sugarman. Alicia Ostriker (really good poet) sat in our audience along with Michael Graves the organizer (selling his book) and three attentive guys who also came for the open mike. See this story about the readings.

Yerra (middle of photo) read from a long sequence about an aunt, coma, and holocaust. There were lines of heartbreak that made me want to read them to figure out how she wrote it.

Margo (on left) turns out to be a childhood friend of my painter friend Jada Rowland. I heard how she fell through the ice in a pond near Jada's home on Staten Island when she was 7... She is still taking risks, she explores the role of myth and healing in the face of disasters from war and nature--she volunteers and reports in these places. Like Jada she used to be an actress; she read with enough passion that even the poori customer looked up.

After all that really good heavy stuff, I decided to drop some levity. I read my new shaped poems, many of which are well...sexy with a twist. The three guys waiting to read brightened up, although with such a small audience it felt odd to mention lust. Alicia chuckled.

Best of all, I traded books with my fellow readers and the three of us had dinner with Alicia. Even if our waiter blundered our orders at Elephant & Castle the conversation about poetry, teaching, travels, and our lives, was a delight.

Wow! Alimentum wins design award!

I've been co-designing, with Peter Selgin, each of the five issues to date of the wonderful journal Alimentum: The Literature of Food. It won in the in New York Book Show 2008 category of General Trade / Quality Paperback! I get to go to the swanky reception March 11th, 2008. Too cool. Fun magazine, with poems, stories, non-fiction, interviews, and things that are clearly undefinable but always about food. Buy one, makes a great holiday gift too.

Witching Hour at the New Museum Opening

It is not often I choose to be in the hottest spot in town and raise the age average just by being there. Last night after an annual dinner with my college buddies (Bœuf bourguignon, shooting pool, sipping port, and spinning vinyl 70s albums) in the burbs, we got a ride from our friend Len to the opening of the New Museum in downtown Manhattan. After waiting on line at 2 a.m. for free standby tickets, we were in.

The coat checker looked at us and said "you're up late, aren't you?" Did she say that to anyone under 30?

The inaugural show, "Unmonumental," celebrated collage, found objects, and unusual juxtapositions, such as a crotched yarn dumbell curving into a clay grip or glowing fluorescent tubes piercing sofa beds...

The dealers were long gone, but the crowds when we were there had to be 90% emerging, as in young, artists. The people--dancing and laughing--were more fun to watch than the artwork, much of which fell into the art school project camp with a few notable exceptions. I loved the Louise Nevelson (sans black spray-paint) inspired fountain of chair and loveseat frames, the 7 points-of-view video story (tip your hat to Rashômon), and the slowly melting life-sized naked wax woman candle--haven't we ALL had days like that.


Jim noted that even if you didn't like a piece you had to admire an obsession that makes an artist sew thousands of buttons onto a mattress.

I made friends with a trio of artists who desperately wanted some gum so I shared my Orbit mint mojito with them and we bonded. I was yelled at by a museum guard for taking their photo as they stood in front of the elevator doors. "She must be new, they are all new, you should be able to take a photo of your friends when there is no art showing," said the guy. We all chewed our gum vehemently in agreement.

On the top floor a man served bags of red candy and all down the stairs red hots and Swedish fish were ground into the new white floors and a thousand eager finger prints grayed the doors... Target, a huge sponsor, somehow made their red logo artsy and cool in the skylight lounge.

Len, who works with museums, was delighted with the architecture--open with skylights--and mission, "there is no permanent collection, you know," he gestured, "ephemeral pieces like the melting wax woman drive traditional curators and collectors crazy."

We got to bed by 4 a.m. When we finally crawled out, the first snow had powdered fire escapes and rooftops.

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Jim and I with our bags of red candy

Len with Target logos

What takes sixteen sticks & four hearts?

Last night my friend Len, who always knows he can call me at the last moment, invited me to join him for a free percussion concert in the Winter Garden. By percussion I do not mean the construction going on at night in the pit of the World Trade Center... this was the uber talented and hip group So Percussion performing three pieces of new music. They played beads, coils of metal, flower pots, xylophones, and a variety of drums. The music was melodic, varied, enticing, and recorded live for the New Sounds Live radio program at WNYC 93.9. I loved it all, but by the last piece I was ready for it to end, percussion is not soothing, like mime or opera in subtitles, it takes extra concentration to enter their world. Funny how less makes more in art...by ignoring perspective or light source in painting or writing haiku, people take some choices away and what is left evokes all.

The talented Ms. Lisa Moore played a variety of percussive instruments and mostly the Steinway grand in the Martin Bresnick piece as images by Goya filled the stage. I did this sketch of her. But Arvo Part's Fratres for Percussion Quartet and Paul Lansky's Threads were just as wonderful, even without the pianist.

Eye of Sauron rises over SoHo

True story.

Russ, who works where I do, saw a woman fall to the pavement in front of the rising Trump Tower. "You OK? What happened?" He helped her up. She said she was OK but she'd been looking up up up at it and lost her balance. "Don't look at it, it's evil," says Russ. "Yeah, it is," she agreed.

Autograph sketch book

When I sit and listen to people chatting or reading from their books my hands need something to do. As a kid I doodled non-stop, filling sketchpads and margins on mimeographed homework sheets. When I didn't have paper or pen, I nibbled my nails. Now I create a portrait and autograph book at the same time. It is, in fact, my restless fingers disguised as a project.

I draw them in pencil. If they are still moving their lips, I add some watercolor. Then I provenance it, put in my signature, and go after the poet or novelist with zeal. "Your autograph, please?"

"Oh, oh, is that me? You did that here just now?" and rarely, "please send me a copy."

At the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs last weekend, John Crowley gave an amazing reading from a work not yet in print, about the sexual coming-of-age of an unusually challenged and gifted young man.

Crowley uses a fountain pen with the same rusty brown ink I like. You have to love an author who uses the same tools.

I also enjoyed Patricia A. McKillip reading from a new novel that features a young and impressionable budding author. Very funny and apt. I sat up front and probably scared her, as I imagine I do for all of them. Sorry. It's either the sketchpad or sitting on my hands... Thank you all, my unwitting models, in pose and prose.