of, or near, the person

Ola amigos. Its been a while since i hollered at ya. When i open the microwave door, and the water’s boiled, all the oils and flavors of the last dozen meals greet my nose, and its as if the water’s gone off. Salt Wells is the site of a now defunct brothel in Nevada. I just emailed Juliana Spahr and Lyn Hejinian. At some point, at each point (deferred), if we see the Buddha, we need to kill the Buddha. If you wear a head on top of your head, you’ll hurt your neck. If he wears a face over his face, the cancer has an invitation. Endless filler between commercial breaks. The variousness of consciousness, presented variously. Each machine as an externalized extension of our body (Brakhage).

-

Yester i took the day off to be w/ Sarah (mi amore dolce e acido). Twas my 30th bday. We took a leisurely sunshining urban hike up Twin Peaks, the central hill of SF, and ate a blood orange while watching tankers and flitting tweetie birds. Then dropped down into West Portal and explored the hood there, Sarah reports that while food merchants (incl. restaurants) are doing well, other types of business on the high street there are in a state of dormancy and decline. My thought was that it was lucky that the school crossing guard spoke good English, and that Moussaka can be far more delicious than Whole Foods sells it as. No one warned us that Kunafa was basically a hot ball of almost pizza-topping consistency cheese garnished w/ ground pistachios in a sweet syrup. Chewy cheese deserts, no thank you please. Melissa and Brent came over for dinner at the swinging local sushi joint, and a beer at our fave Ethiopian pub, Club Waziema. Club Waziema could kick the shit out of the now-tastelessly named Tsunami Sushi and Sake Bar any night of the week, but sometimes you just need some sashimi. and they do fry their tofu well - rare in this country.

Before bed I finished off the day w/ a bath, and managed to drop Joanne Kyger’s Some Life (Post-Apollo Press, 2000) in the suds. It mended nicely over night, and looks better than the bong-water stained Selected that Joanne signed, laughing. So Ms. Kyger, what exactly is it about your books that makes them so accident-prone? “Awareness of existence and mortality [are] at the center of Some Life…” Evidently so.

For my birthday, Sarah’s parents sent $ for books. And SPD had an open-house sale. I bought a bunch of books while cruising their warehouse and not listening to Andrei Codrescu (it felt devilish and deserved – what poet forces Pirooz – Pirooz of all people – to wander the aisles to score him some speed – I don’t even think the NPR fucker was going to pay me, but just speed up his sonorous skittle/skiffle). Here’s the take (all this was given to me @ 50% off, meaning the cheapest of these cost 1.25(!) and the most expensive was still under 10 – that’s economy for you):

-Continuous Flame: A Tribute to Philip Whalen (Fish Drum, 2004)
-A GEOMETRY, Anne-Marie Albiach (burning deck, 2000)
-SOME LIFE, Joanne Kyger (Sean – have you seen this series – they’re tiny, like Green Integer – Brent sez its not a bad scheme, a lot get stolen from bookstores, but the stores still have to pay the press…)
-It’s go in quiet illumined grass land, Leslie Scalapino, Post-Apollo, 2002.

Always stay in
the quiet illumined grass
land – but I can’t

-pg 12

-9:45, Kit Robinson, “””, 2003 (this will be my first book by him – once when i thought i had a handle on Language writing, someone handed me a poem of his and it all went to hell)
-A Picture-Feeling, Renee Gladman, from ever-intelligent Roof Press, 2005.

that the ‘feeling attached
to ideas’ rushed in
after
speech and
made the sudden flood
of sensation foreboding
(it blared
as if lit from every corner)
does not mean
it captured anything

-pg.27

-Chain 5, different languages, w/ a healthy smattering of vizpo and its children and hangers-on. i’m always on the layout alert, although i am a fitful dresser.
-that they were at the beach, Leslie Scalapino (1985 i think) quite simply my heart is w/ this (frustrating - neccesarily) one
-Selected Poems, Larry Eigner, 1971 (!) (this cost the 1.25)
-The Heat Bird, Mei Mei Bersenbrugge (1984 ish)
-Plum Stones, Michael McClure, a poet i used to make fun of until i saw his broadsides @ the Poetry & its Arts exhibit.
-Another Language, Rosemarie Waldrop’s lt 90s selected.
-At Egypt by the exhausting Clark Coolidge
-I My Feet, Gerhard Ruhm (Burning Deck, Rosemarie’s transl., some concrete work and a general anarchic air – I bet Anselm knows him)
-Watching how or why, this beautiful 1977 Larry Eigner book w/ rough edges paper “printed in Italy”, a slim sage hardcover w/ a cardboard-colored undyed slipcover. just the prettiest lil treasure ever, and it must have been there 28 years waiting for me to take it home. (‘waiting’?)

these last ones were Melissa & Brent’s gift to me last night:

-Bedhangings II, another beautiful little hardcover, smaller than a MacInnes, Susan Howe
-A Test of Solitude, Emmanuel Hocquard – i picked this one up but put it back – did someone see? Spare yourselves, readers, Emmanuel H. is not a woman, so don’t make that gaffe – also, try not to spill soy sauce on yr wife. It’s a very trendy restaurant, in its way.
-Zoo, or Letters Not About Love, Viktor Shklovsky. Brent says “this book could change your life” but refused to say into what.
-My Method – Writings & Interviews, Robert Rossellini. We established that I have never seen a Rossellini, but that reading this might “help me become a man” or some such suspect thought mumbled into beer and that Open City might be a good place to start.
-My Futurist Years, Roman Jakobson. essay, letters, memoirs, poems. a great photo of the young Roman in his little Tsarist sailor’s outfit. Holding a shovel. Very, very cute. I am relieved to know that darling little buttons dressed in “mommy’s bestests” can eventually outgrow this decorative phase and become live subjects. The Whalen photos in Continuous further this belief. If you know Sarah, you’ll know why I am re-assured by this. When we do have a child, it will be one non-stop pre-school fashion runway. Send your emails protesting Sarah’s decision that if it’s a boy he can’t wear pink to: sarahandthomas@earthlink.net. [Actually Sarah disputes this and claims I am a poor listener who conflated "not dressing up our child in little girl's clothes for which he will be made fun of" for "not wearing pink". Sodeska. I stand corrected, w/ thousands of other poor listeners-who-are-loved-(tryingly)-by-those who-are-not.]

So a big thank you to the person who came up w/ birthdays, and presents, and to Sarah’s parents. You guys rock.

SPD survives in part w/ our generous support. If you have any $, consider becoming a member – it cost me $45 and i get 10% off all their books for a year, and a tote bag. Not sure out-of-the-area types get the tote, but it’s a winsome #. SPD is open, during weekdays, for your browsing pleasure, and their warehouse is a poet’s joy to wander.

So there’s a glimpse at my summer reading, though I picked up a copy of Pico Iyer’s Sun After Dark @ Stacey’s, and plan to read that one too, unless the prose is too flowery. Something I add just because this guy sells, and I’m always a little suspicious of that. I tend to stay below 92 on the radio, unless I’m out of the city, then I’ll take what I can get (norteno and C&W, mostly).

Well that was exhausting.