Pay Day

Tonight I've got nothing but bullet points:

• Today was pay day which meant Pay Day Sushi. A few of my colleagues and I celebrate pay day by going out for sushi.
• Megan forgot to pick me up from work. My call at 7:07 pm and went like this: "Hey Megan where are you?" I was expecting her to say "I'm on I-435" or "I'm a few minutes away...be looking for me." Nope. She said something like "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry...its past 7 isn't it." I didn't get home until after 8 pm because we stopped at Target for toilet paper and for a 6 pack of Guinness.
  
• I'm so one of those people.
  
• I ate two bowls of frosted mini-wheats for dinner.
  
• I drank a glass of Glinlivet and had a pint of Guinness for desert.
• I watched an episode of The Tudors.
• I'm definitely one those people: a mere food eater. I'm not complaining though...so is life: a few splashes here and there (or death defying dives) but mostly treading water. I just want to enjoy the scenery while I tread water.
  

I was checking out a few off-site events at AWP and there's a couple cool ones on Friday night definitely worth checking out:

6:00PM NO THOUSANDS: A Small Press Reading
Location: The Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave.
Cost: Free
Black Ocean; Cannibal Books; Forklift, Ohio; Octopus Books; and Rope-A-Dope Press Present: Dean Young, Johannes Gransson, Joshua Harmon, Claire Donato, Kevin Holden, Russell Dillon, Alexis Orgera, Eric Baus, Shane McCrae, Sampson Starkweather, and Chris Tonelli.

8:00PM Rabbit Light Live
Location: New Wave Coffee, 2557 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago
Cost: Free
Website: http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com
Readings by poets Srikanth Reddy, Lisa Fishman, Lily Brown, Noah Eli Gordon, Arda Collins, Richard Meier, Sarah Gridley, Suzanne Buffam, Abraham Smith, Sara Veglahn, Jaswinder Bolina, and Christopher Stackhouse.

Black Ocean and Octopus Books are awesome. I don't know much about the other presses but if this event is any thing like last years event in Brooklyn it will be fucking cool.

Bills

Today I was thrown out of my routine. The day started well: after getting up at 6:15, drinking some coffee and what not, I read a little of Cate Marvin's Fragment of the Head of a Queen and wrote for an hour or so.

But then I got to work and had 3 hours of training which threw me all out of whack. I work for a bank, and as a result, I have a bevy of compliance related annual training classes I have to attend. Today it was Fair Lending which covered HMDA, the Fair Housing Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and the Community Recover Act. These are all very important anti-discriminatory acts in the real estate and financing realms but the training still disrupted my routine and put me 3 hours behind in what was an already busy day. But I'm not complaining...I like busy!!! I really do!!!

Tonight I have nothing interesting...I'm paying a months worth of bills because tomorrow's payday. I only get paid once per month so that means a lot of budgeting as well. But if I get done early there will be Glenlivet and beer to celebrate the completion of "bill day" and "pay day."

I wish I could blog about something more interesting but alas...it's not going to happen so I'll end things with one word: phenomenology. There, that's interesting.

Going to Bed Early

Why don't we rate poetry books the same way we rate movies: honestly. I know there's a fine line between dissing a book and dissing a poet but typically the only feedback in the e-ether or elsewhere on a book of poetry is either positive reviews in literary journals (or e-journals), glowing blog gush, etc. Occasionally there's an insightful blog though about a book of poetry with a positive slant.

So, unless I'm missing something, why don't poets, bloggers, reviewers, etc. say "I didn't like this book and this is the reason why" or "I give this a 1 star out of 5." We all know books exist that just fall on their fucking faces but no body wants to be honest. To be fair, I don't think it would be prudent to be insulting just to be insulting. That's not what I'm talking about. But are reviewers, bloggers, poets being dishonest by not talking about what doesn't work?

Of course, there are some lively conversations about post-avant poets, SoQ poets, flarfists, etc., etc. which teeter on the edge of being exclusionary, overly academic, and careerist. But is the only reason for a lack of honest criticism about the good, the bad, and the ugly in poetry because of fear regarding retribution, career roadblocks, etc., etc. Or is my comparison bad since movies are, primarily, entertainment and not art, and of course poetry is art so it can't be judged in the same way. Or perhaps film is art and poets should judge poetry by similarly honest and constructive (of course) means.

I rated The Other Boleyn Girl as a 2 star out of 5 stars on Netflix because I didn't like the move. What does this say about poetry?

I've ran out of thoughts and I'm bored. Megan is going to bed early tonight which means I'm going to watch an episode of The Tudors by myself.

Belated Christmas Book List

This is a little late but besides some new Fiestaware and cologne I received the following books for Christmas (most of which were purchased with several Barnes and Nobles gift cards):

Saul Bellow, Novels 1956-1964
Michelle de Montaigne, An Apology for Raymond Sebond
Craig Cotter, Chopstix Numbers
Linda Dyer, Fictional Teeth
Peggy Hamilton, forbidden city
David Mutschelcner, Esse
Ethan Paquin, The Violence
Lance Phillips, Cur aliquid vidi
Lance Phillips, Corpus socius
Carolyn Wright, Stealing the Children
Leslie Adrienne Miller, Yesterday Had A Man In It
Tina Brown Celona, Snip Snip!
Tina Brown Celona, The Real Moon of Poetry and Other Poems
Anthony McCann, Father Noise
Joyelle McSweeney, The Commandrine and Other Poems
Joyelle McSweeney, The Red Bird
Robert Creeley, Life & Death
Robert Creeley, Just In Time: Poems 1984-1994
Jerome Rothenberg, Vienna Blood & other poems

I guess you could say I've got a lot of reading to do. In addition to these books I found a bunch of books I thought I got rid of during "The Great Purge of 2006" (which I don't have time to get into right now). I found, among others, my The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara and Selected Poems of Robert Creeley which are both lovely editions from the University of California Press. I was elated and had to re-arrange my bookshelves as a result.

I want to rate each book after I read it. I love rating movies through Netflix. They have a very simplistic rating scale:

1 = I hated it
2 = I didn't like it
3 = I liked it
4 = I really liked it
5 = I loved it

I've developed a similar rate system but use a convoluted and nerdy scorecard to arrive at my rating. But I don't know if I'm going to post the ratings. It's more difficult to publicly rate a book of poetry than it is a movie. I'll probably go into more detail tomorrow.

Why I Do It

I'm a horrible blogger. I often feel too busy to post regularly: kids, job, kids, wife, kids, more kids, I wish more wife (I love you Meg), more job, and somewhere in there I try to fit in some writing. But ultimately I think there may be another reason why I don't blog more regularly. The reason is an unanswered question: why do I blog or what's the point of blogging?

By reading numerous "poet blogs" I could probably reduce the purpose of blogging into 5 categories: gratuitous self-promotion, less gratuitous self-marketing, promoting poetry (with a subtle hint of wanting to gain notoriety or attention from said promotion), social networking, and poetic/aesthetic conversation (either civil or uncivil conversations about contemporary poetics or aesthetics; although I would lean more towards poetic conversations because most of the individuals referencing aesthetics are often describing personal preference and not a philosophy of art). So, lets re-cap the categories with bullets:

• Gratuitous self-promotion
• Less gratuitous self-marketing
• Promoting poetry
• Social networking
• Poetic/Aesthetic conversation

I have no idea where I fall within these 5 categories. I suspect I have a little of each. But ultimately I hate self-marketing (it always feels gratuitous to me). I enjoy promoting poetry, I would like to network but dislike most people I meet, and I enjoy poetic/aesthetic conversations but find most of them long-winded, academic, and often misguided.

For example, I hate how poets refer to Ludwig Wittgenstein. I feel that, by and large, poets misinterpret Wittgenstein and use his work to support their own agendas, ideologies, aesthetics, etc. Also, most the time I don't give a fuck about the newest school of poetry that's developing or the newest literary theory or what so-and-so thinks about contemporary poetry because I would rather be reading and writing poetry than talking about poetry in such driveling, irrelevant ways.

Although I will say that Johannes Goransson's discussions and responses are very inclusive and non-dismissive. And Seth Abramson's discussions are lively and inclusive as well; although they are a little long-winded at times. Both of their blogs are refreshing and I'm not including either of them with my aforementioned comments.

So, why do I blog? I don't know why I blog which is why I'm having a difficult time finding a reason to continue blogging. Perhaps I need to follow BJ's lead and get more interesting. Perhaps I need to blog about more interesting topics which may provide more motivation and satisfaction from blogging. But alas, I have so little time and getting more interesting takes too much time.

I guess I'm just one of those guys. Tonight I'll be watching Arrested Development Season 3-the episode that exposes Mr. F. Of course, I already know who Mr. F is because tonight will be the third time I've watched Arrested Development Season 3.

Thanksgiving Highlights

I went to Marshalltown this weekend for Thanksgiving. The highlights were:

• 103.3 was playing the same bands they were playing 10-15 years ago: Stone Temple Pilots, Live, Quiet Riot, etc., etc. It's odd how in Iowa things stay the same. They don't of course...things in Iowa change...just much slower...it's as close to static as you're going to get.
  
• My in-law's new coffee maker...awesome!
• The wood burning stove in my parents' basement: very cozy.
  
• Younkers and the great new Fiestaware set Megan and I bought on sale: off-white.
  
• Zeno's pizza.
  
• Snow.

Not a very interesting post but a post nonetheless. Until next time...

For You Tonight

Tonight all I have are bits:

Megan, the kids, and I watched Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. My son Gavin kept asking when somebody was going to get their eyes torn out by a bird. The Birds is pretty cool.

My Christmas wish: starting the day after Thanksgiving I want to watch a Christmas-themed movie every night leading up to Christmas. That ought to be fun!!! Home for the Holidays, Elf, Its a Wonderful Life, etc., etc. Any suggestions on Christmas movies? I need to fill up my Netflix que now so that I'm prepared.

"Your hair was long when we first met..." My sons both got their hair cuts this weekend. They both have fairly long hair. Elijah's hair is below his shoulders. Gavin's is shoulder length. Megan brought it up above their shoulders. Our kids are totally going to be skater punks. A few years ago we were at Loose Park in Kansas City. Elijah was 5. He was playing in a huge sand box with other kids. Some kid told him his favorite music was The Wiggles and asked Elijah "What's your favorite music." He nonchalantly says Bad Religion and keeps digging in the sand.

I like Beirut.

That's it...that's all I got.

But I've been using partial song lyrics for my blog post titles. So, here's some breadcrumbs that will help you name the artist for my Song-Lyric Title: this band's singer is, besides being super famous, also featured in The Pixies documentary Pixies. This one's pretty easy.

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On Deck: Aesthetics #2...Oh yeah, I'm not finished yet and this time we're going to talk about Ted Kooser.