Last night I made stew. It's the kind that gives your bones hugs from the inside. I've also been painting Native American figurines. They only give you 4 colors and 2 shades. One guy has a buffalo head. I like that guy the most. Sometimes I wish I had a buffalo head. I'd walk around the mall letting people touch my buffalo horns and then I'd wink at them. I'd be just as interested in the men as I would the ladies. My father would call me his bi-son.

I've been downloading tracks from this website all day today. It's Midwestern, just like me.

Today is the last day of 2009. I have two New Year Resolutions: one, never try to get my oil changed on holidays, and two, never try to get my dog's nails clipped on holidays. I have other days I can do that. Why go when everyone else needs to get it done...jeez.

Now that Christmas is over, I have a BUNCH of books to read. I've already told you what they were...most of them, anyway. I'll let you know how they are later, when I stop playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii obsessively.

So we (A and I) got a new camera (a Nikon) for Christmas from both our parents. I have sworn it off until the actual holiday is here...with limited success. Mostly, I've taken pictures of my dog. Which is ridiculous, I know, but she's just so f-ing cute (she also threw up on my bed as I was typing that).

I recently submitted a few chapbooks to Greying Ghost. It's one of those eggs in one basket deals. I really don't know who else would be willing to publish this stuff, so it's most likely this, or nothing. So far, they have been the only press willing to bring my work into the physical world in their Corduroy Mtn. journal. So, let's hope I get lucky.

I'm 1/4 of the way through my MFA.

I'm currently reading Killing Kanoko: Selected Poems of Hiromi Ito. Johannes gave me a copy at his reading a few weeks ago, which was super nice of him. I also loved his reading. Watching Johannes read is like watching someone push words through a working mouth. The product and the process of it being made are hard to distinguish.

My hands used to smell like onion, now they smell like dog puke.

I'm going home for Christmas today. I will be getting a camera box. How about you?

Great Moments in Literary History

Film Ist. a Girl & a Gun

Have you heard of this movie? It sounds totally rad, especially in a culture where a good chunk of our entertainment is based on previous entertainment. When you constantly feel the need to properly cite everything? When you're demanded to cite everything? When even our president is basing his presidency on previous presidencies? Why not stop referring and just use the original? If you haven't heard of this movie, it's narrative is entirely based on found footage and it, odd as it sounds, might be the most original movie I've read about in a long time (I don't actually go to a lot of movies, but I read about them maniacally). And at a time when I have a hard time sitting through most movies (graduate school has only multiplied my ADD), this sounds so cool...you should probably look it up yourself.

These are books I've read, and at time loved, over the last few weeks:

An Earth of Time, Jean Grosjean
The Difficult Farm, Heather Christle
40 Watts, CD Wright
The Sonnets, Ted Berrigan
The Last 4 Things, Kate Greenstreet
Pilot, Johannes Goransson
History or Messages from History, Gertrude Stein

These are books I want for Christmas:

A mouth in California, Graham Foust
Destruction Myth, Mathias Svalina
Lots of Gertrude Stein
Archicembalo, GC Waldrep
Anteparadise and Inri, Raul Zurita
Dream Songs, John Berryman

Also, I want a new camera. A and I have one picked out, now we're just hoping that our parents will be willing to work together...

Speaking of Johannes, he is reading here in IC this Thursday. You should probably go. The reading is celebrating a new journal of translation. It could be pretty sweet. Maybe even this sweet: