WhimsyLand

Tree-covered lane at Potawatomi State Park in Door County.

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The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is hammering local GOP Representative Marilyn Musgrave with what seems like daily mailings.  It looks like the Dems are finally taking the gloves off with attack ads that feature a rather jowly Ms. Musgrave a) voting for her own pay raise while denouncing a minimum-wage hike, b) advancing a pro-life bill that would outlaw abortions in cases of rape and incest ("The Marilyn Musgrave Plan:  Force Rape Victims to Have the Children of their Attackers"), c) citing Musgrave's preference for selling off public fishing and hunting lands to "speculators" and "special interests".   I can't wait for tomorrow's mail to see what's next.

I seldom buy anything from the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, but I always like reading it.  The cover features a replica of the 1969 Zoltan Fortune Teller machine used in Big with Tom Hanks.  Other novel gifts that I got a kick out of include:  a voice-controlled universal remote for TV, VCR, DVD, cable; a sound-enhancing personal headset you can use in noisy restaurants to hear your meal-mate; the world's smallest indoor remote control helicopter; combination earmuff headphones; hi-tech golfball-finding glasses; laser-guided pool cue; portable "SteriPEN" purifier that you dip into a glass of water and flood it with UV; genuine bison driving moccasins; fold-away fedora with carrying tube; a hands-free book light that fits over your ear; wallet made from 100% stingray skin; tumbling vacuum meat marinator (you'd have to see it); four-minute wine bottle chiller; combination nightlight and room disinfectant; remote-controlled robotic shark; the CSI Young Investigator's Forensic/DNA Kit; "standard-issue" Space Shuttle slipper socks; Scandinavian moose-hide moccasins (they certainly seem to be into footwear); giant hand-blown wine glass that will hold an entire 750 ml. bottle's worth; hand-held instant star and constellation identifier; Himalayan expedition mitts; six-foot giant spinning penguin outdoor snow globe; voice-activated motorized R2-D2 replica;  and my favorite, the pump-action marshmallow shooter.

Poets & Writers came in and there's Paul Muldoon again.  I admit that I don't understand the whole Paul Muldoon thing.  I'd never heard of him prior to about 2002, and now he's won the Pulitzer, editing BAP and elbowing his way into P&W, APR and other literary mags. The bio on his website says he was a radio and TV producer from 1973 to 1986 and now he's a full prof at Princeton.  Wow.  I've seen formal and free verse work of his and it's certainly free-wheeling, but sometimes I feel like I'm not getting the joke.  In any event, he's probably a fun guy and a stand-up dude, and blogger Craig Teicher interviews him in a longish and interesting article.  A group of poets including Wanda Coleman, Leslie Scalapino, Anselm Berrigan, Quincy Troupe and Albert Flynn DeSilver (who was a classmate in MJB's Napa Writers class) are revamping Rilke's Letters to Poets by publishing written dialogues among them.  Retail competition, increased overhead and a dwindling reader base is closing more and more independent bookstores (or in the case of Denver's Tattered Cover, just getting them to move).  Literary MagNet covers Ploughshares, Calyx, Gargoyle, and American Short Fiction.  A short interview with Cornelius Eady on the success of Cave Canem press.  Stephen Morison introduces us to the poets of Kabul.  Michael Depp discusses Bernard Malamud (have you ever read "The Natural"?  great stuff).  Finishing First outlines the books of "debut poets" Vievee Francis, Anthony Hawley, Thomas Heise, Alex Lemon, Ada Limón, Maria Meléndez, Anna Moschovakis, Susan B. A. Somers-Willett, and David Tucker.  Tucker won the Bakeless Prize at 59 and Everson won the Poetry Foundation's Emily Dickinson Award (that I was a finalist in) at 80, so they are my heroes.  Of them, 4 have MFAs, 3 have MAs, 2 have PhD's and the rest are civilians.  P&W looks at the top 5 MFA programs as picked by U.S. News and World Report in 1997, which included (no surprise) The Iowa Writers' Workshop, Johns Hopkins (one of my many alma maters), University of Houston, Columbia University, and University of Virginia.  Lots of ads, awards, conferences, grants and deadlines, as usual.

Cuisine?  I'm having my third night of a giant pasta skillet with spaghettini, red peppers, garlic, green onions, artichokes, tomatoes, capers and broiled salmon bits.  Junie says I could probably diversify from my 5-out-of-7 night pasta routine.

More tomorrow.