WhimsyLand

Sure, my tag line says cuisine, but it's been months since I mentioned it.  I used to cook as often as Tony seems to, with his Asparagus flarf and plates full of delicious-looking stuff that isn't on anyone's diet.  I'm still a good cook, I just don't have anybody to cook for.  Junie has been on an admirable and healthy diet protocol, my kids are at work and college, and when we get together at Cath's, she usually does the honors (and she's a good cook, too).  I'll take a break from my monotonous diet of pasta and do up a good paella tonight.  Some kind of sausage, RedBird chicken thighs and big scallops will be in the mix.  Also, red peppers, asparagus, and peas.  First, make the sofrito:  tomato paste, diced fresh or canned tomatoes, onion, garlic and a little paprika, sautéed until the water evaporates from the tomato.  Then, add the short-grained rice, Arborio if you have it, Bomba brand Spanish rice if you can find it.  In a separate pan, sear some chicken thighs in olive oil until they're glazed on the outside but still underdone on the inside.  You can use wings and even breasts, though the latter is a bit extravagant for paella, since the chicken is actually standing in for rabbit.  I used to make the stock from the chicken parts I wasn't using, but now I just use Swanson's low-fat, low-sodium chicken stock which tastes great and is better health-wise.  Pour the stock over a couple of cups of rice and let it start to fuse at a temperature just under medium.  Like risotto, you will probably have to add more stock as time goes on.  Add a healthy pinch of saffron (threads if you can get them, but powder is OK), even though it will set you back $5-10, unless you stocked up at El Corte Ingles the last time you were in Spain like I did.  After about 10 minutes, you can add hearty vegetables like asparagus.  More fragile ingredients such as peas, shellfish, and shrimp should be added at the last few minutes. I've had vegetarian paella, seafood paella, paella with woodland mushrooms, so you're free to experiment (lima beans, even corn kernels).   When the chicken parts are done, mix them into the paella and bury them under the rice mixture a bit.  Now add some kind of sausage to provide a foil to the chicken that is pretending to be rabbit.  For an authentic paella, let the bottom crust up a bit, so that you get a socarrat, or caramelized crust on the bottom.  This is tricky, as you don't want to burn the paella, either.  If you have a traditional flat paella pan with sloping sides, great.  If not, a good heavy frying pan will do.  Spaniards eat as a family directly from the pan at home.  You can do anything you want, what the hell.

Cook's Illustrated showed up today, proving that I have no idea what their publication schedule is.  The editor, Christopher Kimball, tried to suck me in to one of his rambling, earthy, Vermont stories about how he fed Robert Frost's horses leftover apple pie while they were parked beside the wood, but I managed to ignore him.  Notes From Readers tells us how to turn bread into muffins (for example, "banana", and the answer is pour it into a muffin pan).  One reader submitted a question with a picture of some wacky contraption that turns out to be a device for extracting the meat from coconuts.  Quick Tips tells us:  if you have leftover brownies, blenderize them and put the remains in a bag in the freezer for future use as a topping for ice cream (OK, I have to ask, who has leftover brownies?).  An entire article is devoted to the problem of pan-searing thick steaks, which normally leaves a pink center, crusty outside and gray in-between (the answer is use your tongs and move the steak around a lot).  Blackened Red Snapper (which most of the country can't get anyway) is re-thunk.  Italian-Style Chicken with Sausage, Peppers, and Onion is a decent article but doesn't tell an experienced chef much that he/she didn't already know.  Best Vegetable Curry was interesting, although I can't imagine buying curry powder when you can make much better stuff with a coffee grinder.  Four-Cheese Lasagna was a good article, as was Hearty Asparagus-Stuffed Omelets.  I didn't care much about the Ultimate Crumb Cake nor An Easier Bran Muffin.  There were articles rating crushed tomatoes (Tuttorosso won), and $200 toaster ovens (Krups 6-slice Digital Convection Toaster took the honors), which I largely yawned through.  The back page, which is always some artwork of culinary necessities, was Latin American Vegetables, including the Tomatillo, Jicama, Batata, Plantain, Nopales, and Yuca.  I had the feeling that these food sources were to be viewed with the same wonderment as extraterrestrials. 

Poetry tomorrow, most likely.

Posted by jbahr at 06:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I just noticed that Monica Goodling, the Gonzo aide that is invoking her Fifth Amendment rights, is a graduate of the Regent University School of Law.  Regent University was founded by Pat Robertson.  The school's cutting-edge academic research includes Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement, published in the Regent University Law Review.  So, one of the highest-ranking aides in the DoJ is a product of a far-right religious university?  And, I'm surprised? 

Speaking of nut-cases: This site proves that the Copernican model is a sham!  Everything revolves around Earth, just like the Bible says.  Actually, it's a two-for-one website, as it also debunks the theory of evolution.  Needless to say, this guys doesn't like Jews, Catholics or homosexuals, either.

One of the downsides to blogging, at least for me, is that I feel hesitant to submit to any litmag for which a blogmate occupies an editorial position.  So, no more submissions to New England Review or The Canary, just to name a couple.  I would make an exception for 32 Poems, because I know that John Poch will kick my ass in a heartbeat if he doesn't like something, and even when he does like a poem, will make editorial recommendations.  I think the last poem I had accepted by 32 Poems required a truncation of the close and a change of title, for example.  But, I digress.  The newest Canary 6 is a pale green wonderment of poetry.  Absolutely not a single poem sucks, which is saying something.  Here are some that I liked most, though I like a lot more than this:

Dow Mossman, Imperfect Dusk - Mare:  "smalls' birds flap in the song evening of / wapsipinicon. / the common mexico of iowa is fish-jump"

John Ashbery, Old-Style Plentiful:  "..//And yes, we were drunk on love. / That sure was some summer."

Karen Volkman, Sonnet:  "Coracle, rime, red ocean, / little barque that pilots so / drowsily your errant motion / nor waves' bright wake nor hollow"

Mark Yakich, Patriot Acts:  "We calculate our sins poorly spent. // We see your first kiss and raise you a first fuck."

Dora Malech, Smart Money:  "Protagonist's protegé spit-shines the stop signs, / sits in her slip at the escritoire, / pens invitations, folds each kitten / a cootie-catcher. ..."

Henri Israeli, Mickey Mouse Blinks Out:  "Minnie, the pumpkin light / makes my black ears blacker, / and your polka dots are the flavor enhancers / that really get my hard-on harder."

Pimone Triplett, Some Rumors of the Body in Three Acts:  " Visceral, her kickpleat in aspic — /       gamey, full swank. / Then cocks on the gallows, /       then you can't take your eyes off"

Ange Mlinko, Teeenage Royalty:  " At sea in the vintage shop / Earrings' tiny vises, Sirk skirts / A candy stick's whiled away / Painting the interior flora apple-green and melon"

Thylias Moss, Absolute Hairlessness and the Cannibal:  "I feel like a cannibal as I tug at a bagel with my teeth outside Ludlow's Smokers' Palace where I bought it, because this must be the way to tooth-wrestle with raw muscle, ..."

Posted by jbahr at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I haven't been writing poetry lately.  I think it's because I have this theory that if you have nothing to say, you shouldn't say it.

I haven't been doing anything very literary lately, except talking to Der about things literary, perhaps.  While he was having lunch or painting the fence or cleaning brushes.  I have failed to mention poet bloggers whose commentary or work I have admired.  CDY (who is now luxuriating in Sin City, I believe) had pointed to a poem by Paul Guest which was quite fine.  Yes, quite fine.  Paul has also recently posted Seduction With Kissinger, which I quite liked.  The Journal or Indiana Review (I forget which) published my poem about Henry.  I like Paul's better.

Miss Emily is just fine, thank you.  Dr. Stan, our vet, says that once a female cat goes into heat, they pretty much stay in heat.  Apparently, female cats are capable of ovulating on demand.  Their constantly elevated estrogen levels aren't good for their long-term health, and the answer is neutering.  I'm assuming that he is correct and not some kind of nutcase, which I doubt as I've known him for many years and with many pets.

I think I'll enter a few more contests.  What the hell, the presses can use my entry fees, and there are some interesting judges out there this year.  No, I'm not going to say which, but it's not anybody one-dimensional.  OK, I'll mention one.  I admire David Shapiro's work (though I fall short of the fan status of Jonathan) and he's judge of the Marsh Press Poetry Prize.  I'm completely conflicted about poetry book competitions.  I'm quite certain that my 100-odd poems, of which maybe 60 would be in any one manuscript, have way too much emotional range, are too varied between the sincere and whimsical, are too heterogeneous on the plainspoken/disjunctive range, and reflect my generally mercurial nature.

I drove Der to the airport, as Cath is still in Spain and Kyle is recovering from some kind of alien infection that possesses your sinuses.  We had a lovely lunch at Pour La France overlooking the folks who wait under the huge white tent of DIA's main terminal, scanning for their loved ones as they ascend the stairs from the tram.  As Junie predicted, I had the Salad Niçoise (with tomatoes, capers, hard-boiled egg slices, anchovies, baby potatoes).  Derek had my second choice, the Lox and Bagels (with tomatoes, capers, cucumbers, and cream cheese on the side).  Rachel Ray doesn't make that kind of thing.  I know, because I watch 30-Minute Meals occasionally on my morning treadmill walk in front of 200 satellite channels.  Every time I turn around I see Rachel Ray:  on the cover of a supermarket magazine, in the Parade magazine inside the Sunday paper, in the tabloids for splitting with her husband, on the radio doing some promotion.  She seems like a nice-enough gal, though the intentional dumbing-down and "hey, I'm just throwing this stuff together with a budget dependent upon my other job as a Long Island bricklayer" gets a bit old.  Also how all olive oil (which, as I do, she throws into just about everything) is "EVO" (Extra Virgin Olive Oil).  You really don't need "EVO" for most things, including sautéing.  The guy who follows her on Food Network seems a bit more authentic.  He's a personal chef, which in NYC, is a caterer who shows up and uses the Aga range and marble countertop in your gourmet kitchen to feed your intimate party guests.  His focus is showing us how to make really delicious food on a budget, and I like the lack of snobbery (for example, 80% of all frozen fruits and vegetables nowadays are superior to anything you can buy fresh at Whole Foods).  This line of thought would lead me to BET, where they have all those fabulous gospel singers, most of whom are adorned with 8 pounds of wrist, neck and ear bling.  Or the next channel up which is always JAG, at any time of day.  Or the next six channels, which are all infomercials (The Little Giant Ladder, The Glycemic Index Diet, The Bullet Blender), but I digress. 

Talk at you tomorrow.

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I was a little busy yesterday.  First, there was a new rush of client requests.  Meanwhile, Derek needed help organizing the jobs he's doing for me while on spring break (mostly consisting of fence painting, with little likelihood of offloading the task to Sawyer-esque victims).  Then, Der announced that two relatively well-dressed people were at the door.  I immediately thought "Jehovah's Witnesses", but was surprised to find that it was an IRS team.  Three hours of financial anal-probing later, they announced that they were convinced that the perceived problem was a misunderstanding.  I spent most of the rest of the day pulling together the various letters from the IRS over the past 18 months (and I'm always getting them), and writing a summary letter to get Express Mail'ed out this morning to conclude this little shocker (I've never been audited, never even been to an IRS office).  Der finished his work and decided he wanted to walk around the neighborhood posting notices about Emily and Rimbaud, which included their vital statistics, and my phone number and address. I went to bed early with a good book and a clear conscience.

I woke up this morning about 4:30 oddly ready to get up, do my treadmill routine, and finish the IRS letters.  I opened the bedroom door, and there was Miss Emily at the bottom of the stairs, just as if she hadn't been gone for almost two weeks.  She is rail-thin and very needy, but seems to be in great shape otherwise (we going to the vet tomorrow to check).  As she is un-neutered, there's some chance she is in the family way, but I'll see what the vet has to say.   Today, she ate three times her normal amount of cat food, slept in my lap a lot and rubbed up against Dima for some of the afternoon.  Dima's theory is that she read Der's notices and finally figured out how to get home.  I can only imagine where she's been for the past two weeks (stalking birds, drinking from local creeks, sleeping under bridges), but she's clearly happy to be back.  God knows what happened to Rimbaud, who is 8 pounds heavier, a lot stronger, and able to take care of himself.  With luck we'll either find him, or he's grown accustomed to the attention of another family somewhere.

And you wonder why I call this WhimsyLand.

Posted by jbahr at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a tipping point when everybody seem to feel there's a change in the wind.  When the ex-cheerleader, faux Texan accent, daddy-gave-him-everything, bully in a blue suit, starts to concede.  It starts with Katrina, or maybe Harriet Miers, and then the problems mount enough that even Rush, Hannity and Pajamas Media can't explain them away.  The House managed to pass a toothless non-binding resolution against the surge (which many commentators rightly called an escalation).  The Administration compromised to permit Rove and Miers to "confer", but not under oath, regarding the possible obstruction of justice that was the point of firing U.S. attorneys.  Senator Leahy said that's not acceptable, and they should appear and testify under oath.  Yesterday, FBI received bipartisan slaps over privacy abuses.  The Senate voted 92 to 2 today to invalidate the Patriot Act provision that permitted the Executive Branch to avoid Senate review of U. S. attorneys.  I have a strong suspicion that this is only the beginning.  Bush's vain hope that he is actually the currently maligned, but ultimately revered Truman of the 21st century is a pipe dream.  There is still a mountain of ill-conceived product of the Right Wing Conspiracy that is this Administration and its forbearers.  I'm going to sit back and enjoy it.

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Rental of the minivan:  $125.  Gasoline for trip:  $110.  Food and lodging:  $185.  Ticket for speeding through Trinidad: $65.  Look on Derek’s face when he saw his new drum set:  not actually priceless, but I suppose it was worth it.

I was listening to Michael Feldman's What Do You Know somewhere along the way.  Classic takes on Plame:  Yeah, I'd compromise her in a heartbeat.  And :  Valerie Plame is what Ann Coulter thinks she looks like.

More tomorrow.  I had a long day.

Posted by jbahr at 07:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Valerie was articulate, concise, and convincing.  Also, of course, kinda hot.  She laid it out for anyone on the Web or tuned into CSPAN to hear.  The Bush Administration outed a working CIA agent for political purposes.  No, she didn't recommend her husband for the job.  Yes, he was a quite competent choice to go to Niger and get the real poop on yellowcake.  But, her boss made the suggestion (and she's under oath).  This incompetent stooge of a husband (as characterized by the right) served in the State Department in various positions in Niger, South Africa, Congo, and was our Ambassador to Gabon.  This, and his diplomatic duties in Iraq, took place in a 30-year career that included the administration of President Bush's father.  This is only the beginning.  The Democrats appear to be growing balls as we speak, even if the Gonzales affair is a lame place to start.

I'm enjoying reading the recent Whitman winner, Anne Pierson Wiese.  My problem is that I still want poetry to have some measure of concision and mystery.  Now, I'd be the first person to tell you that poetry is anything that a poet writes.  But what if microfiction, essay, or autobiography would be the better medium?  Does that make what I'm reading less enjoyable.  Well,  I suppose not.  It just seems like cheating.  Aren't we supposed to sum it all up (though, God forbid, not at the close)?  Aren't we the truffles and saffron of literature?  The deep, redolent, echoing that chews at memory and keeps you awake wondering where the cusp is?

Tomorrow, I pick up Der and drive to Albuquerque (thank god for spelling checkers).  We're picking up a drum set from my nephew Matt, and I've rented a cheap mini-van from Enterprise for the weekend to do it.  It's down I-25 for seven hours; a meal, playing with my grandniece Gracie; packing up the drums; back on the road in the morning.  Derek assures me that this is a serious set of drums, including a large complement of Zildjian cymbals.  I'm going to have to take his word at it, as I am a musical idiot.

Posted by jbahr at 06:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't know what's funnier, the uncyclopedia, or the Conservapedia.  The former calls itself the "content-free encyclopedia", and also maintains pages of UnNews, such as "All atheists proven to be Muslims", and this:

"Genetic" disorders shown to be the fault of the baby

The Conservapedia may be funnier, if only because, they're serious, with scholarly articles like these: 

An amazing number of articles have as their only source reference a Dr. Jay L. Wile, author of "Exploring Creation With Physical Science", produced by that noted scientific publishing firm, "Apologia Educational Ministries".

~~~

Cheney may soon be sorry that he told Senator Patrick Leahy to fuck off in 2004.  This is all about the eight U.S. attorneys who were dismissed for what some feel was political reasons.  Eight?  Hey, that's nothing.  The White House wanted to fire them all a couple of years ago, an idea suggested by Harriet Miers.    You know, the lady who was nominated to be a Supreme Court justice.  One day soon, we will look back at the hubris of this administration with wonderment.

BTW, Clinton forced some U.S. attorneys to resign.  Two, in fact.  According to the Congressional Research Service, "It appears two resigned under pressure -- one because he grabbed a TV reporter by the throat on camera, and the second having been accused of biting a topless dancer."

~~~

The 2008 AWP will be in NYC as probably every poet on the planet now knows.  It's running from 30 January to 2 February, which seems a month earlier than normal, doesn't it?  I note that the standard rates for rooms at the Hilton and Sheraton are north of $250 a night.  I wonder if there will be a discounted rate.

~~~

Time's cover has Cheney under a raincloud.  The article details how Cheney was chosen because he was "safe", but now his "overbearing style" is one of the Administrations "biggest problems".  Christ, give me a break.  10 Questions for Norah Jones (yawn).  Primary states are ratcheting up their primary dates, begging the question "what's the point", it just moves the whole nomination process up.  Those cavemen on the Geico commercials will star in a sitcom about age discrimination (huh?).  Ernest Gallo, vintner tycoon, died at 97.  China's military budget is projected to be $45 billion, prompting congressional outrage (ours is north of $500 billion).  The biggest scientific experiment in history is being built by the Europeans — the Large Hadron Collider will attempt to isolate the Higgs particle, the missing link in the search for the ultimate source of gravity (we're too busy funding anti-environmental research, apparently).   The scientific consensus is that if bird flu was going to mutate and decimate humanity, it would have already, so breathe easier.   Our support of warlords in Afghanistan has helped the region to the point that at least 80% of the world's opium is a result of their poppy harvest.  The Supreme Court should be weighing in on abortion and affirmative action this year.  There's a piece on Roger Federer who is a phenomenal tennis player that proves that being a phenomenal tennis player isn't enough to capture our collective imaginations.  Oh, also a piece on cricket.  You can imagine how much time I spent with that.  J. K. Rowlings published the first Harry Potter book 10 years ago, and is about to finish it, which represents an outstanding display of character as far as I'm concerned.  Nice piece on the year 1848.  All kinds of stuff happened, including our kicking some Mexican ass (their assessment, not mine) to acquire NM, AZ, CA and other useful bits of territory.  Oh, also the start of the Gold Rush, the proliferation of the telegraph, and the invention of Communism.  Really rich people and corporations have swelled the tax coffers so much that Bush's deficit is down by 50%.  Of course, the rest of us aren't doing so well, but that's because of a lack of ambition

See you tomorrow.

Posted by jbahr at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A recent book by Stephen Prothero, a BU prof in the religion department, documents America's "Religious Illiteracy".  Although seemingly the most religious (and Christian) developed nation on earth, Prothero notes:

Nearly two thirds of Americans believe that both creationism and evolution should be taught, even though the former teaches that the latter never happened.

50% of high school seniors believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

17% of Americans agree that Ramadan is the Jewish day of atonement.

Only 1 American in 3 can name the four Gospels, and 50% can't name even one.

Half of Americans can't identify the preacher of the Sermon on the Mount.

75% of all adults believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is one of the Ten Commandments (it's a Ben Franklin saying).

~~~

I listen to a lot of televangelists on my morning treadmill walk.  My favorite is Dr. Creflo A. Dollar (and his wife Taffy), but Joyce Meyer is no slouch either.  Her ministry's headquarters was built for $20 million and houses $5.7 million in "furniture, artwork, glassware, and machinery", says the county assessor.  In that total are a pair of Dresden vases ($19,000), a malachite table ($30,000), and a marble-top antique commode ($23,000).  The ministry's fleet of cars is estimated to be worth $440,000. 

~~~

Jilly's taking a blogging break, but there's no reason you can't buy Darryl's Jazz CD.  I never know where to throw my money, but that sounds like a good bet.  My son Derek is cutting his first CD this month, together with the Down and Dirty Blues Band.  You can expect me to open up a Whimsical Shameless Commerce Division when it's available.

~~~

There's a lot of good work in the recent (300+ page) Notre Dame Review, from the subdued to the disjunctive.  Contributors include Ciaran Berry (an Alsop Review mate), Trevor Dodge, William Logan, W.S. Merwin, Donald Platt, R. T. Smith, among many others.  A few highlights:

Merwin, Photographer:  "Later in the day / after he had died and the long box / full of shadow had turned the corner".

Sarah Lindsay, Destruction: "..//They say the Baron von Hausknecht traveled / nowhere without a valet, a chef, and a mistress, / and cursed in nine languages, some of them dead,/..."

Logan, The Crane Among Its Minions:  "Like a chalk-white spire / rising over the Herefords of the Beef Teaching Unit, / the whooping crane stood alone with the alone,"

John Hennessy, Vengeance:  "How qualify love for a God who'd wager / with Satan, prop Job — childless, penniless, / riddled with boils he scraped with potsherds, salved"

Shane Seely, Elegy for Anthony Piccione:  "Out by the lake, the graves of soldiers / lurch in thaw. // Their bodies / are uneasy with the weather,"

Patricia Corbus, Pimpernel:  "In the rain, alizarin spatters & runs down towers, / The breasts of the whore weep with regret & compassion, / & the gates, all 28 of them, open & close,"

Sarah Bowman, The Magic Angle:  "of entry // two face a barbed hook, a fastened line, a net / chain-stitched, one drifting, one trawling"

John Kinsella, Compass:  "And so ... depoliticized /         shilly-shally / trendsetter off-centre, off looming water in-city, / cracking encampments / as aspirator or pater hedges semi-mountain uproar / a law unto chemical mosquitoes"

Ryan G. Van Cleave, Two Lovers in an Abandoned Nuclear Missile Silo While, Unbeknown to Them, Biochemical Terrorist Activity Destroys America Above:  "Pink lipstick tattooing his neck, his lungs prickled / by radon-thick air, he leads her in to the black water / tank which once held 30,000 gallons of undrinkable "

Ciaran Berry, Blindness:  "Whether arrived at in the womb or through old age, /    or because hatred in a hoop skirt and whalebone corset /     has been welcomed as honored guest into your home,"

Deb Olin Unferth, Brevity :"..//Deleted Material / 1.  Numbers / Eins zwei drei vier fünf / 2. Pet /Pet pet / petpetpetpetpetpetpet"

Kass Fleisher, Wedded Words:  "words nanosized dancing on the head of a spin she can't but inhale them shit they creep into the corners of her eyes piss the tries to rub them out but they're already halfway to the amygdala which is fuck pores jammed with prepositions ..."

Kristy Odelius, Forecast:  "* // All around me orchestra / was spinning out algebra // I said closed — but eyelids hum, recurring there."

Johnny Horton, Cold War Phonetics:  "Able went into aeronautics with his best friend / Baker.  No good time / Charlies, those two monkeys, wearing hang / Dog faces.  Flying wasn't"

Leo Jilk, Forestscaped Shore:  " ocean I         saw /       the other side of          I was / swinging from           chains/             side to side"

There are also a number of book reviews and an interesting article by blogmate Robert Archambeau called "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Poetry", wherein he reviews the work of Laton Carter Keneeth Fields, and James McMichael in light of Weber's capitalist dictates.  Altogether a fine volume of work, though I don't know why they come to me for free.  I was a contributor a couple of times, but I don't remember subscribing.  They must be the Saturn dealers of poetry.

See you tomorrow.

Posted by jbahr at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

 

Very few modern programming languages are line-oriented, though this was not always the case (particularly in the days of punched cards).  That is to say, it makes no difference to a C compiler whether you write:

for(i=0; i<10;i++) printf("Hello, World\n);

or

for(      i
=0; i <
10;        i++) printf
("Hello, World\n")                    ;

Now, in point of fact, there are conventions that all good programmers use.  A kind of line-orientation, the occasional enjambment, and a modicum of what we call syntactic sugar.  I've just finished reading a number of poems in a variety of mainstream (and relatively prestigious) litmags.  I know that it's an über-cliché to designate a poem as lineated prose, but I honestly can't come up with a better epithet.  And it's not even good prose.

There is a constellation of journals that tend to feature this kind of thing.  Good journals.  No, don't get your hopes up, Poetry isn't one of them.  What Poetry sends every month may not be edgy enough for you, but it's generally competent, often image-ful, and occasionally surprising.  I'm not going to list which stellar litmags make up this constellation (who knows, I may want to submit my sappier stuff there one day), but if you've been submitting for a while, you know which ones I mean.  The biggest problem for me is that there are elements of my broad poetry leanings (temporality, emotional undercurrents, et al.) that often show up in the dozens of conservative litmags I peruse (and hundreds of submissions I read).  I like to think that if you have non-conventional poetry tastes (say, Ron or Kasey) you would be able to discern that I was the baby and they are the bathwater. 

Which reminds me of an exchange that Seth had with Jonathan, in which they each admitted to having read one of the other's poems.  I have read a small sample of Jonathan's poems, and find some diversity in the style and affect.  As for Seth:  he's been published in Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Boston Review.  Oh, he must be at least quasi-avant garde you would surmise.  Also published in Southern Review, AQR and Gettysburg Review.  Oh, he must be pretty SOQ, you say.  Also jubilat.  Also Iowa Review.  Also Antioch Review.  Now what do you say?  My point exactly.  Reading one poem of anybody is a seriously small sample size.  Try it with G. C. Waldrep, for example, and you could walk away with a dozen different impressions, depending upon what you picked. 

Which brings me to my final topic:  CDY noted "There is discontent in the poetry blogosphere right now. It is palpable. I hope it passes soon."  I have seen a lot of friends make statements regarding a situation about which they know almost less than nothing.  You have to trust me on this one.  Wait before you choose sides and pass judgment. 

Yeah, I'm stalling.  I have Notre Dame Review, Canary, and APR to chat about.  Not tonight, though.

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When I was ten or eleven, I lived in Annandale, which is now a suburb of D.C.  I used to run on the Beltway (which was finished but not yet open), varying my pace depending upon the lane I was in.  By the time I was twelve, the "Circumferential", as we called it then, was open and I was riding my bike on the shoulder on the way to my paper route.  One morning, I spotted a stiff dead dog just off the road and recognized it as the pet of one of my friends.  When I mentioned it to him the next day, he said that it couldn't be his dog, since his dad had taken it to a pet cemetery.  I dropped it, but I learned something that day, though I couldn't tell you exactly what.  I woke up this morning to find that Rimbaud and Emily had finally figured out how the cat door worked.  At least that's what I assume, as they are both missing.  I drove around this morning and, later this afternoon, stopped in at the Humane Society to fill out Missing Cat reports and check on the strays that had been picked up.  Both cats have sampled the back yard recently, but have been prone to run back into the house after a brief sniff of the outdoors.  At this point, I'm figuring that either a fox got them both or they ended up at one of the houses within a half mile of me.  Rimbaud is a very muscular 12-pound brute, so I'm inclined to dismiss the fox possibility, and besides, Emily is very quick and it's unlikely a predator would get them both.  They're both very friendly (for sensitive poetic cats), so it's possible they just got lost and ended up having dinner and a nap at a stranger's place.  They're good cats, even if they make Junie's nose red after three days around them.  Oh, I know it's not like losing a parent or even a distant cousin, but somehow I keep finding myself disoriented because Rimbaud isn't sprawled all over the day's mail, and Emily isn't on her back wanting to be belly-rubbed.

I've got an APR and a Canary to finish reading.  See you tomorrow.

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Classic 'Becca:  That's what I did at lunch today, I read AWP blog posts. It made me tired. It made me put my head down on the desk. The only reason I can see attending an AWP is to sell books. And party. I wouldn't read because there wouldn't be enough time (as in weeks or years) to cultivate a new audience, and I certainly wouldn't attend a panel because I think if you think you have anything new to tell me about poetry, about the business of writing poetry, about being a poet, about poetics that I can't learn from reading, from writing, from kissing and dancing and fighting and raising children and caring for animals and climbing trees and falling into holes and getting married and getting divorced and fornicating and worshiping and changing tires and points and plugs and crying and fucking and forgetting, then you're a fraud.

There are nearly 2200 data points in the Publication Submission Response Times database.  I just added some myself, as did a couple of other contributors.  We NEED MORE DATA!  (Mwahahaha).  Seriously, if you submit to journals, please contact me at jbahr(at)set-software-services.com and I'll plead with you to use our user-friendly entry form to add your distinctive submission information anonymously the response time Borg collective.

We're having an MMM staff meeting tonight.  At my house.  I guess that means I have to vacuum.  And chill the wine, bottled water, pink lemonade that nobody ever drinks, white grape juice (which, with white wine, makes a killerbee spritzer).  Also, make coffee and put out the nice spoons and the half-and-half and sugar.  Jeffrey and Erik will tell us all about how much fun they had at AWP and we will hate them.

I went to Brewing Mart (which makes the world's best latté in Colorado and this one was prepared by the cute girl who makes sure the crema fashions a butterfly or snowstorm or umbrella on the top) and paged through Poet's Market 2007.  I've got another 40-50 litmags to add to my publication database, which will push the total up to about 350.  I'm slowly checking the mailing addresses and current poetry editors for accuracy, as well.  I noticed that Shit Creek Review was not sitting between Shirim, A Jewish Poetry Review and Sierra Nevada College Review, as I expected it to be.

Gotta go.  My red Infinity upright calls.

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It's only 136 days until young Mr. Potter is history.

Seth has been waxing on the sociology of the poetry world again, aided by Kasey (as an example) and Joshua (as a notational contributor).  My first impression of the two posts that most directly address the topic is that his wonderment about what goes on at AWP exactly paralleled my somewhat naive presumptions prior to my first venture to one.  My second impression is that his frustration is mirrored by most of us civilians ("Everything I ever "got" in poetry . . . I "got" by licking a stamp").  If there's anything I've discovered about the PoBiz in the last five years, it's that journal submission is the best the PoBiz gets as a demonstration of meritocracy, and it's all downhill from there.  Still, I'm somewhat conflicted.  Even in the sciences, you have to pay your dues, which often means kissing the nether parts of a thesis committee chair or serving on lesser conference panels until someone recognizes your brilliance.  Part of the confusion seems to stem from the delusion that great poets make great teachers, and vice versa.  "Why should that be?",  I've always wondered.  And yet, every MFA program feels compelled to list their most famous faculty in every P&W ad.  Why not their most famous graduates? (which, of course, is also frequently bandied about in support of particular writing programs).  Kasey (and Reb and others) suggest an alternative get-together equaling AWP without the career-oriented paraphernalia.    Hmm, I wonder if that would be as much fun.  I suppose if all of the same poets and most of the same litmag editors showed up and I could do my star gazing, it would.  Would this event still result in the kind of schmoozing characterized by Jimmy's shark-and-octopus exchange?  Does it now at AWP?

On a not entirely different topic, those rascals at Foetry have noted that Emily Galvin has a book deal at Tupelo that didn't go through their contest process.  If that name vaguely rings a bell, it's either because a) you saw her in Long Distance, b) recognized her as a Harvard shuttleGirl, or c) divined that she is the progeny of Jorie Graham and James Galvin.  Ms. Galvin's work is apparently inspired by the Fibonacci sequence.  I think I may make my next poem graphically resemble recursive descent on a B-tree.

Junie's off tomorrow, back to The Land of Wind Chill.  More from me then.

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After following a lot of false trails, I finally found Jimmy.  He's rounding up the BAP 2007 contributors in advance of the actual publication of the anthology, whose guest editor this year is Heather McHugh.  It's nice to see Peter Pereira on the list.  I wonder which poem of Sabrina's was selected.  Ditto, Matthea Harvey.  BPJ adds 5 more poems among four contributors — that's right, someone (Ben Lerner) is in twice. Leslie Adrienne Miller apparently has two contributions, as well.  Jimmy asks if that's every happened before:  no, it hasn't.  Jimmy's list stands currently at:

Kazim Ali  
Jeannette Allée  
Nicky Beers  
Louis Bourgeois  
Geoffrey Brock  
Julie Carr  
Mike Dockins  
Sharon Dolin  
Matthea Harvey  
Galway Kinnell  
Ben Lerner  
Sabrina Orah Mark  
Leslie Adrienne Miller  
Carol Novack  
Danielle Pafunda
Chad Parmenter  
Peter Pereira  
Natasha Sajé  
Brian Turner

~~~

The 51 Best Magazines Ever include Playboy, Mad, Wired, Rolling Stone, National Lampoon, Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated, People, The Paris Review, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Fuck You.

~~~
Notable quotes:

Joshua:  "With the ascent of African-Americans in the Academy's acting categories as well as tennis and golf, it's simply not clear what performance-based categories white people are good at anymore."

Joseph:  "Right-wing patsy & American Enterprise Insitute “scholar” Norman Ornstein never, as far as I know, expressed any worries about the presidential succession over the last 12 years while the Speaker of the House was a Republican. But now he’s all worried about the unconstitutionality of it all. Now, that is, that a Democrat & a woman is third in line should Bush & Cheney be impeached. "

Bill (who apparently kept his promise by declining to be a contributor to BAP 2007):  "I don't want to be in BAP or Pushcart or Rat Vomit Review nor do I want my books to be published by FSG or David Baratier's press, or yours either."

Kate   "How did your manuscript happen to be published by Barnwood Press? Had you sent it out much previously? (Peter Davis, who wins the Truth in Publishing Award) : It's the same sort of story as most people. Meaning, my book got published because of someone I know."

Mike:  "I like collaborating on poems, because it's like a duet. Like "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" or "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" or "Total Eclipse of The Heart". But not like "Paradise By The Dashboard Light", which would be maudlin."

Gabe:  "These [literary movements] are purposefully goofy, stark categories -- utilitarian abstractions whose purpose is heuristic: kind of like how setting an east opposite to a west will allow someone to receive directions to a place they might like to see."

Dale:  "What makes poetry uncomfortable on the market is its insistent reminder that the public is a fiction, and that its manufactured consent interrupts a fuller engagement with the patterns of human life."

Kasey:  "If I were in charge of picking the [Oscar] winner, it would probably be Nacho Libre or Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."

~~~
The mailman generally shows up between 3:30 and 4:00, but often around 5:00 and his record is 6.15, to which I say:  what's the point?  I figure somebody gets their mail at 10:30 AM, but actually, I don't know anybody who gets their mail before noon.  My theory is that if you get your mail after 4 PM, you might as well get it the next day.  And on Saturdays, and countless Federal holidays, the day after that.  It's as if the USPS has their own calendar, like the Chinese who seem to think that New Year's occasion is governed by the moon.  I just received an APR with Hoagland's trademark smirk on the cover, PC Magazine with Tomorrow's Technology Today!, Time extolling the virtues of eating local over eating organic, and The Canary.  I'm particularly happy about The Canary because the elegant monochrome simplicity of The Canary makes me smile.  Also, because I was a contributor once, I think back when it was The Canary River Review or The Canary Who Ate The Burmese Kitten or something.  Who's contributing this issue?  Glad you asked.  Donna Stonecipher, Karen Volkman, Mark Yakich, Dunya Mikhail, Eileen Myles, Pimone Triplett, Ange Mlinko, Thylias Moss and others.  Aren't those just great frigging names?  You couldn't make those names up if you were Chester Gould.
~~~

Yours again on the morrow.

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Robert has written a (typically) thoughtful and intellectually generous piece, see The Poets as Professors.  And, for that matter, Situationism: The Smackdown, at a minimum for its terrific accompanying graphics.

I edited some older poems and actually sent out some submissions today.  It's about time.  How many of you have found that regular blogging taps much of the creative energy that used to be devoted solely to poetic expression?

Jordan does a mini-review of the newly mastheaded DQ.  And says, "No paypal button, but how hard is it to put a check for twenty dollars into an envelope.".  Actually, damnably hard for me, as I almost never write checks anymore.  I wonder how much more literary subscription we'd have if every journal dropped PayPal button on their website?

I have read a couple of hundred times (as have you, most likely), Read The Journal Before Submitting.  I have come to the conclusion that either a) I really just can't get a handle on the broad aesthetic desired by most litmags, or b) knowing what I must submit, I still can't do it.  The former conflicts with my general belief that journals cluster like stylistic constellations.  The second conflicts with my artistic impulse ("how hard could it be to write like what they want?").

I received the latest Poets & Writers with the deliciously scandalous review of "Jeffrey Levine's Dorset Prize Dustup".  Now that old iconic poets don't hump in the bushes of Bread Loaf with young aspirants anymore (at least, I don't think they do), it's difficult to find any really good gossip in the PoWorld.  Harper Collins is using video on their websites to showcase some of their authors.  The Ed Ochester interview describes the strategies that have created six-figure markets for some of the Pitt Poetry Series' most famous poets (e.g., BC, Kooser, Olds).  I suspect Gabe is not among the poets whose title's press run is in the many tens of thousands, but A Defense of Poetry is still my favorite in the series (though, heck, maybe it is, that's a pleasant thought).  Good article and interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  Anuual article/review on writer's retreats, including Yaddo, The Macondo Workshop, Bread Loaf, Squaw Valley, and others.  Good to see one of my favorites, Walter Mosley, telling us to write every day, dammit.  The Practical Writer discusses the recent trend of universities to require web availability of all theses and dissertations — even when this would significantly harm the publication possibilities for students in Creative Writing programs.  Many articles on fiction that I ignored.  A small phone book's worth of awards, prizes, workshops, and grants.

Jesse of the school of quietude has submitted recently to Shampoo, Pinstripe Fedora, The Hat, Tinysides, Coconut, 42opus and Effing Press.  So, I'm assuming the blog title is ironic.  I'm not usually wild about Dara Weir's verse, but I love this line "We were the rags in the hands of a narcoleptic duster" (read in Cynthia A. King's review in Octopus). 

Junie and I saw Hollywoodland last night and, later, she commented on the meaning of the film's ending.  It occurred to me that I seldom have meta-thoughts about movies.  It's probably related to my preference for poetic tactics over strategy (something that Joshua Corey chided me for, perhaps rightfully).  I'm not saying, of course, that I don't like poetry without a plan — my own poetry almost always has a particular locus and a strategy for its orbiting circumlocution.  I think I just don't care enough about extra-poetical strategies.

This month's Poetry has 32 pages of poetry and 38 pages of "comment" (including the list of contributors).  Some decent work by Geoffrey Hill, who is often described as difficult, for reasons I don't understand (On Reading Crowds and Power:  "Cloven, we are incorporate, our wounds / simple but mysterious.  We have / some wherewithal to bide our time on earth").  Narrative verse by Andrew Hudgins.  I liked Eliza Griswold's BedBugs ("In the Bedouin's foam mattress, / a bedbug mother tips back her baby's chin / and pours my blood down his throat ...").  Short lines by Wendy Videlock.  More narrative by Mary Rose O'Reilley (The Abandoned Farm).  Translations of Sophocles by Reginald Gibbons.  R. Nemo Hill's competent Sonnet for Bill.  Intriguing work by Afaa Michael Weaver (American Income:  "The survey says all groups can make more money / if they lose weight except black men . . . ").  The wonderfully quixotic extraterrestrial Iris by Richard Kenney ("Earthlings are long water bags minerally stiffened. // Sometimes two or more attempt to merge / Like droplets, but the physics of surface tension create / insurmountable odds. ...")  Kay Ryan pretty much doing Kay Ryan.  Commentary by Conor O'Callaghan and Anne Stevenson.  D.H. Tracy, one of my favorite Poetry reviewers, provides Eight Takes, including a review of Tony Hoagland's Real Sofistikashun:  Essays on Poetry and Craft.  Tracy left me with the (not atypical) impression that I would appreciate Hoagland's insightful prose more than his poetry, to which I am often indifferent.  Letters:  Our own Henry Gould defends A.E. Stallings (go, Henry) against the mild chastisement of Peter Campion in a prior review.  Marion Shore also write in to defend Ms. Stallings' verse against M. Campion's niggling complaints.  Dan Corrigan doesn't like the brevity of Campion's treatment of Zukofsky.  Joshua Bodwell takes issue with his treatment of Mark Strand.  I guess it's hard out there for a reviewer.

I discontinued my hit counter some time ago because I thought it was distracting me from writing what I damn well pleased.  Now, it turns out that a study casts doubts on the actual number of those served at Mickey D's.  How can you trust me if you can't even trust Ronald?

See you tomorrow, most likely.  Kinda reminds me of "Good night Wesley. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

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