some recent reads have included a hand full of chap books.

I love the size of chap books; the tenderness which they are assembled and the time it take to read through one - fast (though that time can vary from the time it take me to take the muni to work or sitting down and listening to a CD by whoever whats their name ...)another nice thing about chap books is for the most part they are gifts, exchanges at readings, so they always take is this deep significance for me... so here is my reading list for the past _____or so..

1. Skip Fox's, Adventure of Max & Maxine. Auguste Press, 659 Fillmore Street, #4, San Francisco, CA, 94117, 2003.

I was originally indulging myself in the wonderful *what of*
book of short prose / poem / essays, pieces by skip full of language and humor; and Adventure of Max & Maxine, is just a short version with a loose theme that is a maelstrom of logic humor, as animals, zoos, sex and everything else somehow come to gather in a landscape logic.

*Pigs imagine themselves as something other than they are: rams, or bears and saints. There's a little saint in every piglet. And a little tapeworm in every saint. And unicorns bleeding into fishes, and fishes running away in united boots over green tabletops, clompity seas, broken little shanty, my head's on straight but my wings are caught in the blast known as otherwise, my face a study in erosion, carved by sunset, approximately fifty grains an hour over three-hundred-thousand years . . .*

2. Christopher Nealon,
The Joyous Ages, Ferocious Rhino Press, 2003.

I had the wonderful pleasure to read with Christopher at The New Brutalism
reading series at 21 Grande in Oakland, which always seems to crystalize the text for me (not oakland but reading with someone). *The Joyous age,* which maybe a part of a new book coming out by Chris this march(?).. any ways.. this is a wonderful piece of prose poetic prose poem text . . . and if Chris's book is anything like this I will be one of the first to grab a copy. the text is just this side of a string that ties a narrative to a narrative state, with *interesting scrapes, (and) something about twenty families hold all the wealth.* here are some bits and pieces:

*Of course, people need to be excused for everything they said in the first flush of reaction: each of us was a blithering, terror stricken and shocked person, and we shouldn't be held accountable for out remarks.*
*There are the storms of the new compassion / These are the stones of the new comprehension / This is the roll of thunder unrolling at the mouth's gate saying no one can translates this*

3. Acts, by Mytili Jagannathan, from habenicht press, 2003

Without looking up Mytili's biography,
I could hear words that reach a depth where *agitation and remorse begin to arise* and filters through the body, raising red flags at every colonialist turn this writer has encountered. Of all the twenty-one page's of poems, and half I have put little stikies on so I know I can find self amongst these pages.

*most things happen in twilight

warmed by a switch

to transport

anger through traded

lips you struck a vow

forged of wishes

a cauldron-

reporter

of small treetop

rufus-sided towhee

every sorry

drink-you-tea

knew what I knew

there's an ocean in route to

the boat re-start

your story Im talking to you


4. Nancy says- *just say no!,*(Self Published, 2003) by Masha Gutkin.

Masha also does a food column
for the Bay Guardian, that explores everything from fast food, to eating alone.. Masha is one of the best local food writers in the area, especially one dealing with items like those little stickers on your fruit, but i digress; Nancy says- *just say no!,* is a about the third or fourth chap book I have received from Masha... in some places there is a wonderful sense of humor that cuts; *She wishes her thoughts were horses, but they're hamsters, if they are anything that moves.* and in other places creating meaning out of the mundane..

* Dear H

I begin, paring you down to a letter. H though, is maybe to solid, There's something Germanic
in its no-nonsense construction*

this is a wonderful little self published chap book that you can not get unless you know Masha, that takes one to the *depths up to a point and then, like it or not, I'm brought up short by the two tines infinity converging, never meeting*

*No one knowing me knows me. I am II.*
--Gertrude Stein,
The Geographical History of America.

SOLDIER KILLED IN IED ATTACK 12/5/2003

a floating johnny on the pot

call me a cunt mouth horror rag cock bitch after birth old worn dish hag - a witch you can burn at the stake - call me stupid retarded - call me fagot freak bitch queer whore, thats right I have done things for dinero you can't even get your mouth around, homo, yes; lesbo, yes; dyke, sissy boy, demented yes, yes yes - asphyxiate me with gender disorder with transvestic fetish paraphilia not otherwise specified; with anorexia nervosa not otherwise specified with psychopathic schizod sicko potty mouthed lock stock and barrel - a love that dare not speak its name, crime against nature, humanity, what the fuck - incubus and succubus tramp rolled into one off color pervert telephone sex simulator water sports zoophaic creaming my jeans fucking intercourse jerk off bull dyke closet queen, drag queen, call me flaky queen for a day, I am the king smegma and dirty little fist fuck androgynous bearded clam out of the closet punk tribade bunghole clit crack castrated freak homosexual, a homosexual, a homosexual, a homosexual limp wristed poof transsssssSEXual invert unsexual slut surrogate stud piece of meat; yes that right I am rough and ready dirty fag hag, a flaming gender fuck latent in my leather scene sapphist twinkly vegetable bugger well-hung boxed beaver dental dam and yes yes yes my mother should have had abortion..call me bad horrible guilty sinful trader betrayer normal cccock sucking consevative PC blood sucking sex change tofu head communist anarchist dishonorably discharged mental retard undesirable ...it does not matter I am the grease paint in a cheap operetta off broadway and it on ever single day and I am the star...

Adrienne Rich
False history gets made all day, any day, the truth of the new is never on the news...

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: It's a girl.
Shirley Chisholm

"I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx

from daphne gottlieb,
Workers at Borders Books store #1 in Ann Arbor, MI will go on strike this Saturday, November 8 at 9:00 AM. We do not take this step lightly. By striking, we hope to convince Borders Management to negotiate with us in good faith so we can reach a fair contract and return to our jobs.
We are writing to ask you to continue to support us by
1) boycotting all Borders, Waldenbooks, and Amazon.com;
2) volunteering to picket with workers in front of the store;
3) joining Borders Readers United, our community support coalition (bru@riseup.net)
4) calling Borders Headquarters (734-477-1100) to tell them you support us;
5) coming to our Strike Fund Concert at the Ark in Ann Arbor on 11/10/03;
6) signing an online petition: Borders Readers
7) forwarding this message to all your friends and colleagues!

In Solidarity and thanks,
Borders Workers Union Organizing Committee

It seems easy for some to use words without knowing the historical context or the difference; such as “transvestite” or (transsexual?), and the bigger question is; why is it important to label someone…It is the same in literature when the writer identifies one by the color of their skin but never identifies the main character as white… so whether it is labeling one black or transvestite trans_exul (minus the *s* is a way the trans community has taken back the word) or by the color of ones skin can be seen as privileging whiteness or heterosexism over the other.

so why is it easy for those in privilege positions to randomly throughout these terms?… or is it just another way to situation the writer as one of certain normal privlaged class i.e.; “I am not that… I am the normal one… I do not need a label.”

Are words such as transgender, transsexual, transvestite, hermaphrodite and berdache accurate descriptions of who we are? Or are they just convenient (or in some cases, derogatory) categories for containing the unknown? Philosopher Judith Butler asks a few more questions:
Is there 'a' gender which persons are said to have, or is it an essential attribute that a person is said to be, as implied in the question 'What gender are you?'? [...] If gender is constructed, could it be constructed differently, or does its constructedness imply some form of social determinism, foreclosing the possibility of agency and transformation? Does 'construction' suggest that certain laws generate gender differences along universal axes of sexual difference? How and where does the construction of gender take place? [...] When the relevant 'culture' that 'constructs' gender is understood in terms of such a law or set of laws, then it seems that gender is as determined and fixed as it was under the biology-is-destiny formulation. In such a case, not biology, but culture, becomes destiny. (7-8.)


Crossdresser (Transvestite - CD or TV) - Trans* person who does not have surgery or use hormones, but dresses in clothing typically associated with the opposite sex. Sexual orientation varies. (Note: The word "transvestite" is on its way out because of the connotation of a "transvestite prostitute," and because most people automatically think "fetish" when they hear the word transvestite. A tremendous number of crossdressers really don't crossdress for sexual arousal.)

Knowing or Epistemology
Most of us need some structure to our world. We would not be able to maintain completely open minds on all things, making decisions completely anew on the complex facts of every encounter. It is comforting to know what a chair is, to be able to recognize any one of several members of the class "chair," and to have a word for that class of objects. Unfortunately, having a word for that class of objects means that sometimes we cannot see anything but a chair, once we have classified and labeled the object. Thus, when an artist suspends a chair from a cord, hanging it by one leg, we may be confused and uncomfortable, for one cannot sit on an object so suspended. The artist is forcing us to reassess what we know, in particular, what we know about chairs.

The process we have just described of learning to recognize and classify a chair as a chair is called "naming" or "labeling." Once we have named or labeled an object we tend to see the object in that role or use. It becomes harder to see the object in another, different light. Whorf refers to this as the phenomenon of language as a cloak, of our tendency to interpret the objects we see by the names we have for them. Other authors, like Rokeach (The Open and Closed Mind), speak of dogmatism. Dogmatism describes the difficulty we have of conceptualizing solutions that rely on concepts outside the set of named categories and expectations we have learned.

In labeling others, we are often off mark and offensive


In spite of the old nursery rhyme about sticks and stones, we all know that words can hurt. Words can also have a powerfully positive effect, however. They can convey respect and acknowledgment instead of hatred and exclusion. One of the most important lessons from the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and other struggles for liberation has been the recognition that everyone, especially those who have been oppressed, should have the right to choose what to call themselves.

Protection From Pornography Week, 2003
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

but pretend it is this way...



pretend to get board, truly bored. the wrong body blown-to-bits creeping along the floor, bored. and not just killed, but a soul without mileage, caught in along the ocean's genderdysleixc graveyard; or just blind for a moment; a point where pleasure merges with near zero; just off the horizon; thick with the sound of dropping ladders, thousands of ladders with no place to go but fall; what could be done? crossdress or find someone who will surgically pretend anything you want, use multi-voices from unheard crevasses across the continent to your door; hire personal floor advisers to wish upon a star, dead or alive; together, one's own blood to the next; a billion billion billion light years from there you are, neither this way or, chemically enhanced, or bored, more board than an entire life could suspend; neither montana gandhi or christ on hormones jorgensen could tie a knot around this azure as azure as blush almost rhapsody; a talcum powder tale vibrating vacuum stick, yet business as normal. an apparatus contained in a single unit, written in proper grammar / english / legalese; in the manner of the copy of the original lattice work in marble, from a forgotten pause, nearly lost then found then lost then paradise and then bored; five thousand square miles always on sale, delivered to any door, a clitoris or a phallus in neon working order, with the chance to be the other, with an oath never to tell everyone that knows, nature made a mistake, or didn't, which has been corrected or not,any thing to truly be bored.

....................................

A BOOK LAUNCH in SAN FRANCISCO for DENNY SMITH
(a book of stories) by ROBERT GLÜCK

Denny Smith is a new collection from the author of Margery Kempe, Jack the Modernist, Elements of a Coffee Service, and Reader.

These stories will generously reward language lovers, lovers of wonderfully observed fiction, and those who simply delight in watching subtleties of sensibility analyzed with concision and wit. To read them is to see, up close and in color, what much of our contemporary world is, in its failings, in its pleasures, in its pathos and sexual richness.
—Samuel R. Delany

MODERN TIMES BOOKSTORE,
888 VALENCIA —
2:00 PM SUNDAY DECEMBER 14th FREE
READING: ROBERT GLÜCK

And:
A BOOK LAUNCH in OAKLAND for THE CLEAR CUT FUTURE: AN ANTHOLOGY
21 GRAND, 449B 23rd STREET — 7:30 PM FRIDAY DECEMBER 12th $3
LIVE MUSIC: THE ELDERS OF ZION (laptop dub by Joel Schalit)
READING: ROBERT GLÜCK (poet, fiction writer)
PRAVIN JAIN (ex-VP of Enron International)
PROJECTED IMAGES: ARI MARCOPOULOS

And:
A BOOK LAUNCH in SAN FRANCISCO for THE CLEAR CUT FUTURE: AN ANTHOLOGY THE MAKE OUT ROOM, 3225 22nd STREET —
7:00 PM SATURDAY DECEMBER 13th $3
LIVE MUSIC: THE ELDERS OF ZION (laptop dub by Joel Schalit)
READING: ROBERT GLÜCK (poet, fiction writer)
PRAVIN JAIN (ex-VP of Enron International)
PROJECTED IMAGES: ARI MARCOPOULOS

ABOUT CLEAR CUT PRESS AND OUR BOOKS
Greetings from Clear Cut Press, in Astoria, Ore. We publish eight original books a year in affordable, softbound, pocket-sized editions. Our authors include Charles D'Ambrosio, Stacey Levine, Robert Glück, Emily White, Lisa Robertson, Matt Briggs, Diana George, Bruce Benderson, and many others. Clear Cut Press books are available at our web site, www.clearcutpress.com, through bookstores, or by subscription.

so you want to be a rock-n-roll star
The virtual drum set


found on
Mark Woods, ::: woods lot :::


after looking at
chris murray's tex files
thankyou chris.. this was fun...

ONE SOLDIER KILLED IN IED ATTACK 12/2/2003

GearySt. Reading Series

Thursday Dec. 4th 7pm

Café Melroy 835 Geary St.
San Francisco, CA

$3


Readers:

Garrett Caples

Joseph Donahue

Andrew Joron

for questions/directions contact: gearystpoets@yahoo.com

An Interview with Julia Kristeva

by Nina Zivancevici

Q: Given the fact that you have written a lot about the importance of the so-called "sick" states of mind, could you tell us whether they are related in any way to Art ? Would you see Art as the means of healing them or do you see it as an independent entity? Is Art a sort of "love" for you (the way Freud would have it) and a sort of human cure?

Kristeva: It has always shocked commentators when I affirm my agreement with the ancient Greeks who viewed art as catharsis or purification and I would add that it is a sort of sublimation for the "borderline" states, in the broadest sense of the term, that is, it comprises those characterized by fragility. If we analyze contemporary art, we get the impression that two types of fragility are examined by contemporary artists. On one hand, we have perversion, that is, all sorts of sexual transgressions. To this effect, it is enough to just browse through contemporary books or simply look at the "culture" pages of "Libèration" which review exhibitions to see that the form and the content of the experience serve as means of overcoming these states. They testify to the existence of these states, as well as that of a certain desire to make them public, or even share them with others, that is, to take them out of their closet which is a soothing action after all despite its commercial aspect since one turns a "shameful thing" into something positive. So you see, here we have something that transcends the notion of "cure" and is at times something gratifying.

The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library's catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound.

Word Oddities


Twyndyllyngs, twelve letters long, is the longest word in the English language without any of the five main vowels. An eleven letter word with this property is the singular form, twyndyllyng. An eight letter word with this property is symphysy. Seven letter words with this property include gypsyfy, gypsyry, nymphly, and rhythms.

TASK FORCE “ALL AMERICAN” SOLDIER KILLED 12/1/2003

@ poetic inhalation
edited by star smith &andrew lundwall you will find a wonderful grouping of writers and aritist; along with a reivew of my new book iduna, obooks, 2003

anne marie eldon...aparna sharma...larry jaffe...
mark young...paul skyrm
featured artist...aparneet singh
translations by...maya jouravel...todd sanders...ray federman
featured artist...hemut kand
jason beam...temptation
colleen af venable...art taboo
v mann...bound and gagged
stephen mead
ignacio fusilier artistry fused with star smith poetry
raymond federman...gaston the rejected editor


review of iduna and william allegrezza's lingo


kari edwards' iduna
102 pages, ISBN # 1-882022-49-1, $12.00.
O Books : Distributed by SPD: http://www.spdbooks.org/

by andrew lundwall
a review of kari edwards' iduna

kari edwards' iduna is a very imaginative work.... you might say it's a pastiche of reality borne from edwards' poetic eye...

in the world of iduna language criss-crosses itself on a wavering road.... kari i feel is an investigator one whom constantly investigates the confines of reality and language... her vision startles reality as if 5 different television sets were turned on at once and the images they produce were superimposed upon one another.... her language is one that bursts at the seams... it allows for consciousness expansion...

sexuality... the grotesque drooling mouth of mundanity... and other themes i feel are touched on with a surgeon's precision in this work....

as i read iduna and listened to the drone of other-worldly violas fleeing from my stereo's speaker i'd felt as though i were on drugs... i could feel my mind expanding and contracting... definitely an interesting experience...

check it out.... on chris murray's tex files


Stephen Vincent
has been chosen as Texfiles Poet of the Week, featuring a section from Stephen's excellent book, Walking, a section subtitled "African Cycle" (Junction Press, 1992)


./////\\\\\\\.

the holy ghost: a table of contestants, preface or profuse statement forms a plate like process or how to take the tabla rrosa to the dance floor and boogie all night till you puck sing-a-long.

first and foremost such and such

HHeLiBeBCNOFNeNaMgAlSiPSClA

rKCaScTiVCrMnFeCoNiCuZnGaGe

AsSeBrKrRbSrYZrNbMoTcRuRhPd

AgCdInSnSbTeIXeCsBaLuHfTaWRe

OsIrPtAuHgTlPbBiPoAtRnFrRaLrRf

DbSgBhHsMtDsUuuUubUutUuqUup

UuhUusUuo

or maybe

(. . . it must be or should be acknowledged that phillis wheatly died free . . . but lets not forget that phillis wheatly lived most their life as a slave . . . lets never forget that.)

first and foremost or x; and just case something or someone comes in second, I will pardon the question and at the same time nothing more needs to be said.

part three.
tangible as a rock.

conclusion: decorative doormats


anonymous myths give birth to other anonymous myths

crime scenes stain run-on rampant glory-be celebrations and other time devices

it's all a silly guess who's-at door number _____
there's no knocking . . .
there's a missing conjunction
"x" arrives, the situation lasts longer than anticipated
the facts indicate something or some things
actuality is never accounted for
then deemed alphabetically silent
there's a situation...
somewhere inside a damage dance
mortally wounded
notices the shelves are stacked with star sediment

A Spoken Word Performance to Benefit Fire & Ink, A Writers Festival for GLBT People of African Descent


Saturday December 6, at 7 PM
ChangeMakers, 6536 Telegraph Ave.,
Oakland
510-655-2405
$5-$12, sliding scale


Over the years there have been many writers' conferences and festivals.
In September 2002 there was a first. A writers' festival for GLBT people of
African descent. Long overdue. Help make it happen again.

Performers

host: Karen X
Carla Trujillo
Earthlyn M. Manuel
Marvin K. White
Juba Kalamka
Tim'm West
Brigitte Roberts
Michelle Tea
elen gebreab
Bahiyyih Maroon
Jennifer Argle
Gwendolyn Bikis
Mattie Richardson

-

from: succubus in my pocket

within a zero countdown I turn to w.w.w -
-I want to wake up where we left off and dream in a different state.
-what do you mean?
-I’ve done it before, from the beginning of time, past the nearly fathered fathers to the black ice to now and once again, but I do not remember that.
-which means?
-its all held on the grassy knoll, now held within museum that contains the ten most significant events, in the room next onto another long march.
-before what?
-it was a group of panelist trying to come up with verbing nouns that could occupy my unique position.
-which matters?
-I was offered near endorsements and hundreds of useful products, just to take a position on any position.
-before what?
-exchange of skin samples, rights to my maturation process for a period of time, all I had to do was live as a six foot square container to determine length or time and what affect certain pajoratives had on me. *yes yes yes they said we will give you a two life times worth of pimple cream and wart removal.*

just then the elevator arrives as time was about to run off by itself; jumping on before those dressed in correct strategies where able to press through, we both press indifferent locations in one of many subbasements.

Pablo Picasso


Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.



.................. .............. ........... .............. .

please check out the work of sawako nakayasu
at The Ongoing Show
and at
Texture Notes

Walt Whitman 
 Song of the Open Road


3

You air that serves me with breath to speak!  
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers! 
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides! 
I think you are latent with unseen existences—you are so dear to me.  
  
You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges! 
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!
You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards! 
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much! 
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!  
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has been near you, I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me;  
From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.  

Confirmed reports are that two U.S. soldiers were killed and one wounded. November 29, 2003