p.s. Hey. First, I strongly urge anyone within or near the confines of London to attend the event heralded by that image you see over there to the immediate right. The cause -- the great, adventurous art space Five Years -- is incredible, and the line up of talent speaks for itself: Stewart Home, Jeremy Reed, the artists and d.l.s Nick Hudson and Esther Planas, and more. It's this Sunday, and all the relevant info you'll need is available with a mere click/enlarge of said image. Otherwise, I'm going to get this post/p.s. combo to you early today because my work day begins at 11 am, which means I'm rather insufficiently caffeined as we begin, and so ... ** Steven Trull, Well, you don't say. ** Bstefans, Hey, welcome, and thank you. Well, it was finding your great site/post/text that instigated the post yesterday, so my blog and I are in your debt. Your making available the pdfs of those rare LA poetry publications is a valuable and very generous thing, and I'll be spotlighting those posts here more directly and pointing people from here to there in the next couple of weeks. Take good care. ** Empty Frame, Hey, thanks, man. Yeah, my head's still spinning about the unearthing of your truer, wilder dad. What an incredible thing to be able to have that revision. It's a fiction-worthy turn. Hostages, interesting. I sure hope I get to see some of these things somehow ere too long. ** David Ehrenstein, Are Carrie Fisher's books word a read? Thanks much for the fill-in on Eleanor Powell. She seems like a cult figure waiting to happen at least. Really want to see that Salinger documentary, obviously. Thanks a lot for the tip off. ** Nicki, Well, I'm not certain that John Thomas' poetry is in the same league as his bio on the 'interesting' scale. But there was a link to a free pdf of one of his books among the stack of links if you like. ** Tosh, No, when John Thomas was arrested and jailed for molesting his daughter, it was completely out of the blue for me, and it seemed to startle even the poets who were friendly with him. I imagine my experiences with him were much like yours since every encounter I had with him came via my gig at Beyond Baroque. I never could figure him out. There was all this reverence towards him from a certain contingent of the LA poets, and when he would show up at BB or read there, it seemed like it was supposed to be a big, rare deal, even though he was always around and did readings as often as anyone else, and his poetry seemed basically to be on a par with the other LA/Venice poets. He always treated me like I was some semi-invisible peon who happened to be situated between him and the mic at BB, which just kind of amused me more than anything else, partly because with his very big, tall body and very booming lower register voice, he had a kind of cartoon character quality about him to me. Bob Flanagan used to do merciless impressions of him all the time. I'd be curious one of these days to ask Jim Krusoe more about Thomas 'cos Krusoe was one of the only older LA poets who was both a figure in that old Venice scene and in the scene of the younger guys like Gerstler, Trinidad, Weissman, Skelley, Flanagan, me, et. al. ** Chris (British), I was going to imagine and then say there might be something kind of interesting in/about that job you have, but I've never done anything like that, so I don't know. I wish had a side-skill like that, like auditor or something, and it scares me sometimes when I realize I don't have the skills or experience to do anything that makes money. Anyway, March is pretty soonish. Will you then be able not to have a job like that for a while, or are you angling for some job more suitable after that? ** Kyle Brod, Hey there, Kyle. That's a little beauty of a video, like a 16 second rush. I also like your carpet. Hm, I'm going to imbed that thing here at the bottom of the p.s., if you don't mind. I think the folks should see it. Everyone, do you see the video imbedded at the base of the p.s. today? It's a 16 second beauty of a thing made by our very talented friend Kyle Brod, and do give it go when you get down there. You should do more works like that maybe? Really dig it. ** Joseph, Nice, man! About May/NYC, I mean. Sounds like a done and affordable deal, yeah. Tread lightly in the meantime. I think part of why Poppy has given up writing fiction for the time being at least is because she was very hurt by the fact that the last novel she wrote was rejected by her publisher and maybe others too. I don't know if that's the sole reason, but I know that heavily bummed her out. That's totally weird about the acceptance turned rejection. Wtf! That's stupid as well as being very bad form. I don't think a little bitching would hurt if it would help. ** Bernard Welt, Hey, B! As Kyle said, yeah, I think you can email the Quicktime clips to me if they're not too huge, and I can upload them onto the blog. Like he said, you can do that or upload them onto youtube or Dailymotion or somewhere like that, which is apparently easy although I've never done that myself. I'll do whatever you need on my end, and that's exciting, and thanks a zillion. ** Steevee, I'd be surprised if Poppy isn't writing at all, but, yeah, I think she's pretty down on the biz of getting published right now. There are kind of a ton of those kinds of Daddy does Twink sites out there if you're interested, and I'm not saying you should be. The Daddy Muggs site has a weird homey or something vibe about it that makes it at least a slight oddball in the genre. ** Chilly Jay Chill, As I was saying to Tosh up above, I found Thomas mostly kind of pompous and snobbish more than difficult really, although having to deal with him via my job programming events at Beyond Baroque was rather difficult as a consequence. But I'd say he was more of a drag than a handful. I'm on the Korine/Blaine hunt. I've heard it's pretty good but not something you could consider one of Korine's real works. Listening-wise, I'm kind of between things right now, I guess. The new Owen Pallett is the only recent record that's really grabbed me. You? ** Creative Massacre, I hope the doctor sees the discomfort you're in today and schedules you for the removal immediately. Jesus, I'm sorry, pal. And about the ongoing relationship pains too. What an insane combination. I really hope you can start getting rid of the physical shit at least, ideally as of today. Let me know how it goes. All my very, very, very best to you. ** L@rstonovich, That Thomas poem wasn't his best, to give the guy credit. It was just the only one I found online that could be copied and pasted. Other of his stuff is more sexual, hallucinatory in nature and less Bukowski-like. Yeah, say the word when your collection is formatted. Will you post it, get it a publisher, or how will you proceed? ** Alan, Ha ha, like someone else here said, I kind of thought the Japan thing on your blog was just an aesthetic reference thing or something. Coolness that you're there, and that airport runway image was great. Are you there for in-law meeting and greeting or for other reasons or for other reasons as well or ... ? ** Misanthrope, Well, who's to say those DL photos were taken yesterday, you know? On the off chance that he did write that obnoxious profile, I think I will you let you have first dibs on finding and doing him. I think working with the birds won't take place until the spring. Their parts are pretty basic: Perch, fly, land on fake prey, leave. Gisele with the help of some other guy made the puppets herself, so they were only as expensive as the cost of the materials and the time they took to make, but I don't know the figure. I'm seeing G. at 11 am, so I'll ask. ** JW Veldhoen, What is this new possible job that I'll be praying to whatever gods I can find -- if I can find any -- that you will get again? Terrible sentence construction there, sorry. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Oh, 'The Letters of Mina Harker', right, nice one. The last chapter will be exciting if I can ever get to the point where I can actually write it. 'Doctor Japan' isn't very inspired as a site either. It's just the Japanese porn equivalent of all the other "hunky but 'going to seed' doctor molests twinkish patient" sites out there. Not that I'm complaining. But not that I plan to spend much more time over there either. I'm sure Bendy is okay, but you have got me thinking about biting my nails in anticipation of his in-person return to your day reports, so keep me up on the latest. If this 'under control' friend is the same friend you keep telling me odd stories about, she is one trippy lady. I used to be able to spout all the ins and outs of 'Lost' before I 'moved' over here. Now I'm four seasons behind, and most of the islanders I knew are either dead or have turned evil or saintly. Not much of a Tuesday to report on. Kind of sleepy. I got exiled by the cleaners, of course. During this extended time outdoors, I bought the new issues of The Wire and Mojo as well as some food items, and then I stood under an awning that sort of protected me from the rain and started reading The Wire and made it perhaps 40 pages when I was allowed back into my little kingdom here. The sink in our bathroom started leaking the night before last, and I told the powers that be here how it needed to get fixed, and they said 'right away', and, as is kind of typical re: the Recollets, no one showed up to fix it, so I have to ask them again today a little less casually. I wrote, not too well, unfortunately. I can't really talk about this, but that aforementioned huge mess re: my novel 'My Loose Thread' and the wannabe film director who basically stole the rights reached a big make or break crisis point yesterday, and it's going to all go either straight to hell or slightly closer to heaven in the next few days. I had coffee with the Osc and the KP. Nice, that was. Not much else, frankly. My shower, meals, cigarette breaks, etc. were sadly unremarkable. Today might be more interesting due to starting the rehearsals finally, maybe. Your day? ** Bill, Heard anything from Chrystel? She wasn't in the office yesterday, but I have a great excuse to go down and try to corner her again today. For Avignon, I would guess hotels get filled up early, yeah. It's a tiny town, and it gets packed to the rafters with festival goers, so I would only have to guess rooms get scarce by a certain point. Hopefully some news from me by tomorrow. ** Sypha, I think you embracing the short story form makes total sense, and you certainly proved with 'Grimoire' that it's a form beautifully fit to your gifts, and a great short story is as great as a great novel anyway. Plus, they keep saying the short story is making this big comeback, and the popularity and prevalence of Flash Fiction these days speaks to the increased viability of the short. Glad your blog's back. Give a heads up here when you update it, if you don't mind. ** Alec Niedenthal, Hey, man! Wonderful to see you! My tender condolences to you on your loss. I was actually going to recommend that James Tate poem, but someone over on HTMLG beat me to it. Amy Gerstler has some great dog poems, but I can't recall their titles right now. How is the start up of school? Is it going to be negotiable and in-putty in any interesting way at all? Feel better, man. ** Alyssa Nolan, Hey. It's really cool you're one of the contributors to Transductions. I was really jazzed to see that! No, still haven't hit a 'Serious Man' screening. Busy-ness, but I want to by this weekend maybe. I really feel like I need to catch up with 'Hurt Locker' after all this critical and awards shebang around it. Let me know how high my hopes should be. My novel is creeping forward right now. I really thought I was ready to head into the final section of the first draft, but then I realized that in order to do the ending I want, I need to layer these two other key elements/ narratives into what I've already written, so I'm doing that, and it's laborious and not much fun. My time management skills aren't too bad. I wish they were better, but I guess the fact that I'm working on three major projects at once says something, even if that means my real life itself is kind of wispy. Take care, A. ** Justin, Strangely, despite my passionate interest in making a graphic novel, I'm not really a big reader of them, and I never even read comic books as a kid. In fact, I'll have to think a bit to recall the favorites gn's I have read. I'm more versed in manga than I am in Western style graphic novels. You have any faves you can recommend? It would be problematic to publish my theater scripts since they aren't written to stand on their own. They're very much mixed in with the visuals and music and so on. There is a plan in the works to publish a big coffee table book about/of the works Gisele and I have done together that would combine the texts with lots of images of the pieces and probably a CD of the scores. That might happen later this year. That's probably the best way to do it. In and of themselves, the scripts would seem very and maybe too fragmentary, I think. Thanks for asking, J. ** Oscar B, My post-seeing you time has been pretty standard stuff, I guess. Sorry you got zapped, pal. Hm, I think those questions you ask about 'Index' are questions that are intentionally raised by the writing and part of the disorientation and confrontation it seeks. I guess the technical answer would be it's Sotos' imagination talking to itself, and the reader needs to find both his or her position and Sotos' exact location within the dialogue as they read, if that makes any sense. The title 'Index' and the implication of a thing that is compiled and that exists without the thing it is indexing is kind of a directive in that regard, I think. That make any sense? Maybe talk to you later post-rehearsal, assuming it ends at a civilized hour. ** Right, there you go and earlyish, like I said/hoped. I think it was Put The Lotion in The Basket who put the idea of a Watts Towers post in my head. I want to very warmly thank Christopher/ Mark for allowing me to use his terrific photos. Have fun, and I'll be seeing you again shortly of course.

The subway passing behind my apartment from Kyle Brod on Vimeo.