Netflix for the weekend, books, books, books

In January I watched 15 movies. Here are the top three:

Lion's Den (terrible name)

Goodbye Solo

BRAND UPON THE BRAIN (awful, awful name)

The first two are instant-- so when you are snowed in this weekend, watch'em and let me know what you think.

Lion's Den is about a pregnant woman accused of killing her two lovers/tormentors and the Argentine prison system.

Goodbye Solo is so painful/beautiful to watch because of the exuberance of Solo, the cabbie. ( I have to say that I LOVED Chop Shop, though. This is also instant. It's by the same director, an earlier movie. Two children living above a chop shop in NYC, making it on their own)

BRAND UPON THE BRAIN isn't some anti-consumerism movie by Naomi. It's a gorgeous sci-fi/mystery/art film created on Super Eights. The first two chapters of the story are a little too fast, the director really hits his stride at chapter four. Mother issues? Yup, this guy's got them. It's freaky and sexy weird.

I only read one novel in January.

The Cave by Saramago.

I was so taken by his Death with Interruptions . I was surprised by how hard a time I had finishing this one. The last thirty pages are mind-expanding, though. I had a hard time with the book because it's all about normal life, normal worries-- like making a living, marriage, pottery. I could appreciate the story and the subtle message, but I've developed an intolerance for normalcy. The Death with book is an idea book and that got me off big time.

I hit the absolute book jack-pot in Westminster, MD of all places. I was out there for work and stopped at the biggest Goodwill I've ever seen. I took home 12 books:

A FIRST EDITION (hardback) Invisible Cities Calvino
Identity Kundera
A Wild Patience has Taken Me This Far Rich
NightwoodBarnes
Anil's Ghost Ondaatje (another first edition, hardback)
Anna Karenina Tolstoy (hardback)
Moscow Women, 13 interviews
Between the Acts Woolf
Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion
Virginia Woolf (bio)Gordon
And two art books.

What an incredible find! Usually I spend about two minutes in the book section of Goodwill-- long enough to see all the Clancy and romance novels and leave. This time, I spent about forty-five minutes treasure-hunting. I have (had?) a kindred spirit out there in Westminster.

Happy happy happy happy birthday Gertie!

Ah, the girl slow to realize. Not, no, not slow to realize. She knew right away and why not? It's Gertie's birthday today and it's strange how the dead still get birthdays and the unborn do not. That's because they haven't been born yet, obviously. Once you get borned you get to celebrate that even after you die. Being born is big. Which is true, they celebrate the father's birthday by spitting wine on the cold of December and they run in circles with the wine coming from their mouths onto the frost-bleached ground. But, they do not even acknowledge the death day, which happened in April, the "earth day" and a week or two after the girl's birthday and is April the cruelest? Of course not. Hey Gertie, how are things on this birthday that we are celebrating long after your bones have given up all their minerals? After the heavy brown burial gown is dry-rotted and brittle? It is a happy day to remember, the day you were a baby sucking at a servant's breast and pawing at her tender buttons.

Today is probably not a good day for the girl, even though it is a good day for Gertie. It is a good day for Gertie. It's always about the breast, full breast, come flying. Today the girl is taking stock and still shivering; it is more like a deep tremor coming from the inside of her dark torso. It happens in the legs, too, and the neck, it's clear that there is a disconnect, a misfire between the brain and eyes. There is only so much standing on one leg, that is, testing of one's balance. Suck down hard on a peppermint and the nausea will forget how to tumble. She expected as much.

Justin Sirois is doing

a lovely remembrance project for the poet and prankster David Franks. I contributed a poem that is up today:

And Amen and Amen and Amen

Please visit the site to find other poems about Franks and great links to stories about him on The Signal.

How about it?

I'm very excited about this weekend. I think (and hope) that the reading is going to be well attended and that I've put together a diverse group of artists and poets. The freak flag is a gonna be a flyin.

Long week of interviewing-- I logged 25 interviews at three different places around the state. Lots of driving and talking. I met God and he was lovely. I'm not being a smart-ass.

I started a new poem after hearing my mom describe the sound of the siding being torn off her house by the wind.

I think that I am going to attend Jen's workshop at the Creative Alliance tonight. I have to see how much it is. I haven't been in a fiction workshop in years and years. The workshops really killed fiction for me, actually. So it's dangerous that I'm considering attending.

I almost forgot!

Issue Ten of Robot Melon is live. My story, Glass, Clay, Agate is included. It's about two Russian immigrants squatting in West Baltimore. That, and grief, and welding.

New Year, New Year, New Year

I made it out of the house to visit the Gorky retrospective at the Philly M of A. I highly recommend that you make the trip before the show leaves on Jan 10. It was truly incredible to see how many studies ( some of them included grids) he created before painting. It was inspiring to see how something so chaotic and unplanned-looking actually had so much thought and reason behind it. I drew parallels to writing, of course.

I am working on a critical theory. It's exciting to be thinking this way. It has had me digging up essays on Modernism and Naturalism, etc.

Today is my first day back at work since the 24th. God, it was good to have that time off, even though I spent just about all of it sick and feverish.

I'm starting a new project, too. A "living book." I plan to start it and then pass it on to book artists and have them grow the book and the story. At the end of the year I'll display it and the other works of the artists that have participated in the project. I'm calling it, And, Afterward. If you would like to join me, please email. You don't have to local, either. I'd like to mail the book around the States. Maybe the world? But I don't know how much that will cost. Whatev-- if you want it, let me know.

Let's get started, 2010.

Introducing Green Bean Wyer

We rescued a black kitty with huge green eyes. He is helping me sew... My Machismo thinks that Green Bean is his kitty. My Sandy B hates his guts.