Everybody to the limit

I just did a review of Sarah Manguso's Siste Viator, which is, in a word, kick-ass. If the review is up to snuff, it'll appear in Diagram. I also plan on writing up Ethan Paquin's The Violence, which I'm excited to read. Possibly after that Ron Slate's book.

I decided to start writing up reviews of whatever new poetry I'm reading, to engage myself with it in different ways. Only good, I think, can come of changing up your usual patterns of reading and thinking, to see things afresh.

What else should I review?

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I think I'm going to let my old paulguest.net domain expire on the 21st. It was given to me as a gift by a girlfriend when my book came out; one of Eliot's students designed a really great page, but all the files were stored on a U. of Alabama server. There they persisted for a long time but for the last several months the site has been dead, all those files finally deleted.

It was neat to have it, but I don't feel like spending the money to renew it, and perhaps most importantly, I certainly can't afford to have a new site designed.

So I guess I'll let it expire. This blog is probably more useful, anyway.

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I bought this for my iPod. Here's another video. I will never come anywhere near the abuse that's being dished out in these videos, but all the same I do want to keep mine pristine. The material in this protective covering was designed to protect the leading edge of the military's helicopter blades over in Iraq from sand damage so it's nigh indestructible.

It involves spraying a solution, essentially water with a drop of soft soap, on to the film, which activates its adhesive properties. You then affix one side to the front, another to the back, followed by squeegee-ing out excess water/air bubbles with the edge of a credit card. It's a little tricky to line up but very doable. It's almost completely invisible. The average person would never even see it. It looks great.

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Heard back from the book review editor at Diagram: my review will run in the upcoming issue. So yay for that.

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No news on the book front: it's out at several places. I'm trying not to think about it. Instead, I'm working on new poems for a new manuscript, looking forward.