Nurse

It doesn't seem right that on the last day of November I strolled along my merry way in 75 degree weather to mail off the manuscript for Notes, but stroll I did. It was gorgeous here, as it has been off and on for the last week or so, and even though it's probably indicative of some systemic dysfunction in the global climate, I'll take it today. I've been scanning the copyedits lightly since I received them from the University of Nebraska Press two weeks ago, but I took the last two days to seriously read over the book. A strange experience, because it's the first time in a long while I've really read the book, start to finish, line to line, and it's like rediscovering the book, finding things that work better than I'd thought, finding things that don't work as well as I thought. The main thing, though, is learning I must've been mildly allergic to contractions while living in Tuscaloosa: I went through the book changing several places around, loosening things up. I moved one word around. And struck two words from a line. And that was that. My strolling out into this false spring thusly commenced, my little book on board, consigning it to UPS. I trust they'll roll into Lincoln, Nebraska with it on Tuesday and hand it safely over.

I didn't celebrate but I should have. Well, I bought an .89 cent pack of strawberry Twizzlers. For tonight, that'll have to do.

58 hours since

I found a typo in the copyedits for Notes, one that I can't figure how it snuck in: it's in none of the files I copied from to assemble the manuscript for the press. Weird but glad I found it. Replaced one poem with a revision and another poem altogether with a newer one. These are the last changes of any significance that I'll make; I'll be sending the manuscript back one day this week and from there the book begins to really happen, which is exciting and scary all at once. Cover art? What? Oh, yeah. Must come up with some great idea.

***

Redivider asked for some poems yesterday, always a happy occurrence.

***

I love comic books, no secret there, but sometimes the older stuff just makes you scratch your head. Yes, that's Spider-Man explaining the mysteries of human waste elimination to the Beyonder.

Bend

Today's required iTunes download is "Black Star" by Gillian Welch. Yes, it's a cover of the Radiohead classic. Yes, you should be spending that 99 cents right now.

Hark

Happy post-Thanksgiving. A nice enough one here, though it began with my brother's cat being hit by a car and an hour of early morning searching for her, finally finding her curled up in the warm sun and a cut, swollen lip but otherwise fine. That would have been a grim holiday, setting down to dinner after digging a grave for a pet. Luckily, she's fine.

Otherwise, I wish I could say there was anything of much interest to report. I've never been one to gorge and that continued this year; I hate that feeling.

***

My brother tried to talk me into buying a new television, going HD, and I just can't. I never watch the thing, really. With AWP coming up, I'm saving up.

***

The new issue of the Asheville Poetry Review, a special issue devoted to jazz, came in the mail and I can't help thinking I snuck in somehow. With people like Gerald Stern, Yusef Komunyakaa, Billy Collins, and the like, my little number, with its distinct lack of jazz, feels like a rube among all the swells. Great looking mag, though.

***

Sleepy.

I am, I am Superman

This makes me unreasonably happy.

Eek

MY NIGHTMARE

My nightmare isn’t falling or even falling

naked with strangers amused

by what I try each day to hide,

this biology of strangeness,

no, my nightmare isn’t forgetting

my pants because that sounds

suspiciously like fun

or at least some sort of joyful malfeasance

orchestrated in rain

while dogs bark manic interrogations

in the night and buckshot

rings through the dark

and I’m singing your name

to some randomly selected forgotten god.

To be distracted by pleasure

isn’t my nightmare

but it once was before

all the cartilage inside us

hardened to bone

and I marveled at your one ear

you never allowed

anyone to kiss, not even me,

and maybe that was

a kind of nightmare,

that refusal. No one ever warned me

to fear my hands

but they should have

known the things they would do

or not do. The knobs turned and knots undone

because there is

pleasure in erasure.

Once you let me watch you

bathe, the tub sudded

with lilac soap

and we hardly said a word

as the water cooled

and the soap fell

away from your skin like a shoal of clouds

and you were new

and unknowably clean

and beside you I failed

to dream of anything else.

Spontaneous cheerleader combustion

Casino Royale may be the best Bond movie in thirty years or more, though it's a bit difficult to compare it to the rest of the series as it sheds so much of what, for better or worse, has defined these movies for decades. No more camp or single entendres or ridiculous gadgets, though I love all that stuff. No more villains scheming from underwater lairs, their plans for world domination absurd. This is a reboot and this Bond would probably mop the floor with the previous guys: as good as they were, you rarely felt these guys were menacing. Well, Connery often felt that way and often that menace radiated towards women. Daniel Craig looks like he's played some rugby or taken some punches. He also makes mistakes, he screws up. He's not an unflappable sex automaton in a tux. Most importantly, and this is probably due to the success of the Jason Bourne movie, Bond actually, you know, spies. He investigates and searches. He doesn't show up for steak with Hugo Drax, barely claiming some bored identity, before boffing Dr. Goodhead. Or whatever. That's what I do with my time. Not Bond.

The movie has a torture scene that's truly, majestically uncomfortable and features probably the greatest defiant fuck you-type line in years. The crowd applauded, laughing aloud.

The movie is a little long, moving past what feels like one ending setting up certain events for a second film but goes ahead, upending Bond, setting him on the path.

Great flick.

***

Received a rejection this weekend that truly stung. I get my share just like everybody but because of the circumstances with this one I winced.

Still, that was ameliorated a bit by Black Warrior Review taking a poem, so yay for that.

Makes

Get out of the way, people: Casino Royale today. Some of you may be tucking in with the new PlayStation, but I'll be sitting down at the poker table (traditionally baccarat, a change driving purists nuts) with Bond. James Bond. I love this series from my childhood, the Roger Moore films the ones I grew up on: I remember the first time I saw at the end of the credits the traditional text James Bond Will Return -- that blew my little mind.

I enjoyed the Brosnan films but I like the look of Daniel Craig, mean, threatening, not like he just got in from the French Riviera.

Favorite Bond films:

• Dr. No: The original and obvious choice.
• Goldfinger: Pussy Galore. Enough said.
• Live and Let Die: Moore's first and the freakiest entry in the series. A borderline offensive mash-up of voodoo, bayou, Harlem, Yaphet Kotto, camp, boat chases, alligators, prosthetic limbs and God knows what else.
• For Your Eyes Only: A surprisingly good film, lean and mean for the most part.
• Moonraker: James Bond in space. It's so bad it's, well, still bad.
• Goldeneye: Probably the best Brosnan film.
  

***

In the mail yesterday: contributor's copies of The Southern Review. I have to admit that was pretty cool.

Can I

It's almost AWP time and look, kids, New Michigan Press has set up a series of author signings at its bookfair table:

Stephanie Anderson: Saturday, 1-2p
Kristy Bowen: Thursday, 2-3p
Jason Bredle: Saturday, 2-3p
Paul Guest: Friday, 3-4p
John Pursley III: Saturday, 11a-noon
G. C. Waldrep: Thursday, 1-2p
Joshua Marie Wilkinson: Friday, 2-3p

Odin's beard

I forgot to mention I saw Borat this weekend, which is pretty hysterical: the moments that truly hit are brilliant. I think the movie is being over-praised, if you can call it that, as a shocking revelation of American small-mindedness, hypocrisy, etc., but in general I was surprised by how patient and kind most everyone is with this madman. Sure, the old bigot at the rodeo advises Borat to shave off his moustache because it makes him look like a terrorist and then steamrolls on to his plans with dealing with "the gays." But that's hardly a surprise, given the man's age and upbringing. And the rodeo crowd loudly applauds Borat's exhortations on Bush's "war of terror," but quickly turns on him as he grows ever more provocative, booing him heartily. The crowd in the redneck Arizona bar sings along with Borat's "Throw the Jew Down the Well," but most seem bemused, like they're aware something is up. One woman, though, does appear completely into it. It's those moments that carry the barbed zing of the film. As for the rest of the movie, it's relentlessly scatological, energetic, and just plain funny.

***

Rain.

***

The first rejection of my memoir yesterday. Woe!

Slow down

This is really speaking to me this morning. I haven't got the hair but I think I can find some weapons. A sack of lit mags, maybe. Or flaming rejection slips. Years of self recrimination.

Oh, yes, I'm ready.

***

I tried watching a bit of Death Wish yesterday. The print of the film is appropriately beat to hell; a remastered Death Wish would be missing the point. The film takes place not so much in New York, or even Planet Earth, as it does on 70's World. New York is Dantean, a "toilet" as referred to by a crazed gun-loving, environmentally conscious Arizona cowboy land developer who gives Charles Bronson a gun as a gift. Bronson's an architect grieving the murder of his wife and rape of his daughter by an alarmingly young Jeff Goldblum led bunch of thugs.

And that's about as far as I got. It has a strange mix of uncomfortable exploitation common to that period in movies and a kind of fable-like simplemindedness. The tensions of the era, race, crime, urban blight, are broadly sketched so that they now seem almost quaint in their datedness. And yet there are moments of ugliness that would never fly in a movie today: the punks who assault Bronson's daughter spray paint her bare ass. Right there on the screen. I was a little taken aback. I can't think of anything I've seen that approaches that in anything current.

I might try to finish it today. Or not.

***

I've been slogging through job applications. Yay, shoot me in the face, please. I've little faith much will come of it. Which is one of a few things weighing on me of late. For whatever reasons, I'm not a popular flavor. I'm like basashi, the Japanese horse-meat ice cream. That's me, want a scoop? No? Imagine that.

To that end, I've been thinking about heading back to school. I'm not sure what else to do. My options are, how you say, severely limited.

Sat.

My tenure over at 42opus ends today with "How It Won't Be."

Wed

Another poem up today at 42opus: "Eulogy."

***

Thrilling night of election returns last night, even though for much of it, before numbers began coming in, it was just a bunch of fat guys in suits bloviating for hours. Still, I probably watched from around 7 until midnight.

***

Did you vote?

Summer love

Over at 42opus today, the first of three poems by me. Today's is "Garden."

It's over

Today's entry in the Least Sexy Album Cover Ever series goes to Roy Orbison for this nightmarish moment for his 1979 LP Laminar Flow.

I saw a signed copy of this in Florida and haven't really been the same since.

Oops

And look: I was right. Sort of. Ted Haggard admits he bought meth from this guy, and received a massage. Because he was "curious."

About the meth. Totally curious about that meth, man.

And of course he never used the meth. Nope. Never. Not one little bit.

I love the massage detail.

Back to reality

I'm willing to bet that the right Rev. Ted Haggard, who has stepped down as head of the National Association of Evangelicals after allegedly paying a man for gay sex for three years, will admit, at least at first, just to scoring meth with this guy, as apparently there are voice mails with him referring to getting more of the stuff, in various dollar amounts. Though I'm willing to further bet that won't wash for very long, as the sordid truth will always work its way out.

***

I am guardedly pessimistic about Tuesday's elections. I would not classify myself as a Democrat but I know that I am not a Republican, not this current brand of vicious dullards. Outside of party allegiances, I really don't care whether your political ideas are conservative or liberal; I think both are equally valid perspectives on governing. That said, the culture of Republicanism inaugurated by Newt Gingrich, and extended by his bloated successors, has been one of a ruthlessness that's almost admirable: they're a formidable machine.

But if for no other reason I would hope people will vote against them for their disregard and contempt of language. A minor concern, really, but the ways in which they poison the well of speech makes me nuts. Within minutes of Kerry's ever wooden gaffe about education, Bush, being stuck in Iraq, there were prepared statements flying all over the place, erupting with faux indignation and empty contempt.

And all of them know what they do. At every turn, they know. Both parties are guilty of it, but only Republicans are so sickeningly skilled at it. It's a great part of why they've been so successful.

Look at Bob Corker who is, in most every way, a decent guy, it would appear. Did great things for this city. But his campaign has been undeniably sleazy. His commercials continually hammer home these assinine points: Bob went to the University of Tennessee, Harold Ford went to the University of Pennsylvania, which is said with such a sneer that it comes off like he's this bumpkin talking about those damn Yankees. They sure do talk funny, after all. It comes off like that. He's lived a Tennessee life, whatever that is.

Agh. It's a pet peeve, I guess.

***

I'm all for seeing Borat. Meanwhile, from Netflix it's volume 1 of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, which is hysterical, so weirdly percussive with its rhythms, but disturbing to revisit the animated world of Hanna Barbera and how completely they colonized my young brain. Over and over again, I say to myself, Oh my God, I remember that character. Sort of. Barely. For example, what the hell cartoon had the cartoon band with Jabber Jaws, the, uh, talking shark with the Curly from the Three Stooges voice, as its drummer?

O an elegy for my misspent youth.