22/30: Notes En Route Alongisde the March For Science

Darth Vaders with Han Solo signs.
Elbows to elbows to knees to smalls of backs.
Snide asides from the "justtryingtogettowork"
crowd about "finally a march I'm on board with."

Plenty of jokes. Plenty of quotes. Plenty of
white folks with dreadlocks. No sign of hacky sack
in the rain.

A bullhorn in the rapidly filling park.
Cheers. A switching tide of people,
toward and away from less clogged routes,
toward and away from shorter lines for coffee.

Plenty of portraits of obscure physicists next to
"It's Motherfucking SCIENCE BITCH" next to
grey haired ladies in rumpled gortex talking about
priests of nonviolence and the 70s and the
documentary their lone young companion should watch.

Storm troopers with anti-fa arm bands.
A chance to dress up in a casual town.
A swarming sea of blacks and blues and greens
and the thought that Science will continue
whether we recognize it or not,

much to the terror of the man pulling a radio
flyer with two brown haired children,
thumbsucking and curled up on eachother
like puppies.

Dinosaur knows your time is up.

Monday was the last day of Works In Progress at the Richard Hugo House. Monday was the last day of official excuses for two slices and 1-3 cans of discount Hamms at Big Mario's in a contained time frame before heading over to the RHH. It was time to let Robert P Kaye make like Jesus, and take the wheel. Kris and Bryan and Arlo and a bunch of folks who'd not been in a while mobbed down and I had the trusty Dinosaur Protector to watch hungrily as the night went on. Afterward we all (including Rachel's younger bro and his gf) went to the Cha Cha, Kris got enthused about Lords of the New Church and I got enthused about Mudhoney, respectively, as they drowned out conversation.

Dinosaur watches Steve Shue read from his laptop.

Previously, Sunday night, I hopped a bus to Capitol Hill (ALWAYS WITH THE CAPITOL HILL) and shared a laptop (and some Roses Bourbon) with Chelsea K, who hosts The Casserole, an online reading series (which I explained just one post ago.) I read to the forced silence of Ethan and Rachel E, while Emily Wittenhagen beamed in from Roslyn. I read some new poems, some reworked old poems and a handful of less-frequently read poems from FJGTPL. After she reads, we talk about Aliens, and Owls, and some vague things about forms of writing. Watch it below.



Tonight I am going to work, in about an hour and a half, after a day of largely editing/advising on other people's poetry. This is work I usually get paid for, but sometimes doing it completely for free feels more liberating. . .? That was a dumb sentence I just typed, but I'm leaving it there, because I meant it.

I'll leave you with the following: a list of bars poets can, or should, drink at, in case you'd not seen that before, and this post from Leigh Bell, who writes on artistic self-care in way that neither makes me want to puke, nor makes me suspect she's selling something. She's able to overcome the initial eye-roll I have at "The Artist's Way," to address issues that tend to be either pushed aside or can be overcome if you come to this new writer's retreat and conference and send away for a series of tapes. . . .
It's a relatively quick read for a fairly in-depth thought process, which is something she's pretty good at, as you'll see if you take on her prior posts.

"I now understand panic attacks as a bitter struggle between myself and the homunculus."--B.E.

Tonight I'm reading with Emily Wittenhagen on the Google Hangout reading series The Casserole, hosted by Chelsea Kurnick, whose been running this reading from her Cap Hill apartment for several months (a year?) with an impressive consistency and range of readers.
Pretty stoked to be reading. You can find it on Google Hangouts, or http://www.youtube.com/users/thecasserolereading, if you can't see it live, it'll be up there. I'm currently eating Cheezits, printing out poems and listening to Bryan Edenfield talk about fighting his homunculus. Here's a few good ones from recent months:

2012, the prosing.

In a few days, or weeks, or a month, there'll be some sort of bloglike retrospective of 2012. For now, enjoy this preview of a comp on which 2012, the poem, recorded at Da'daedal in November at Vermillion.

I almost titled this post "elf-promotion" but that would have just been silly.

tomorrow! two readings. one here at the school, where I'll continue to erode my reputation as a responsible adult and then:

prepping breadline stuff today. none of this can change the fact that I'm premium-level irritated that you now have to enter HTML for line breaks in blogspot. you can't just press "enter?" no, you cannot.

RIYL: Gigs upcoming/recently past, wishing for windows

I wish that the North Seattle Community College library had its computers right by the windows, like the lab at Swansea U. Because on a day like today when the rain is a little too sog-making for even an avowed sun-indifferent like myself, the best thing ever is to stare out the window with some coffee, while making minor progresses on various projects. The guy at the computer next to me is watching a preview on youtube for "terminator 5." While I'm not going to get too hung up on the artistic integrity of the work of any actors who went on to be politicians, I'd really rather the series just left in at the end of 2; with the metal hand sinking into moltenness. This month I've got two really exciting gigs: first up, on Sunday, I'm "sharing" at Weird and Awesome with Emmett Mongomery. The show, which I think I've mentioned here before, is one of my faves in Seattle. This'll also be the first time I have a gig where I'm basically just supposed to talk. Not do poetry, host something, perform the improv, or give a class presentation. I am excited and curious to see what my brain makes me do. Music break: More or less what I've been listening to while waiting for the new Future of the Left record. The following gig, in a few weeks, is a spoken word thing. I've probably also mentioned The Breadline here, or in other places, before. Stoked to be featuring. Working on some new shit, some new reading formats for old shit, all these things. I guess I should, for continuity's sake mention two previous gigs and their setlists: one at Laura Wachs' Hear/Art Series, where I read: 2012/Knuckledragger/Ways You've Addressed the Fact of being Homeschooled/Little Red Corvette/Rugby '08/National Dreams/A Little Fear of Drowning/Story Problem. I believe I've covered the subsequent gig in Everett. If not, may the demons of pedantry re-claw their way into my blogging habits. A few weeks ago I went to Spokane, featured at Broken Mic, decided I really like Spokane (at least the downtown) and read the following: Zombies and Paint Thinner/Read It Like a Goodbye Note/Secrets of the Hi Score Champions/Genus, Species and Flavour/Ambition is Critical/Hearing Foster the People in Rainier Beach/Little Fear of Drowning/Story Problem. Okay. Now when I lose my reading copies, I can scour my own blog to confirm that yes, a piece I wrote six years ago still often functions as a closer.