Poetry in Motion - Friday 2/13/2009

As I left Priscilla's with my coffee this morning I noticed a flier for their upcoming poetry reading. A note at the bottom urged open mic readers to honor the wishes of the coffee house that will provide them a stage by abstaining from profanity or graphically sexual language.

My first thought was, "Wow, poetry ain't what it used to be."

But by the time I got upstairs and pulled this book off one of the shelves in the office, I'd realized that poets have been pushing the boundaries for a long long time. (See: Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric".)

Wonder what racy stuff Homer wrote when he wasn't working on "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."





Oh, and it snowed in SoCal again!

I drove home around noon so I was able to see it fall in big fluffy flakes. It coated the hillsides in a little over an hour .

Hydra's van pool was stopped on Sierra Highway on the way home, but make it through okay. He'd left the Tahoe parked by the pick-up point, so when he got home, he brushed snow off of it before putting it in the garage.

Sleepy Little Piggy - Tuesday 3/11/2008

This was me at 5:08 this morning when Mom called.

Usually I call her while I commute to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays starting around 4:30 a.m. It should be safe for her to call and leave a message on my cell phone, which I would leave off if I were staying home sick or otherwise sleeping in. But I forgot to shut it off when I turned in at Braveheart's house last night.

While she was off gallivanting around the state of Oaxaca, Mexico for two months, my writing group meetings changed from Tuesday nights to Monday nights. I forgot to tell her I'd be calling later.

Surprises continued this morning when, after showering, I toweled off and was wiping down the inside of the stall. All's well until I knocked the handle with my hand and sprayed myself in the forehead with a blast of water.

I couldn't stop giggling. It's nice when one has this spontaneous response rather than anger, but I think it was compounded by the fact that I was trying to get out of the house without waking up Braveheart and the Doc.

No one yelled at me to shut up. Maybe I made it!

Oh, and. Before I forget....

In the spirit of full disclosure--not wishing to follow in the heavy footsteps of Margaret Seltzer or other faux memorists--this is not actually me.

This is a stand in. I noticed her nestled in a pot of Jade plant on Braveheart's front porch as I snuck out this morning.

Whew. I feel so much better for having admitted that.

I'm not going to engage in a whole rant here about how aggravated it makes me that writers who could be good novelists have trashed their careers because they and so much of the reading public seem to think that memoir is somehow more valid than literary fiction.

Dueling Blogs! - Saturday 2/23/2007

So. Last night we went to Noël Alumit's publication party/reading at Skylight Books. What fun!

Hydra, our friend Aesop and I went to dinner first and shared the discussions of film and literature that we look forward to with him. Got to the bookstore about half an hour before the reading to find a standing room only crowd! We snagged the last few chairs they broke out of their secret stash. I couldn't be happier about the obstructed view, since it meant he had such a great turn out!

Please consider attending one of his other two readings in the L.A. area. You won't be disappointed. You won't feel nervous for the author--as is sometimes the case with readings--Noël's more than comfortable in front of an audience. Great reading of really engaging material.

You can catch him at Vroman's in Pasadena on Friday, March 2nd and at Book Soup on Saturday, March 3rd. These are terrific venues. Arrive early so you can get a seat, buy his book, and cruise some other great reads.


Noël warns us he's taking a photo for his blog. The light wasn't great and I had my little Kodak with me.



How much is that author in the window? Noël also talked about how both of his book covers feature naked butts. He wants to make sure his next book features no ass photos.

I've thought about it long and hard since then. I've decided that if they put the rear-view of a naked woman in a cowboy hat on the front of my first book, I won't complain. And when people ask if that's me on the cover--which Noël assures us, they will--I'll just shrug and smile self-depricatingly and let my fans think what they may.