oatmeal helps reduce cholesterol, new england helps reduce spring

1) Over at the Powells blog, for their Small Press Conversation series, Jamie Iredell and I talk volcanoes, M-40s shoved into apples, Black Bart, peaks made of quartz, burly soufflés, Cormac McCarthy, belt loops in the crosswalk, and other tongue wagglers and heart glops. Many thanks to Kevin Sampsell for inviting us to yak.

2) Our radio show reading from San Jose with JP Dancing Bear is up and podcasted. Check it out here: http://outofourminds.posterous.com/. You can listen to us talk about what colors which flowers are. Thanks due to JP Dancing Bear for his cool name and radio-voiced generosity.

3) In a stunning novelty juke, I talked to the very smart and curious Frances Dinger over GMAIL CHAT. Maybe you have heard of it. It's this new thing. It's like bottled water or something. Frances has been talking to a lot of people about the internet and literature thereon.

4) Barry Hannah in Tuscaloosa, bombers in Detroit ("It was the cheapest flight"; I know how that feels!), Steven Segal helps police capture a bunch of chickens with a tank.

5) I read at the Soda Series last Sunday. It was fun and the couches were soft as promised. Now I have a standing invitation to Chilean food, which is exciting. Thanks to everybody involved with Soda, and especially John Dermot Woods for his really kind intro in which he elected to talk about all of my better qualities and none of my bad ones, keeping the intro nice and short.